Business Sentiment
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Mixed 46-54
Positive > 56
Beijing and Pyongyang are aiding Russia in its war against Ukraine, and Moscow in turn is assisting their militaries
The top US commander in the Pacific has warned senators that the military support that China and North Korea are giving Russia in its war on Ukraine is a security risk in his region as Moscow provides critical military assistance to both in return.
Adm Samuel Paparo, head of US Indo-Pacific Command, told the Senate armed services committee that China has provided 70% of the machine tools and 90% of the legacy chips to Russia to help Moscow “rebuild its war machine”.
In exchange, he said, China is potentially getting help in technologies to make its submarines move more quietly, along with other assistance.
Senators pressed Paparo and Gen Xavier Brunson, commander of US Forces Korea, on China's advances in the region, including threats to Taiwan. They also questioned both on the US military presence in South Korea, and whether it should be shielded from personnel cuts.
Both said the current US forces there and across the Indo-Pacific region are critical for both diplomacy in the region and US national security, as ties between Russia and China grow. The US has 28,500 military personnel in South Korea.
Paparo said North Korea is sending “thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of artillery shells” and thousands of short-range missiles to Russia. The expectation, he said, is that Pyongyang will receive air-defense and surface-to-air missile support.
“It's a transactional symbiosis where each state fulfills the other state's weakness to mutual benefit of each state,” Paparo said.
Brunson said North Korea has shown the ability to send munitions and troops to Russia while advancing development of its own military capabilities, including hypersonic weapons. Pyongyang, he said, “boasts a Russian-equipped, augmented, modernized military force of over 1.3 million personnel”.
North Korea's efforts to develop advanced nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles “pose a direct threat to our homeland and our allies”, Paparo added.
North Korea also has sent thousands of soldiers to fight with the Russians against Ukraine. And the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said on Wednesday that Russia is actively recruiting Chinese citizens to fight alongside its forces in the Ukraine war. He said more than 150 such mercenaries are already active in the battle with Beijing's knowledge.
China has called the accusation “irresponsible”.
Marco Rubio provides two-page memo to judge who asked government for evidence against Columbia student activist
Facing a deadline from an immigration judge to turn over evidence for its attempted deportation of Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil, the federal government has instead submitted a brief memo, signed by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, citing the Trump administration's authority to expel noncitizens whose presence in the country damages US foreign policy interests.
The two-page memo, which was obtained by the Associated Press, does not allege any criminal conduct by Khalil, a legal permanent US resident and graduate student who served as spokesperson for campus activists last year during large demonstrations against Israel's treatment of Palestinians and the war in Gaza.
Rather, Rubio wrote Khalil could be expelled for his beliefs.
He said that while Khalil's activities were “otherwise lawful”, letting him remain in the country would undermine “US policy to combat antisemitism around the world and in the United States, in addition to efforts to protect Jewish students from harassment and violence in the United States”.
“Condoning antisemitic conduct and disruptive protests in the United States would severely undermine that significant foreign policy objective,” Rubio wrote in the undated memo.
The submission was filed on Wednesday after Judge Jamee Comans ordered the government to produce its evidence against Khalil ahead of a hearing on Friday on whether it can continue detaining him during immigration proceedings.
Attorneys for Khalil said the memo proved the Trump administration was “targeting Mahmoud's free speech rights about Palestine”.
The government is relying on a rarely used provision of a 1952 law giving the secretary of state broad powers to order the removal of immigrations deemed harmful to foreign policy. Khalil's lawyers argue that law was never meant to go after constitutionally protected speech.
Johnny Sinodis, one of Khalil's immigration lawyers, said in a media briefing on Thursday that the memo doesn't come close to meeting the evidentiary standard required under immigration law.
“The Rubio memo is completely devoid of any factual recitation as to why exactly Mahmoud's presence in the United States is adverse to a compelling US government interest,” he said.
A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, did not respond to questions about whether it had additional evidence against Khalil, writing in an emailed statement: “DHS did file evidence, but immigration court dockets are not available to the public.”
Khalil, 30, was arrested on 8 March in New York and taken to a detention center in Louisiana. He is a Palestinian by ethnicity who was born in Syria. Khalil recently finished his coursework for a master's degree at Columbia's school of international affairs. He is married to an American citizen who is due to give birth this month.
Khalil has adamantly rejected allegations of antisemitism, accusing the Trump administration in a letter sent from jail last month of “targeting me as part of a broader strategy to suppress dissent”.
“Knowing fully that this moment transcends my individual circumstances,” he added, “I hope nonetheless to be free to witness the birth of my first-born child.”
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Though Rubio's memo references additional documents, including a “subject profile of Mahmoud Khalil” and letter from the Department Homeland Security, the government did not submit those documents to the immigration court, according to Khalil's lawyers.
The memo also calls for the deportation of a second lawful permanent resident, whose name was redacted in the filing.
The Trump administration has pulled billions of dollars in government funding from universities and their affiliated hospital systems in recent weeks as part of what it says is a campaign against antisemitism on college campuses, but which critics say is a crackdown on free speech. To get the money back, the administration has been telling universities to punish protesters and make other changes.
The US government has also been revoking the visas of international students who criticized Israel or accused it of mistreating Palestinians.
At the time of Khalil's arrest, McLaughlin, the DHS spokesperson, accused the activist of leading activities “aligned to Hamas”, referring to the militant group that attacked Israel on 7 October 2023.
But the government has not produced any evidence linking Khalil to Hamas, and made no reference to the group in its most recent filing.
Baher Azmy, the legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights and a member of Khalil's legal team, acknowledged the case's high profile and its stakes.
“If the secretary of state claims the power to arrest, detain and deport someone, including a lawful permanent resident, simply because that person dissents from US foreign policy, there are no limits. There's no beginning and no end to that kind of executive power,” he said.
Prada has secured Versace at a €180m discount amid market turmoil and after months of speculation
Prada has agreed to buy the Versace fashion brand for €1.25bn ($1.38bn) from the fashion conglomerate Capri Holdings.
It comes after months of speculation about a potential deal to combine the two Italian fashion houses and, more recently, rumours that the acquisition was set to collapse after market upheaval in response to President Trump's tariff policies.
Insiders say the original deal was expected to be agreed at €1.43bn, but a discount of about €180m was achieved because the recent market turmoil and trade uncertainty has hit the retail industry particularly hard.
Capri, which also owns Michael Kors and Jimmy Choo, originally bought Versace for $2.1bn in 2018. After an $8.5bn attempt by Tapestry – the American group that owns Coach and Kate Spade – to acquire Capri was blocked last year by the US Federal Trade Commission, Capri has been under pressure to sell off Versace to reduce its debt. According to those close to the deal, Prada was one of the earliest bidders.
In a statement confirming the news, Prada's group chair and executive director Patrizio Bertelli said the group was “ready and well positioned to write a new page in Versace's history”. Bertelli added that both companies “share a strong commitment to creativity, craftsmanship and heritage”.
While Capri failed to create an American luxury group to rival fashion companies such as LVMH and Kering, the acquisition hints at an attempt by Prada to strengthen its position as an Italian powerhouse. Versace will join the fashion brands Prada and Miu Miu, the footwear brands Church's, Car Shoe and Luna Rossa, the America's Cup sailing team Luna Rossa and the pastry brand Marchesi.
It is not the first endeavour by Prada to add to its portfolio. In 1999, it acquired Jil Sander and Helmut Lang and, in 2000, it added Alaia to its lineup. However, by 2007, after a series of disputes and financial challenges, it had parted ways with all three brands. Now, the Versace acquisition offers them another opportunity to intensify the global reach of the Made in Italy group.
While the luxury fashion market has been facing a significant slowdown, the Prada Group has enjoyed rare success. It reported revenues of €5.4bn in 2024, 17% higher than the previous year. This increase was partly driven by Miu Miu – the brand behind those viral micro-miniskirts and satin ballet shoes – which has almost doubled its profits this year, hitting close to £1bn in sales.
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Last month, it was announced that Dario Vitale, a former image director at Miu Miu, would be succeeding Donatella Versace as creative director, a position Versace had held for 27 years. Instead, Versace will take up the role of chief brand ambassador, overseeing the house's red-carpet dressing and philanthropic work.
Prada and Versace are often pitted against each other as Italian fashion rivals, but their designs are diametrically opposed. Versace champions the traditional tropes of femininity with unabashed enthusiasm – see high hemlines, high heels, big hair. Miuccia Prada, who holds a doctorate in political science and, prior to joining the family business in 1970 was a Communist, is often referred to as “fashion's intellectual”. She has previously described her work as ugly clothes in hideous fabrics. However, the two women have a perhaps unlikely friendship. Speaking to The Telegraph in 2012, Versace said: “We just talk, talk, talk. She's so inspiring. We make fun of each other and teach each other. She says, ‘I could never make sexy clothes, but I love them.' And I say, ‘Well, I love what you do'.”
Time will tell how much damage has been inflicted on the credibility of Trump's economic policy and administration
Donald Trump's climbdown on Wednesday from the most draconian aspects of his tariff regime has uncovered a damning picture of chaos at the heart of his presidency without necessarily alleviating their most painful effects.
The president's landmark “liberation day” unveiling of tariffs in the White House Rose Garden on 2 April was supposed to be symbolic gateway to his promised “golden age of American greatness”; instead, it triggered a cascade of global market crashes that prompted warnings of a recession, or even a 1930s-style depression, while Trump brushed it all off as temporary “disruption”.
Time alone will tell how much damage has been inflicted on the credibility of Trump's economic policy and indeed his entire administration by the ditching of nearly 80 years of US economic and free trading architecture, only to be followed by a sharp, if partial, U-turn.
The president's sudden and unheralded retreat from a signature policy that he has advocated for more than four decades has placated Wall Street and international bond markets, which rallied at the news of his 90-day pause on tariffs that rose to above 50% on the goods from some countries deemed to have been “ripping off” the US in their trade practices.
But left untouched was a 10% across-the-board duty levied on all foreign imports – not to mention a further tariff hike on all goods from China – meaning that higher consumer prices are on the way for Americans, no matter how relieved the masters of the universe on Wall Street and other international trading centers are feeling.
“Most Americans care less about the spin and more about the fact that his 10% across-the-board tariff will still cost families an average of $2,600 more annually,” Matt McDermott, a Democratic pollster, posted on Bluesky.
The market mayhem unleashed by Trump's “liberation day” tariff rollout is reminiscent of the reaction to the attempt by the British prime minister, Liz Truss, to stage a radical reordering of UK economic policy in 2022.
The constitutional niceties of the America's political system will no doubt save the president from the fate of the hapless Truss, who was memorably outlasted by a head of lettuce and driven from Downing Street within 50 days of taking office as international markets rejected her policies as non-credible.
No such mechanism exists for removing a US president whose policies trigger market turmoil at home and abroad.
Perhaps buoyed up by that knowledge, Trump's closest aides and acolytes tried to present his political backflip as a sign of strategic genius that had always been part of a brilliant plan.
“This was his strategy all along. President Trump created maximum negotiating leverage for himself,” said Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary, who had been locked in urgent discussions with the president onboard Air Force One on Sunday about the effect of last week's “liberation day” tariffs, according to the New York Times.
“Many of you in the media clearly missed The Art of the Deal. You clearly failed to see what President Trump is doing here,” explained the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, who a day before had said that Trump was not considering a delay to putting the tariffs into effect.
Yet the depiction of a carefully plotted strategy going perfectly to plan was undermined by Trump himself, who gave a strikingly blunt explanation for his volte-face.
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“Well, I thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line,” he said. “They were getting a little bit yippy, a little bit afraid.”
It seemed a graphic portrayal of a loss of nerve – all the more so given that Trump had told Republicans that “I know what the hell I'm doing” and urged his followers to ignore the plunging markets and “BE COOL” on a post on his Truth Social network just hours earlier. “Everything is going to work out well,” he insisted.
That remains to be seen.
So too does the strength of Trump's determination to plough ahead with a tariff policy which, even in its diluted iteration following Wednesday's announcement, threatens to lumber Americans with higher living costs – an outcome at odds with the president's campaign promise to reduce prices “on day one”.
Writing in the Washington Post, Aaron Blake noted that Wednesday's decision was Trump's second tariff climbdown since taking office without gaining anything in return, having previously backed away from duties on Mexico and Canada with only minor concessions.
Rather than being strategic, as Bessent, Leavitt and others claimed, he wrote, there was “reason to believe that this is indeed another example of Trump caving. And a big one at that.”
Trump has marketed his leadership on a message of strength, which has communicated itself to congressional Republicans, who – with a few notable exceptions – have fallen publicly into line with his tariff policies, whatever their qualms.
But having seen the president apparently buckle to market pressure, the question now arises over whether more of them will find the courage to push back. It is a question that could acquire added urgency as next year's midterms loom into view, presenting an opportunity for voters to punish the GOP at the ballot box if inflation surges.
Live Updates
• US-China trade escalation: US stocks tumbled today after the White House clarified that its tariff on all Chinese goods was at least 145% — even higher than previously believed. This comes a day after US stocks skyrocketed following President Donald Trump's announcement of a 90-day pause on all “reciprocal” tariffs, except for China. Beijing, meanwhile, implemented its own retaliatory tariffs of 84% on US goods.
• Trade negotiations: Trump said his team is “working on deals” with multiple countries as he defended his tariff policy in a Cabinet meeting today. He conceded, however, that there may be “transition problems” after the tariff pause. Even after Trump's U-turn, economists have warned the damage is done.
• House approves budget blueprint: Meanwhile, House Republicans took a critical initial step today to advance Trump's agenda through Congress, after leadership quelled a conservative rebellion over the plan's cost.
• CNN town hall: Four members of the US House who represent battleground districts will participate in a CNN town hall as the GOP looks to shore up its razor-thin majority in the 2026 midterms and Democrats face pressure from constituents to counter Trump.
The US government will not negotiate with people accused of attacking or vandalizing Teslas and Tesla dealerships, Attorney General Pam Bondi said during a Cabinet meeting today.
“And you know, you also gave us a directive to prosecute the people who are going after Tesla, to the fullest extent of the law, some of the greatest police work I've seen. We've made four arrests,” Bondi said while addressing President Donald Trump at the meeting.
“There will be no negotiations at your directive,” she said. “They're all looking at 20 years in prison.”
Bondi's statement seemed to indicate the government won't engage in plea negotiations that could potentially reduce that 20-year sentence.
Trump has described people who vandalize Teslas as domestic terrorists. Tesla CEO Elon Musk is Trump's largest donor and is heading the administration's efforts to reduce the size of the government.
The FBI last month launched a task force investigating a spate of instances of vandalism that have targeted Teslas and Tesla dealerships across the country.
President Donald Trump offered a more sober assessment of the aftermath of his decision to pause some tariffs for 90 days, while convening his Cabinet to discuss next steps.
After taking a victory lap Wednesday, the president on Thursday acknowledged some “transition problems” could be expected – comments that come as the Dow is again tumbling after a historic rally.
“A big day yesterday. There will always be transition difficulty – but in history, it was the biggest day in history, the markets. So we're very, very happy with the way the country is running. We're trying to get the world to treat us fairly,” Trump said in the Cabinet Room.
He continued, “We think we're in very good shape. We think we're doing very well. Again, there'll be a transition cost and transition problems, but in the end, it's going to be a beautiful thing.”
The president praised his Cabinet, whom he has tasked with plans on how to proceed with trade deals and negotiation with China in what is becoming an intensifying trade war with Beijing.
“Everyone at this table is doing an incredible job, by the way, I have to say. Incredible. And the relationships are – it's like they're friends, they're really. The relationships are very strong, really good, really strong. And these meetings are very good,” Trump said.
CNN has reported that Trump's top economic advisers sparred internally and publicly about the tariffs, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick emerging as top voices in the president's ear leading to his Wednesday decision.
Several Senate Republicans said today that they believe it is “possible” to get to the $1.5 trillion in cuts that Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Speaker Mike Johnson promised to hardline House conservatives, but Senate Budget Chairman Lindsey Graham warned that Republicans are already fighting the clock to get the president's agenda passed.
Earlier today, House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise celebrated their chamber's adoption of the budget blueprint after days of haggling with conservative holdouts over spending cuts, but both acknowledged that this is only the first step toward passing President Donald Trump's agenda and there is a “tough road” ahead.
Adopting the budget blueprint was an early step in the process of drafting and passing the “big, beautiful bill” that the president has demanded, which includes an increase to the debt limit that must be adopted by late summer or early fall to avert a default.
“Yeah, I think that's possible,” Graham said of the $1.5 trillion in cuts.
He also noted that adoption of the budget resolution is an early hurdle.
“Then the hard work begins, really, and that is, you know, what can you cut?” said Graham, saying that “time is important.”
GOP Rep. Nick LaLota of New York told CNN that “we wanted to confirm a compassionate approach to Medicaid.”
LaLota said he trusted the speaker but warned: “If ultimately the bill doesn't meet the moment and does take Medicaid from people who need it, who deserve it, there'll be a group of us who vote no.”
Speaking to reporters following the vote, Texas GOP Rep. Chip Roy said that Johnson vowed deficits would not be raised — a significant promise as Republicans also want to make Trump's tax cuts permanent
CNN's Manu Raju, Ali Main and Annie Grayer contributed reporting.
One day after a historic relief rally, a steep sell-off resumed on Wall Street.
The Dow tumbled more than 2,000 points, or 5% Thursday midday. The broader S&P 500 sank 5.9% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite slid 6.9%.
While investors breathed a sigh of relief yesterday as President Donald Trump announced a 90-day pause on most “reciprocal” tariffs, he hiked the tariff rate on China to at least 145% — a level the White House clarified today. The prospects of a trade war with China has continued to spook investors.
“We expect the road ahead to be bumpy and do not anticipate a quick trip back to new highs,” said Keith Lerner, chief market strategist at Truist Advisory Services, in a note.
The US dollar index, which measures the dollar's strength against six foreign currencies, tumbled 1.85% Thursday, hitting its lowest level since early October. The dollar has broadly weakened this year, a sign of investors' concern about the health and stability of the US economy.
New data on Thursday showed that inflation in the US slowed sharply in March. While that is usually welcome news for investors, the focus on Wall Street is firmly on tariffs and the outlook for the economy going forward.
“Thursday's [data] is for March, which is backward looking and doesn't tell the market much about how the recent tariffs, albeit many of them on pause, are affecting consumer prices,” said Skyler Weinand, chief investment officer at Regan Capital.
This post has been updated with additional information.
Even though President Donald Trump has pulled back some of his tariffs, remaining levies are likely to blow a sizable hole in the wallets of Americans.
Trump's latest tariffs will cost the typical middle-class household $3,443 a year, according to research published Thursday by The Budget Lab at Yale.
“Tariffmageddon isn't over,” University of Michigan economics professor Justin Wolfers wrote on X.
These new estimates factor in Trump's 90-day pause on country-specific tariffs as well as the surge in China tariffs to at least 145%.
The hit to the average household would be even higher than to the middle-income, totaling $4,400 per year, The Budget Lab found. After adjusting for product substitutions away from China and other nations, the average consumer would get hit by $2,600 in losses per year, the analysis found.
Lower-income Americans will get hit harder by the tariffs as a share of their total income, according to the analysis.
Economists warn the US economy will likely slow significantly due to the trade war.
The US tariffs on imports along with foreign retaliation on American goods will lower US GDP growth by one percent this year and lift the unemployment rate by 0.5 percentage points, The Budget Lab said. That translates to 685,000 fewer jobs at the end of the year, according to the analysis.
The latest Trump tariff moves lifts the average effective US tariff rate to 25.3%, the highest since 1909, little changed from before Trump's 90-day pause, The Budget Lab found. After accounting for consumption shifts caused by tariffs, the average tariff rate would still stand at 18.1%, the highest since 1934.
Caleb Ragland, president of the American Soybean Association, is urging President Donald Trump to stop his trade war with China.
Ragland, a Trump supporter, owns and runs a soybean farm in Magnolia, Kentucky. His family has been farming in the state for more than 200 years, and Ragland says he's worried that history could end with him based on “the current outlook.”
Soybeans were the top US export to China in 2024, according to the US International Trade Commission.
“As a soybean farmer we are dependent on trade. Right at 50% percent of the soybeans produced in the United States are exported. China takes more of our soybeans than all other foreign customers combined. So they're a major part of our market, and this trade war is very concerning to us, right now,” Ragland said on CNN's “The Situation Room” today.
Ragland said farmers are already struggling and having a trade war with their “biggest customer” will make matters worse.
“There's not much room for error right now in the budgets. We're looking at basically losses for the upcoming year if commodity prices don't improve.”
Ragland says farmers don't have the same cushion they had during the 2018 trade war during Trump's first term.
The farmer said he still believes Trump has a plan and that the president wants what's best for the country. “We just want to make sure there's a clear understanding that our livelihoods are at stake,” he said.
Ragland urged the administration to “get a proactive trade deal done” that's good for farmers and the country as a whole, instead of “building barriers with tariffs.”
President Donald Trump instructed special envoy Steve Witkoff to speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the release of Russian-American Ksenia Karelina, according to a senior Trump administration official. The conversation started there and was continued by CIA Director John Ratcliffe.
The US hostage envoy team is currently on a plane with Karelina. They made a stop in Europe and continue to Joint Base Andrews, where a welcoming committee will greet her. Karelina's fiancé and one of her longtime friends will be there when she lands.
US hostage envoy Adam Boehler told CNN he just got off the phone with Karelina.
“She was very happy, and she was very appreciative to the president for getting her out,” he added.
Boehler characterized the release of Karelina as a “goodwill” gesture from Russia and a continuation of previous talks.
“In the context of our discussions over Russia-Ukraine, we are going to continue as part of this to work to get Americans out, and so these kind of moves are goodwill gesture-builders, and that's why you see something like this,” Boehler said.
A Russian-American woman, Ksenia Karelina, has been released as part of a prisoner exchange between the US and Russia. Karelina, an amateur ballet dancer, was serving a 12-year prison sentence for treason in Russia. She was swapped for Arthur Petrov, a dual Russian-German citizen who was being held in the US on various criminal offenses including smuggling and wire laundering, according to Russian state news agencies. The exchange took place in Abu Dhabi. CNN's Nic Robertson has more. #us #russia #prisoner #exchange
Goods coming from China to the United States are now subject to at least a 145% tariff, the White House clarified today.
The 125% “reciprocal” tariff President Donald Trump announced on China yesterday comes on top of the 20% tariff that had already been in place. It hadn't been clear yesterday if the tariffs were additive. The White House said Thursday they are.
Trump has tied that 20% tariff to illegal immigration and the flow of fentanyl into the US, which he's accused China of playing a role in.
Additionally, Trump also hiked the tariffs on goods less than $800 coming from China to 120% as of May 2.
US District Judge James Boasberg directed the Trump administration to provide more details about how it is complying with his order to preserve messages sent in a Signal chat among top officials last month.
Boasberg's directive comes after lawyers for the nonprofit advocacy group American Oversight — which successfully persuaded the judge last month to order the preservation of the messages — raised complaints that the administration had not adequately explained in court documents how various agencies were keeping the records intact.
Among the details Boasberg told Justice Department lawyers to submit from the agencies through sworn statements from officials are ones concerning the specific times when officials conducted a search for the relevant messages and when they were preserved.
“I could have you file — based on these issues — file amended declarations or supplemental declarations with these facts in the next few days,” he said during a brief hearing on the matter. “Again, I think this is a pretty minimal lift.”
Boasberg asked for the declaration to be submitted by Monday.
Remember: Late last month, Boasberg, the chief judge of the federal trial-level court in Washington, DC, ordered the administration to preserve messages sent on Signal between March 11 and March 15, a period that includes exchanges about US military strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen.
As part of that temporary restraining order, the government was also required to provide him with updates explaining how it was complying with his directive, but American Oversight told him last week that those explanations were insufficient and “necessitate more robust and immediate preservation assurances” from officials.
House Republicans have taken a critical step to advance President Donald Trump's tax cuts and border priorities through Congress, a major win for party leadership after quelling a conservative rebellion over the plan's price tag.
Today's key vote: The morning vote on the Senate's budget blueprint — a critical initial step in the long budget process – will ultimately allow Republicans to muscle the president's first big legislative measure over a Democratic filibuster. It capped a dramatic week for Speaker Mike Johnson, who was forced to call off plans for a vote on the contentious measure just hours earlier after nearly 20 Republicans demanded a guarantee of steep spending cuts.
GOP leaders ultimately convinced them to back the plan for how, punting bigger — and more difficult — fights on spending for the coming weeks. It marked a win for Johnson, who has repeatedly relied on Trump to pass contentious bills that his conservatives hate.
The speaker met with the last group of holdouts ahead of the vote this morning, as he sought to avoid an embarrassing defeat from his conference. And Trump applied pressure, promoting his “big, beautiful, bill” on Truth Social and making calls to lawmakers. Rep. Ralph Norman told CNN that a conversation with Trump himself helped flip his vote.
In a tense floor conversation prior to the vote, Johnson offered assurances to a group of centrist Republicans that the GOP would protect Medicaid in its future reconciliation bill, according to a person familiar with the discussion.
Read more about today's House vote and expected next steps.
Oil prices are tumbling today, driven by concerns President Donald Trump's trade war will threaten the world economy and damage demand for energy.
US crude dropped 4.6% to $59.50 a barrel in recent trading. That means oil has given back virtually all of Wednesday's big gains.
If crude settles below $59.58 a barrel, it would be the lowest close since at least April 2021.
Initial enthusiasm in financial markets over Trump's 90-day pause on many tariffs has given way to the reality that the world's two largest economies continue to rapidly increase tariffs on each other.
“The trade war between the US and China continues to boil,” Robert Yawger, executive director at Mizuho Securities, wrote in a report today.
Despite concerns about a tariff-fueled economic slowdown or even recession, OPEC+ continues to add barrels to the market. That has led energy traders to fear a supply glut.
“We have given back all the gains. The fact that we're in a trade war with China at this moment portends slower oil demand growth. There's no doubt about it,” said Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates.
When trillions of dollars in value vanished from stock markets over Donald Trump's tariffs, the president held firm, however when the bond market showed signs of trouble he made a swift reversal.
“MY POLICIES WILL NEVER CHANGE,” he said last week, as equities tanked. “BE COOL!” he said Wednesday morning, as they fell further — but hours later, he announced he was pausing his “reciprocal” tariffs for 90 days. Why?
The bond market was getting “queasy,” Trump told reporters later Wednesday.
Usually, when the stock market tanks, investors flee to the “safe haven” of Treasuries, causing their prices to rise and yields — or market interest rates — to fall. But late Tuesday into Wednesday, investors were selling stocks and Treasuries, causing price falls in both markets.
“When we see both the stock market and Treasuries have a negative price movement at the same time, this is very rare,” Kathy Yuan, professor of finance at the London School of Economics and Political Science, told CNN. The last time this “worrisome” development happened was during the Covid-19 shock of early 2020. “It cannot be ignored,” she said.
One reason for the Treasury selloff appears to have been a massive unwinding of the “basis trade,” where investors try to profit from the difference between the price of Treasuries and that of Treasury futures. The trade involves investors borrowing huge sums to buy Treasury bonds. The profit margins are small but repeated often enough as to be a huge cash cow for hedge funds.
But a more troubling reason may be that investors did not rush to buy Treasuries like in previous panics.
“When you damage your international relations, the international investors are going to be less likely to buy your assets — and we saw some of that yesterday,” John Canavan, the lead US analyst at Oxford Economics, told CNN.
The US and Russian delegations continued their “constructive” talks on embassy issues during a meeting in Istanbul Thursday, a statement from the US State Department said.
The two sides “exchanged notes to finalize an understanding to ensure the stability of diplomatic banking for Russian and U.S. bilateral missions,” the statement said.
“The United States reiterated its concerns about the Russian Federation's policy prohibiting the employment of local staff, which is the key impediment to maintaining for stable and sustainable staffing levels at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow,” it noted.
Some context: In February, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the US Embassy in Moscow “barely operates because it's been denied access to the banking system.”
In July 2021, the US had to lay off nearly 200 locally employed staff due to the Russian government's measure to block the US from retaining, hiring, or contracting Russian or third-country staff, except security.
According to Thursday's readout, the two sides “discussed holding a follow-up meeting on these issues in the near term, as needed, with the date, location, and representation to be determined.”
On the campaign trail, President Donald Trump repeatedly vowed to implement tariffs on imports from all nations. Since taking office in January, he's sought to see that promise out — implementing, then reversing tariffs on nearly all countries this week.
Take a look at what tariff policies remain in place and what could still come.
National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett expanded on the role bond markets played in President Donald Trump's move to pare back his tariff policy yesterday, but said they did not cause “a panic move.”
“And I think you know, the fact that the bond market was telling us, ‘Hey, it's probably time to move,' certainly would have contributed at least a little bit to that thinking, but it wasn't the bond market that made a panic move,” Hasset told CNBC from the White House.
The economic adviser highlighted how the administration has set up a process for orderly tariff deals, with some “close to the finish line.”
“There was a very systematic, well-planned move that was just about to happen,” Hasset said.
Hasset went deeper on the topic during an appearance on “Fox and Friends” moments later.
Hasset noted that Trump was serious about renegotiations for “better deals for the American people,” adding, “We had been working out plans for the negotiations for weeks, and even a couple of deals wind up that maybe are close to being announced.”
He continued: “The point is: Everything was moving, but then, when the bond markets started to say ‘hey, we don't believe these guys', I think the president decided on his own, really, that ‘well, we're going to announce this anyway — we might as well do it today.' … But this is the plan that he was pursuing all along.”
Trump said yesterday he was watching volatility in the bond market in recent days and appeared to indicate that it was among the factors that led to his decision to institute a 90-day pause on some tariffs.
The bond market showed signs of recovery today following Trump's swift retreat.
While it is still unclear if House Speaker Mike Johnson can muscle through the budget on the House floor after scrapping plans for a vote Wednesday night, the House does plan to go to the floor for a vote around 10 a.m. ET Thursday morning.
President Donald Trump took to social media this morning to promote his “big, beautiful, bill” ahead of the vote to advance his agenda.
Conservatives and leadership worked late into the evening on a series of options to quell concerns the Senate bill did not cut spending enough, but it's not clear what option Johnson will take. Johnson is expected to meet with the last group of holdouts, before the vote, according to a lawmaker attending the meeting.
Slightly different messages: In a news conference this morning, Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune tried to present a united front on how to move forward on Trump's agenda, but the two Republican leaders had slightly different messages on spending cuts, which has been a massive sticking point for a number of the House Republican holdouts.
Johnson said unequivocally, “We are committed to finding at least $1.5 trillion in savings for the American people, while also preserving our essential programs.”
Meanwhile, Thune said, “The speaker's talked about $1.5 trillion dollars. We have a lot of United States senators who believe that is a minimum. And we're certainly will do everything we can to be as aggressive as possible to see that we are serious about the matter.”
A lot of the Republican holdouts wanted to see Thune commit to spending cuts, and the question remains whether the Senate leader's response Wednesday morning was enough.
Johnson remained optimistic he will be able to advance Trump's agenda on the floor today.
This post has been updated with more reporting on today's vote on the GOP budget. CNN's Alejandra Jaramillo contributed reporting to this post.
National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said today the 90-day reciprocal tariff pause was “based on good faith conversations” and that there are about 15 countries that have made “explicit” offers to the US.
“The pause was based on good faith conversation. I was on a call with the president and the president of Switzerland yesterday morning that was incredibly congenial,” Hassett told reporters from the White House.
The economic adviser said he expects “quite a movement” of world leaders into the White House in the upcoming weeks.
“And (the United States Trade Representative) has informed us that there are maybe 15 countries now that have made explicit offers that we're studying and considering and deciding whether they're good enough to present to the President,” he added.
He also said that today's Cabinet meeting will include discussions on whether the US should reach trade agreements with allies to address China's structures in a united front. Asked by CNN's Alayna Treene about Secretary Bessent's remarks Wednesday envisioning an approach with China as a group, Hassett said, “these are the kind of things that will be discussed in meetings today.”
Hasset said earlier today during a CNBC interview that talks with China have not begun, but Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping have “had conversations in the past that have been very productive.”
Inflation slowed sharply in March, new data showed today, and in any other timeline, such news would stoke optimism that Americans' cost of living is no longer surging.
However, the latest reading of the Consumer Price Index — which showed inflation cooling to an annual rate of 2.4% in March — lands as countries, businesses, markets and consumers grapple with America's most severe escalation of its tariff rate in more than a century.
Economists have cautioned that Thursday's CPI report could very well mark the nadir in inflation this year as President Donald Trump's massive and sweeping tariffs upend global order and make imports — and, likely, end-products for consumers — markedly more expensive.
In March, prices fell 0.1% from the month before, a slower pace of growth than the 0.2% gain recorded in February, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data released Thursday.
It's the first time that prices have fallen on a monthly basis since May 2020.
Economists were expecting that falling energy prices would drive down the overall CPI rate to 0.1% for the month and 2.6% for the year, according to FactSet.
President Donald Trump is expected to hold a Cabinet meeting at 11 a.m. ET today, according to a White House official.
The meeting comes after Trump's announcement of a 90-day pause on his sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs with the exception of China.
Trump took a victory lap in an overnight social media post early today to celebrate a surge in US markets following his tariff announcement.
“What a day, but more great days coming!!!”Trump's Truth Social post read.
Trump's global tariff war had sparked a sharp decline in the US market, raising concerns among economists and even the president himself.
“I thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line. They were getting yippy, you know, they were getting a little bit yippy, a little bit afraid,” the president said from the White House, just after his tariffs retreat on Wednesday.
CNN reported Wednesday that the bond sell-off had played a role in driving Trump's decision to postpone his “reciprocal” tariffs.
Watch below for more reporting on Trump's tariff pause:
President Donald Trump has ordered a 90-day pause on "reciprocal" tariffs with the exception of China. CNN's Phil Mattingly explains why the president had to hit the pause button.
As we continue to report on President Donald Trump's tariff policy, there are a few financial terms you'll read on this page today that may be unfamiliar.
Here's a quick explanation of what some of them mean:
Bonds and yields: Bonds provide a way for governments and companies to borrow money from investors — to pay for public services, for example — for a set length of time, with the obligation to make regular interest payments.
When investors sell bonds, their prices go down, while their yields – which indicate investors' expectations for returns on the bonds – go up. In short: bond prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Treasuries: US government bonds are referred to as “Treasuries.”
Trade war: A trade war happens when a country or trading bloc introduces trade barriers such as tariffs or quotas, followed by retaliation from one or more of its trading partners. This can kick off a string of tit-for-tat responses that escalate global tensions.
Bear market: When stocks fall 20% from a recent high, it's officially a bear market.
Bull market: A bull market means there has been a 20% surge since a market's most recent low.
CNN's Erin Burnett illustrates how China uses money it makes from selling goods in the US to buy US treasuries and become holders of US debt. #cnn #news
The US stock market, fresh off its third-best day in modern history, is sinking back into reality. Although President Donald Trump paused most of his “reciprocal” tariffs, his other massive import taxes have already inflicted significant damage, and the economy won't easily recover from the fallout.
The Dow, after rising nearly 3,000 points Wednesday, was set to open lower by more than 500 points, or 1.3%, Thursday. S&P 500 futures fell 1.7% and Nasdaq futures were 1.9% lower. The S&P 500 is coming off its best day since 2008, and the Nasdaq on Wednesday posted its second-best daily gains in history.
But even after Trump's about-face, the reality remains stark: Economists said the economic damage is done, and many predict a US and global recession. Stocks are still well below where they were before Trump unveiled his “Liberation Day” tariffs last week, and those large stock market losses, existing tariffs and high degree of uncertainty about American trade policy are enough to sink the economy, they say.
Goldman Sachs said Wednesday after Trump's partial detente that recession chances in the United States were still a coin flip. JPMorgan Wednesday evening, said the bank would not alter its recession forecasts, still seeing a 60% chance of a US and global recession even after Trump's “positive” decision to unwind his “draconian” country-specific tariffs.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he is not waiting for China's President Xi Jinping to blink in the US-China trade war, after Trump said he will pause tariff hikes for 90 days, but not for China.
Asked by CNN's Alayna Treene if the president is waiting on Xi to blink, Trump quickly shook his head and said no.
“Look, for years we've been ripped off and taken advantage of by China and others, in all fairness, but there's that's the big one,” Trump said when pressed by Treene on what the end game is with China.
China says it remains willing to negotiate, even after Trump raised US tariffs on Chinese imports to 125%, as reported by CNN.
China says it will cut the number of American movies shown in the country as part of its retaliation against US President Donald Trump's tariffs.
A spokesperson for the China Film Authority said Thursday that Washington's tariffs on China “will inevitably reduce the appeal of American movies to the Chinese audience.”
“We will follow market rules, respect the audience's choice, and appropriately reduce the number of imports of American movies,” the spokesman said in a statement.
“China is the world's second largest film market. We have always adhered to a high level of opening up to the outside world and will introduce more excellent films from the world to meet market demand,” the statement added.
China already imposed retaliatory tariffs of 84% on US imports on Wednesday as it hit back against Trump's escalation of the trade war. As part of the retaliation, China also imposed export controls on 12 American companies and added six more US firms to its “unreliable entity list.”
The curb on American movies is China's first retaliatory move after Trump raised the levies on Chinese imports to 125% on Wednesday.
Foreign powers have reacted positively to US President Donald Trump's move to pause tariffs on much of the world, but much uncertainty remains.
Here's a roundup of some of the reaction:
France: The Trump administration's decision to suspend tariffs for 90 days is “the start of the return of economic reason,” the governor of the Bank of France said. But he added “two bad ingredients in the American salad” remain: unpredictability and protectionism.
Germany: Germany's chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz said Wednesday that Trump's decision to pause planned tariff increases for most countries was a testament to European Union unity. Asked about Trump's reversal in an interview with German broadcaster RTL, Merz said the announcement was a “reaction to the determination of the Europeans.”
Poland: Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister, welcomed Trump's decision to pause tariffs on much of the world, posting on X that Europeans and Americans should “make the most” of the three-month period to maintain “close transatlantic relations.”
UK: Trump's pause on tariffs “reinforces” the UK government's “pragmatic” strategy, said Yvette Cooper, Home Secretary of the United Kingdom. Asked if the last 24 hours put her off relying on the US as trading partner, Cooper said the UK is taking a “steady course” to avoid getting “buffeted around from day to day or getting into the running commentaries and reactions.”
ASEAN: Members of the Southeast Asian trading block, which were due to be particularly hard-hit by tariffs, said they commit “to not impose any retaliatory measures,” according to a joint statement. ASEAN “stands ready” to work with the US to “find balanced, forward-looking solutions that support a more resilient and sustainable global economy,” they added.
The European Union has announced it is putting retaliatory measures against the United States on hold for 90 days.
“We want to give negotiations a chance,” EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote on X.
The EU on Wednesday backed its first countermeasures against steel and aluminum tariffs announced by Trump in March. Just after the EU agreed on its response, the US president announced the 90-day pause on the “reciprocal” tariffs he had placed on dozens of countries.
Von der Leyen added: “If negotiations are not satisfactory, our countermeasures will kick in.”
The bloc of 27 countries had been hit by three sets of US tariffs: 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum exports, 25% levies on car exports and 20% so-called reciprocal tariffs on all other goods.
Despite the pause on the “reciprocal” tariffs, Trump said the industry-specific ones would remain in place – as well as his 10% flat-rate minimum tariff on all nations.
Although Trump's abrupt tariff reversal came as a relief to many in Europe, investors and analysts have warned that the unpredictable, stop-start nature of his trade policy will likely dampen investment and could slow global economic growth.
“Clear, predictable conditions are essential for trade and supply chains to function,” von der Leyen said in a separate statement Thursday.
While the EU “remains committed to constructive negotiations” with the US, the bloc is also focused on “diversifying its trade partnerships, engaging with countries that account for 87% of global trade,” von der Leyen said.
This post has been updated with additional information.
Russian-American woman Ksenia Karelina, who was serving a 12-year prison sentence for treason in Russia, has been released and is on her way to the United States, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on X on Thursday.
“American Ksenia Karelina is on a plane back home to the United States. She was wrongfully detained by Russia for over a year and President Trump secured her release,” Rubio said on X.
He added the president would “continue to work for the release of ALL Americans.”
Karelina's release was part of a prisoner swap between the US and Russia that also released Russian-German Arthur Petrov who was in US prison, according two US officials familiar with the matter.
The prisoner swap took place in Abu Dhabi on Thursday and was conducted by CIA Director John Ratcliffe, the officials said.
The release comes as officials from Russia and the United States hold second-round talks in Istanbul, Turkey.
The US State Department said Tuesday that the talks would focus on embassy operations and that “no political or security issues” were on the agenda. “Ukraine is not, absolutely not, on the agenda,” State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said at that time.
CNN's Gul Tuysuz and Kylie Atwood contributed reporting to this post.
China is digging in for a prolonged trade war with the US and it has “long been preparing for this,” said Keyu Jin, associate professor of economics at the London School of Economics.
“They are in a survival instinct right now,” Jin told CNN's Polo Sandoval on Thursday.
US President Donald Trump has paused all “reciprocal” tariffs, apart from on major geopolitical rival China which announced its own retaliatory measures.
Beijing has “completely doubled down on more stimulus, more pivoting to new markets” and is making a “technological innovation push,” Jin said.
“Chinese companies have been set off on a globalization frenzy,” Jin added. “They've altered business models, opened new factories and opened new markets (at) a pace that would've been unseen before.“China's position – fight until the end if necessary – goes along with what was said that compromise is not an option because compromise will only lead to further demands from Trump.”
Billionaire investor Ray Dalio praised Donald Trump for “stepping back” from his plan to impose heavy tariffs on dozens of countries and hopes the US president does the same for China.
“This is a great time for all involved to reconsider their approaches!” Dalio posted on X late Wednesday, after Trump announced a 90-day pause on all “reciprocal” tariffs except those on China.
“There are better and worse ways of handling our problems with unsustainable debt and imbalances, and President Trump's decision to step back from a worse way and negotiate how to deal with these imbalances is a much better way,” Dalio said, adding: “I hope… he will do the same with the Chinese.”
Dalio did not mention tariffs explicitly, but these “imbalances” refer to the trade deficits the US has with dozens of countries around the world, which Trump said repeatedly that his tariffs would aim to wipe out.
Scrapping tariffs on China will involve “negotiating a deal” that appreciates the renminbi, China's currency, against the dollar, the investor said, which would be “achieved by the Chinese selling dollar assets while also easing their fiscal and monetary policies to stimulate their demand.”
This outcome would be a “win-win,” Dalio said.
The investor, who has long warned against the over-indebtedness of the world economy, said:
“One way or another, there will have to be major changes to the debt/monetary orders to deal with the debt, trade and capital imbalances problem.”
China says it remains willing to negotiate with the US after President Donald Trump raised his tariffs on Chinese imports to 125%.
“The door to talks is open, but dialogue must be conducted on the basis of mutual respect and equality,” a spokesperson for the Chinese Commerce Ministry said Thursday. “We hope the US will meet China halfway, and work toward resolving differences through dialogue and consultation.”
But the spokesperson also reiterated that China will not back down if Trump chooses to further escalate the trade war.
“If the US chooses confrontation, China will respond in kind. Pressure, threats, and blackmail are not the right ways to deal with China.”
The comments came hours after Beijing imposed retaliatory 84% tariffs on US imports to China.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry was asked by reporters on Thursday about Beijing's response to Trump's pausing of “reciprocal” tariffs on all countries with the exception of China.
Spokesperson Lin Jian sidestepped the question and instead called US tariffs “a blatant act that defies universal condemnation and goes against the entire world.”
But despite the government striking a consistently defiant tone, China's export sector, a bright spot in an otherwise lackluster economy, is bracing for impact.
Investment bank Goldman Sachs anticipates the US tariffs will “significantly weigh” on the Chinese economy and labor market. It has downgraded its GDP growth forecasts for 2025 and 2026 to 4.0% and 3.5%, respectively, from previous projections of 4.5% and 4.0%.
US and Russian officials are holding talks at Russia's consulate in Istanbul today, according to Turkish media.
The meeting is the second round of talks between Russia and the US in Turkey. The first round of talks took place at the US consulate in Istanbul on February 27 and lasted well over six hours.
The US State Department said Tuesday that the talks would focus on embassy operations and that “no political or security issues” were on the agenda. “Ukraine is not, absolutely not, on the agenda,” spokesperson Tammy Bruce said at that time.
The Russian state news agency Tass on Tuesday quoted the Kremlin as saying that the meeting would be “devoted to normalizing the work of the embassies.”
Previous reporting from Jennifer Hansler, Anna Chernova, Clare Sebastian and Lauren Kent
The bond market is showing signs of recovery following US President Donald Trump's swift retreat from the hefty duties he had imposed on a swath of countries just hours earlier.
The 10-year Treasury yield, a benchmark for various debt, fell to 4.305% on Thursday from as high as 4.5% the previous day. Just a few days ago, it had traded below 4%. Bond yields trade in opposite directions to their prices.
Why this matters: Trump's global tariff war had triggered a steep sell-off in the US Treasury market, alarming economists and even the president himself. CNN reported Wednesday that the bond sell-off had played a critical role in driving Trump's decision to postpone his “reciprocal” tariffs.
Falling equity prices are typically accompanied by rising bond prices and decreasing bond yields. In times of market turbulence, investors tend to retreat to safe havens like US Treasury bonds, causing bond prices to go up.
But alarmingly, investors had been dumping stocks and bonds simultaneously, as CNN's Allison Morrow writes, sending stock prices tumbling and bond yields rising. The two events happening together is very rare, with the most recent period being in 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic.
US stocks skyrocketed after President Donald Trump announced a three-month pause on all the “reciprocal” tariffs, with the S&P 500 posting its best day since October 2008. It was also the third-best day for the benchmark index since its modern-day version was formed in 1957..
But enormous tariffs will remain on China, the world's second-largest economy. Trump said they would be increased to 125% after Beijing announced further retaliatory tariffs against the US earlier Wednesday. Those duties on all US imports of 84% are now in effect.
All other countries that were subjected to reciprocal tariff rates would see rates go back down to the universal 10% rate, Trump said.
Here's the latest on tariffs:
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen says she welcomes US President Donald Trump's move to pause his “reciprocal” tariffs.
“It's an important step towards stabilising the global economy,” she said Thursday. “Clear, predictable conditions are essential for trade and supply chains to function.”
“Tariffs are taxes that only hurt businesses and consumers. That's why I've consistently advocated for a zero-for-zero tariff agreement between the European Union and the United States.”
Last week, Trump had announced 20% tariffs on imports from the European Union as part of his plan to levy “reciprocal” tariffs on dozens of countries. He paused those tariffs yesterday in a surprise reversal, with the exception of duties imposed on China.
European stock markets rallied after the tariff pause. Europe's benchmark STOXX 600 index was 5.5% higher at the start of trading Thursday. France's CAC index was up 2.9% and Germany's DAX jumped 8.3%, while London's FTSE 100 index rose 6.1%.
China's yuan has fallen to its lowest level in nearly 18 years, in what some analysts say is a sign the central bank is further easing its grip on the currency to help offset the negative impact on exports from an escalating trade war.
On Thursday, the onshore renminbi dropped to as low as 7.351 per US dollar, the weakest since late 2007, before recovering some losses to 7.342, according to Reuters. The People's Bank of China, which manages the yuan and sets its daily reference rate, weakened it to 7.209 yuan a dollar, it said.
A weaker yuan could alleviate some pressure on Chinese exporters by making their sales — a key economic driver for the country — cheaper as trade tensions between China and the US grow.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has warned China against using currency devaluation as a tool to counter Trump's tariffs.
“If China starts devaluing, then that is a tax on the rest of the world, and everyone will have to keep raising their tariffs to offset the devaluation,” he said in an interview with Fox Business Network on Wednesday. “I would urge them not to do that and to come to the table.”
China's offshore renminbi plunged to an all-time low of 7.429 per US dollar on Wednesday, a record since the offshore market was established in 2010, according to Reuters. It has since pared some of those losses.
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Flemming Hansen and Mette Helbæk reject criticism of how they abandoned resort and fled to Guatemala
A Danish couple who fled their “forest resort” in Sweden for Guatemala and left behind a large tax debt and 158 barrels of human waste have hit back at criticism and claimed that their handling of the compost toilets was “very normal”.
Flemming Hansen and Mette Helbæk, both chefs, abandoned their purportedly eco-friendly retreat, Stedsans, in Halland, southern Sweden, last year. They owed large sums to Swedish and Danish tax authorities. They have since set up a business in Guatemala.
The story behind their disappearance and the abandoned human waste was revealed this week after an investigation by the newspapers Politiken and Dagens Nyheter. It also found that the couple had allowed wastewater to run into the forest and alleged that animals had died as a result of being left outside and that others were abandoned.
Hansen and Helbæk's actions were described by local authorities as “environmental crime”. However, on Thursday, the couple claimed they were acting lawfully.
Commenting on the barrels left behind from their compost toilets, they said in a post on social media: “For people in rural Sweden it's a very normal thing.”
They added: “It's also a very important part of the permaculture principles that you deal with your own shit.”
The property's new owner is aware of the barrels and they can be used for compost, they said. “Half of them are ready to use this spring, the other half is ready in 1 year, following the guidelines of Swedish law.”
But Daniel Helsing, the head of building and environment at the local authority, Hylte council, said the couple did not follow the necessary requirements for composting waste.
“There are a number of requirements that you have to follow and they have not,” he said. “Normal practice, if you do not have a water closet solution, is that you have a collecting service for your barrels that the local authorities in basically every county in Sweden provide. That would be the most common solution to handling toilet waste if you are not using water closets.”
It is possible to compost toilet waste but it has to be done according to local authority instructions, he said. “You would have to report that you are going to compost toilet waste and that gives us as the local authority a chance to set out rules and guidelines for how to do it.”
The Swedish Tourist Association said it was unfamiliar with the methods used at Stedsans. A spokesperson said: “I have never heard anything like that.”
Hansen and Helbæk accused the journalists behind the investigation of lying and of causing “our life's biggest (literal!) shitstorm”.
They added: “The article claims that we have been damaging the local environment with our procedures at our permaculture resort and that we have left animals to die. All these claims and several others are false.”
Accusing the local authorities of being cowards, Hansen and Helbæk said that Hylte council was aware of their toilets. They had, the couple said, shown the toilets and procedures to authority representatives “several times”. “Either the municipality lies, or they have not done the work we have paid them to do, which is to make sure that all rules are followed.”
Hylte council said they had not been paid to deal with waste and that they were assessing whether it would be reported to police.
Hansen and Helbæk said their company had gone bankrupt and that they had tax debt in Denmark that had “multiplied tenfold” because of interest and fees over a decade. To prevent the debt from growing, they said, they would have to pay Danish tax authorities – which they accused of being “cold-hearted” and “narcissistic” – more than 50,000 DKK a month (£5,800), which they suggest they are unable to.
Hansen previously said they owed the Swedish tax agency “over 7m” SEK (more than £550,000).
Among the reasons they fled to Guatemala, they said, was “to give our family a second chance”. Describing it as their birthright, they added: “If you see us as villains for making this choice, we are sorry.”
Sell-off comes amid anger from Democrats over retreat that rattled markets, while Republicans praise Trump's ‘art of the deal' in action
US stocks fell again on Thursday after a historic rally following Donald Trump's shock retreat Wednesday on the hefty tariffs he had just imposed on dozens of countries.
The falls came as the president blamed “transition problems” for the market reaction and the sell-off deepened after a White House clarification noted that total tariffs on China had been raised by 145% since Trump took office.
Speaking at the White House, Trump said: “We think we're in very good shape. We think we're doing very well. Again there will be a transition cost, transition problems, but in the end it's going to be a beautiful thing.”
The sell-off comes as Democrats continue to react with anger over the sudden retreat that rattled markets, while Republicans praised Trump's “art of the deal” in action, referencing Trump's 1987 book.
By the end of Thursday, the Dow was down 2.5% after soaring on Wednesday afternoon. The Nasdaq Composite was down more than 4%, after posting its biggest gain in more than two decades on Wednesday, and the S&P 500 down 3.4%.
The market seems to be in a state of fatigue after a rollercoaster week. Stocks were even unresponsive to news Thursday morning that the European Union announced it will suspend 25% retaliatory tariffs against US imports and new data showed inflation in the US cooled to 2.4% in March – both would typically be cause for optimism on Wall Street.
On CNN, former US treasury secretary Janet Yellen called Trump's economic policies the “worst self-inflicted wound” an administration had ever imposed on a “well-functioning economy”.
Trump said in an abrupt announcement on Wednesday that he would be implementing a 90-day pause on his tariff plan, and that goods entering the US from most countries would now face a 10% blanket tariff until July, except for Chinese exports, which he said would face tariffs totalling 145% effective immediately – 125% in “reciprocal” tariffs plus 20% already imposed for China's alleged role in the fentanyl crisis.
Republican lawmakers praised the decision to pause the tariffs, with the House speaker, Mike Johnson, stating on social media: “Behold the ‘Art of the Deal.' President Trump has created leverage, brought MANY countries to the table, and will deliver for American workers, American manufacturers, and America's future!”
Before the pause was announced, a small but growing number of Republican lawmakers and Trump supporters in the business world expressed concerns about the risks of Trump's tariff policy.
By Wednesday afternoon, many were praising Trump for the rollback as part of a purported strategy.
Bill Ackman, a billionaire hedge fund manager and Trump supporter who advocated for Trump to pause his trade war over the weekend, reacted to the announcement saying that “this was brilliantly executed by @realDonaldTrump. Textbook, Art of the Deal.”
The benefit of Trump's approach, Ackman claimed “is that we now understand who are our preferred trading partners, and who the problems are. China has shown themselves to be a bad actor. Our counterparties also have a taste of what life is like if they don't take down their trade barriers. This is the perfect set-up for trade negotiations over the next 90 days.”
But some industry leaders criticized the administration's back-and-forth and tariff decisions.
On Thursday, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the company was still waiting to see the impact of the tariffs but warned third-party sellers may “pass that cost on” to consumers.
“The effective tariff rate is actually HIGHER with the pause than it was as announced on April 2, due to the tariffs on China,” Diane Swonk, the chief economist of the professional services firm KPMG, wrote on social media. “There will be some diversion through connector countries. However, the effective tariff rate now peaks at 30.5% during the pause. That is worse than our worst case scenarios.”
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While Republicans and White House officials praised Trump's decisions, Democratic lawmakers such as Senator Chuck Schumer pushed back. Schumer told his supporters that “this chaos is all a game to Donald Trump”.
“He thinks he's playing Red Light, Green Light with the economy,” Schumer said. “But it is very real for American families.”
Some Democrats have made accusations of possible market manipulation.
“These constant gyrations in policy provide dangerous opportunities for insider trading,” Senator Adam Schiff said. “Who in the administration knew about Trump's latest tariff flip-flop ahead of time? Did anyone buy or sell stocks, and profit at the public's expense? I'm writing to the White House – the public has a right to know.”
The New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez echoed similar concerns, urging any member of Congress who purchased stocks over the last two days to disclose that.
“I've been hearing some interesting chatter on the floor,” she said. “Disclosure deadline is May 15th. We're about to learn a few things. It's time to ban insider trading in Congress.”
The Democratic House whip, Katherine Clark, wrote: “Two hours before announcing his tariff pause, Trump told his paid Truth Social subscribers it was ‘a great time to buy' on the stock market. Corruption is the name of their game.”
The Nevada representative Steven Horsford questioned the US trade representative, Jamieson Greer, asking the representative during a committee hearing whether the climbdown was market manipulation.
“How is this not market manipulation?” Horsford asked, to which Greer responded “No.”
“If it was always a plan, how is this not market manipulation?” Horsford asked again.
“Tariffs are a tool, they can be used in the appropriate way to protect US jobs and small businesses, but that's not what this does,” Horsford said. “So if it's not market manipulation, what is it? Who's benefiting? What billionaire just got richer?”
Tahawwur Hussain Rana, 64, to stand trial for plotting multiday slaughter carried out by 10 Islamist gunmen
A Pakistan-born Canadian citizen wanted for his alleged role in the deadly 2008 Mumbai siege has landed in New Delhi after his extradition from the United States.
Tahawwur Hussain Rana, 64, arrived at a military airbase outside the Indian capital under heavily armed guard late on Thursday, and will be held in detention to face trial.
India accuses Rana of being a member of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) group, designated by the United Nations as a terrorist organisation, and of helping to plot the attacks.
The National Investigation Agency said it “secured the successful extradition of … Mumbai terror attack mastermind Tahawwur Rana from the US”.
The extradition took “years of sustained and concerted efforts to bring the key conspirator behind the 2008 mayhem to justice”.
Donald Trump announced in February that Washington would extradite Rana, whom he called “one of the very evil people in the world”.
Rana was flown to India after the US supreme court this month rejected his bid to remain in the United States, where he was serving a sentence related to another LeT-linked attack.
New Delhi blamed the LeT group – as well as intelligence officials from New Delhi's arch-enemy, Pakistan – for the 2008 Mumbai attacks wherein 10 Islamist gunmen carried out a multiday slaughter in the country's financial capital, killing 166 people and injuring hundreds more.
India accuses Rana of helping his long-term friend, David Coleman Headley, who was sentenced by a US court in 2013 to 35 years in prison after pleading guilty to aiding LeT militants, including by scouting target locations in Mumbai.
Rana, who denies the charges, is accused of playing a smaller role than Headley, but India maintains he is one of the key plotters.
Rana “is accused of conspiring with David Coleman Headley, and operatives of designated [Pakistan-based] terrorist organisations LeT and Harkat-ul-Jihadi Islami … to carry out the devastating terror attacks,” the NIA said in the statement.
Rana, a former military medic who served in Pakistan's army, emigrated to Canada in 1997, before moving to the United States and setting up businesses in Chicago, including a law firm and a slaughterhouse.
He was arrested by US police in 2009.
A US court in 2013 acquitted Rana of conspiracy to provide material support to the Mumbai attacks. But the same court convicted him of backing LeT to provide material support to a plot to commit murder in Denmark.
Rana was sentenced to 14 years for his involvement in a conspiracy to attack the offices of the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, which had published cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad.
In February, Devendra Fadnavis, chief minister of Maharashtra state, which includes the megacity Mumbai, said that “finally, the long wait is over and justice will be done”.
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Sudan has accused the United Arab Emirates at the United Nations' top court of violating the Genocide Convention by supporting paramilitary forces in its Darfur region.
“A genocide is being committed against the ethnic group of the Masalit in the west of our country,” Sudan's acting justice minister, Muawia Osman, told the International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, on Thursday.
He alleged that a genocide was being carried out by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces “with the support and complicity of the United Arab Emirates.”
Sudan last month filed a case against the UAE at the court for allegedly arming the RSF, an accusation that the UAE has repeatedly denied.
The UAE on Thursday reiterated its rejection of Sudan's accusations, calling them “baseless and politically driven,” adding that it “supports neither side” in the Sudanese civil war, and that there is no evidence to support Sudan's claims. In its statement to the court, it questioned the ICJ's jurisdiction over the matter.
“Our only interest is in securing a lasting peace that ends the suffering of the Sudanese people and brings stability to Sudan and the wider region,” Reem Ketait, Assistant Deputy Minister of Political Affairs in the UAE foreign ministry, told CNN.
Since April 2023, two of Sudan's most powerful generals – Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who leads the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), and former ally Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo of the paramilitary RSF – have engaged in a bloody feud over control of the country which is split between their strongholds.
The ongoing civil war has caused one of the world's worst humanitarian catastrophes and diplomatic efforts to bring the conflict to an end have failed.
Based in The Hague, Netherlands, the ICJ deals with disputes between states and violations of international treaties. Sudan and the UAE are both signatories of the 1948 Genocide Convention.
Osman alleged that “direct logistic and other support” the UAE provided to the RSF and allied militias “has been, continues to be the primary driving force behind the genocide” including “killing, rape, forced displacement, looting and the destruction of public and private properties.”
Cases before the ICJ can take years to reach a final decision, and so states can ask the court to issue emergency measures that prevent the conflict from escalating.
The Sudanese minister asked the court to urgently order the UAE “to refrain from any conduct amounting to complicity” in the alleged genocide against the Masalit, and that the Gulf state submit a report to the court within one month, and then every six months until the court comes to a final decision on the case.
The United States in January found attacks against the Masalit to be genocide. Last year, a UN panel of experts found that the UAE's involvement, along with that of Chad, in the conflict was “credible.” US lawmakers have also said they would hold all major US arms sales to the UAE for “its support for the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who the United States determined committed genocide.”
Sudan's lawyers referenced a recent Sudanese government intelligence assessment provided to the court which they said showed clear evidence that UAE-backed arms deliveries to the RSF through neighboring Chad “continue even today.”
CNN has reported extensively on the atrocities committed by the RSF and its allied militias: a gruesome massacre of non-Arab people, including the Masalit, in the West Darfur capital of El Geneina, a campaign to enslave men and women there, as well as forced recruitment in Sudan's central Al Jazira state.
The UAE has repeatedly rejected Sudan's allegations, with Ketait on Thursday accusing the nation of weaponizing the ICJ “for disinformation.”
Ketait told CNN that the accusations are “nothing more than a cynical PR stunt” by the Sudan Armed Forces, adding that it is “an attempt to deflect from its own well-documented atrocities against the Sudanese people and its refusal to cease fire or engage in genuine negotiations.”
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US president posted it was ‘a great time to buy' on social media just hours before pausing tariff impositions
Donald Trump is facing accusations of market manipulation after posting on social media that it was a “great time to buy” just hours before he made a dramatic U-turn on his trade war that led to big rises in stock markets around the world.
Shortly after US markets opened on Wednesday morning, Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social: “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT”.
Less than four hours later, he shocked investors by announcing a 90-day pause on additional trade tariffs on most countries except China, sending share indexes soaring.
In America the S&P 500 blue chip index closed up by more than 9%, while the technology-focused Nasdaq index shut more than 12% up. Stocks continued to rise in Asia and Europe on Thursday, with Japan's Nikkei 225 index up by 9%, and London's FTSE 100 index rising by as much as 4% in early trading.
Trump does not usually sign off his post with his initials. Those letters happen to be the same as the ticker for Trump Media & Technology Group, the business that controls Truth Social, whose stock shot up by 22% on Wednesday.
The timing of the US president's posts and subsequent huge share jumps has sparked accusations of market manipulation. The Democratic senator Adam Schiff has called for an investigation, saying: “These constant gyrations in policy provide dangerous opportunities for insider trading.
“Who in the administration knew about Trump's latest tariff flip-flop ahead of time? Did anyone buy or sell stocks, and profit at the public's expense? I'm writing to the White House – the public has a right to know.”
The Democratic senator Chris Murphy also wrote on X that an “insider trading scandal is brewing … Trump's 9:30am tweet makes it clear he was eager for his people to make money off the private info only he knew. So who knew ahead of time and how much money did they make?”
The New York Democratic representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called for all members of Congress to disclose any stocks they had bought in the past 24 hours. “I've been hearing some interesting chatter on the floor,” she wrote on X. “Disclosure deadline is May 15th. We're about to learn a few things. It's time to ban insider trading in Congress.”
When asked by US reporters on Wednesday evening when exactly he arrived at his decision to pause the tariffs on most countries for 90 days, Trump said: “For a period of a time. I would say this morning. Over the last few days, I've been thinking about it.”
However White House officials have argued the shift was part of the strategy all along, with his press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, arguing it was his “art of the deal” at work.
Several investors have used volatility in the stock market in recent weeks as a buying opportunity. The US representative for Georgia, Republican and Trump ally Marjorie Taylor Greene, disclosed that she had made several purchases on 3 and 4 April – days when there were sharp market falls after Trump first detailed his “liberation day” tariffs on 2 April – including shares in Amazon.com and Apple. Shares in the technology companies rose by 12% and 15% respectively on Wednesday.
While Trump has paused many of the new country-specific tariffs, he has maintained pressure on China, the second biggest economy in the world. He increased the tariff on Chinese imports to 125% from the 104% level that started on Wednesday. Beijing could respond again after hitting US imports with 84% tariffs that began on Thursday.
Sell-off comes amid anger from Democrats over retreat that rattled markets, while Republicans praise Trump's ‘art of the deal' in action
US stocks fell again on Thursday morning after a historic rally following Donald Trump's shock retreat Wednesday on the hefty tariffs he had just imposed on dozens of countries.
The sell-off comes as Democrats continue to react with anger over the sudden retreat that rattled markets, while Republicans praised Trump's “art of the deal” in action, referencing Trump's 1987 book.
The Dow was down 5% Thursday morning after soaring Wednesday afternoon. The Nasdaq Composite was down over 4% and the S&P 500 down over 3.5% after jumping over 8% and 5% on Wednesday, respectively.
The sell-off steepened after the White House clarified that total tariffs on China had been raised by 145% since Trump took office.
The market seems to be in a state of fatigue after a rollercoaster week. Stocks were even unresponsive to news Thursday morning that the European Union announced it will suspend 25% retaliatory tariffs against US imports and new data showed inflation in the US cooled to 2.4% in March – both would typically be cause for optimism on Wall Street.
Trump said in an abrupt announcement on Wednesday that he would be implementing a 90-day pause on his tariff plan, and that goods entering the US from most countries would now face a 10% blanket tariff until July, except for Chinese exports, which he said would face tariffs totalling 145% effective immediately.
Republican lawmakers praised the decision to pause the tariffs, with the House speaker, Mike Johnson, stating on social media: “Behold the ‘Art of the Deal.' President Trump has created leverage, brought MANY countries to the table, and will deliver for American workers, American manufacturers, and America's future!”
Before the pause was announced, a small but growing number of Republican lawmakers and Trump supporters in the business world expressed concerns about the risks of Trump's tariff policy.
By Wednesday afternoon, many were praising Trump for the rollback as part of a purported strategy.
Bill Ackman, a billionaire hedge fund manager and Trump supporter who advocated for Trump to pause his trade war over the weekend, reacted to the announcement saying that “this was brilliantly executed by @realDonaldTrump. Textbook, Art of the Deal.”
The benefit of Trump's approach, Ackman claimed “is that we now understand who are our preferred trading partners, and who the problems are. China has shown themselves to be a bad actor. Our counterparties also have a taste of what life is like if they don't take down their trade barriers. This is the perfect set-up for trade negotiations over the next 90 days.”
But some industry leaders criticized the administration's back-and-forth and tariff decisions.
On Thursday, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the company was still waiting to see the impact of the tariffs but warned third-party sellers may “pass that cost on” to consumers.
“The effective tariff rate is actually HIGHER with the pause than it was as announced on April 2, due to the tariffs on China,” Diane Swonk, the chief economist of the professional services firm KPMG, wrote on social media. “There will be some diversion through connector countries. However, the effective tariff rate now peaks at 30.5% during the pause. That is worse than our worst case scenarios.”
While Republicans and White House officials praised Trump's decisions, Democratic lawmakers such as Senator Chuck Schumer pushed back. Schumer told his supporters that “this chaos is all a game to Donald Trump”.
“He thinks he's playing Red Light, Green Light with the economy,” Schumer said. “But it is very real for American families.”
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Some Democrats have made accusations of market manipulation.
“These constant gyrations in policy provide dangerous opportunities for insider trading,” Senator Adam Schiff said. “Who in the administration knew about Trump's latest tariff flip-flop ahead of time? Did anyone buy or sell stocks, and profit at the public's expense? I'm writing to the White House – the public has a right to know.”
The New York representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez echoed similar concerns, urging any member of Congress who purchased stocks over the last two days to disclose that.
“I've been hearing some interesting chatter on the floor,” she said. “Disclosure deadline is May 15th. We're about to learn a few things. It's time to ban insider trading in Congress.”
The Democratic House whip, Katherine Clark, wrote: “Two hours before announcing his tariff pause, Trump told his paid Truth Social subscribers it was ‘a great time to buy' on the stock market. Corruption is the name of their game.”
The Nevada representative Steven Horsford questioned the US trade representative, Jamieson Greer, asking the representative during a committee hearing whether the climbdown was market manipulation.
“How is this not market manipulation?” Horsford asked, to which Greer responded “No.”
“If it was always a plan, how is this not market manipulation?” Horsford asked again.
“Tariffs are a tool, they can be used in the appropriate way to protect US jobs and small businesses, but that's not what this does,” Horsford said. “So if it's not market manipulation, what is it? Who's benefiting? What billionaire just got richer?”
A few minutes after taking the stage, a featured speaker at a conference poses a question to the audience: Does anyone here have more than seven kids?
In many circles, asking this would be strange or surprising. But at this kickoff dinner, it's a clear crowd-pleaser.
Over the din of clinking cutlery, someone shouts out, “Nine!”
“Can anyone beat nine?” the speaker says with an auctioneer's flair. “Alright, nine has it. Congratulations!”
As the crowd responds with cheers and applause, the audience member with the winning answer adds that their 10th child is on the way.
Welcome to the Natal Conference, NatalCon for short, where a big item on the agenda is boosting birth rates.
Some 200 of the most fervent supporters of a budding movement are here, hoping this in-person meetup will help their cause find an even larger audience — before it's too late.
Many in this group are unlikely allies who share a common goal. Birth rates, they say, are plummeting to dangerously low levels, posing risks to the economy, services like Social Security and even the future of civilization itself.
And as they see it, getting more people to have more babies is the only solution.
Pronatalists are having a moment, buoyed by Elon Musk's frequent social media posts amplifying their message and early policy moves under the new Trump administration, such as Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy's memo promising more funding to places with higher birth rates.
The momentum isn't lost on organizers of this conference, who say the two-day event drew twice as many attendees this year as their first meeting in 2023, despite a steep $1,000 price tag for admission.
Organizer Kevin Dolan says pronatalists' overall goals should be an easy sell. But in some circles, they aren't.
“There's a civilizational catastrophe coming,” he tells attendees this year, “and the way to solve it is to have sex? Like, that's got to be the easiest pitch in history. So why do we have people practically clawing their eyes out they're so furious that people are advocating for this?”
In many ways, NatalCon is a typical conference scene: The nametags. The pasta salads. And a seemingly endless stream of PowerPoint presentations.
But in some ways, this gathering is notably different from others you might expect to see in the halls of a convention center. A childcare option was offered along with admission. Kids roam the halls at mealtime. Singles looking to find a like-minded match are wearing yellow wristbands. Attendees are leafing through copies of Man's World magazine in the hallway.
The mix of speakers includes professors, alt-right provocateurs and internet personalities. And on the first day, an angry handful of protesters are outside, accusing attendees of racism and promoting eugenics.
“I love that there's kids here at the hate conference,” far-right activist Jack Posobiec quips in his opening-night remarks. “You know, this massive ‘hate group' that we've all put together, and yet, in fact, it's actually just a bunch of like, moms and dads and families.”
It isn't long before Posobiec's speech takes on a more dire tone. He points out that birth rates in the US, Australia and Europe are declining.
“If we don't reverse the tide,” he says, “there are challenges, and there are dark clouds on the horizon. Everything that we have worked for and built, the cathedrals would crumble, the Constitution would fade, the West would become a memory, a footnote in someone else's story.”
This is the war for civilization, and we are going to win it, one life at a time.
Jack Posobiec in a speech at the Natal Conference
Pronatalism, he tells the crowd, is the last line of defense in a battle for the West's survival.
“The stakes are nothing less than everything. This is the war for civilization,” he says, “and we are going to win it, one life at a time.”
It's been nearly a year since Musk shared organizer Kevin Dolan's speech from the last NatalCon with his millions of followers on X, his social media platform. Dolan, a Mormon with six children and a seventh on the way, says that “undisputably” brought more attention to the issues he's trying to spotlight.
Demographer Lyman Stone, who's one of the speakers at this year's conference and director of the Pronatalism Initiative at the Institute for Family Studies in Charlottesville, Virginia, says Musk's influence in the conversation is clear. He points to a chart measuring online searches for pronatalism-related terms over time. There's a point in 2023 when interest spikes. “It gets Elon-ified,” Stone says.
“You have one of the world's most powerful and influential men, controlling one of the world's central disseminating points for ideas and information, really promoting the idea that low fertility is a major social problem. And I agree with him. It is,” Stone says.
Women are having fewer children than they want, Stone argues. And if something doesn't change, he says, that will lead to numerous social and economic problems down the line.
“People aren't getting the life they want…but also, there are material consequences of falling fertility,” he says.
Stone says he doesn't always agree with Musk's views. But the billionaire's frequent posts on the issue, he says, have brought far more attention to it.
“He's made it much harder to ignore,” Stone says.
Some pronatalists bristle at Musk's approach to the issue in his personal life; the billionaire has publicly acknowledged fathering at least 13 children with multiple women. But they appreciate his devotion to their cause.
The day this year's NatalCon began, Musk gave an interview to Fox News. He didn't mention the event, but when asked to share the biggest worry keeping him up at night, the billionaire pointed to falling birth rates.
“Nothing seems to be turning that around,” he said. “Humanity is dying.”
Many scholars who study population growth say pronatalists' concerns about a looming civilization collapse are overblown.
In the US and around the world, families are far smaller now than they were decades ago. And in many countries – including the US – birth rates have dipped below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman, which is the rate countries need to maintain stable population numbers, without accounting for migration. Experts estimate that by the end of this century, the population of almost all countries in the world will be declining rather than growing.
But that doesn't mean we're on the verge of a catastrophe, according to Philip N. Cohen, a sociologist and demographer at the University of Maryland.
Even as birth rates decline, he says, global population growth is projected to continue for the next 50 years. And even after the world's population peaks, the sizeable drop predicted would occur over hundreds of years, he says.
“What will happen is over the next couple of hundred years, the world population will fall down to where we were about 30 years ago… No one ever thought six billion people was too few. I'm not worried about that,” he says. “We've got environmental reasons to think that's good. We've got economic reasons to be concerned about what that process looks like. But we've got a lot of problems, and that's pretty far down the list.”
No policy can increase the number of babies born yesterday.
Philip N. Cohen in an op-ed criticizing pronatalism
In the short term, he says, there's another way to shore up working populations as societies age: immigration. In fact, Cohen says that's the only option, because the population will age more quickly than any babies born today can become workers.
“No policy can increase the number of babies born yesterday,” Cohen wrote in an op-ed last year criticizing pronatalism.
Karen Guzzo, a professor of sociology and director of the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, says she sees herself as an anti-pronatalist.
“I don't think we should try to make people have kids. I don't think we should try to make people get married. I think there are small nudges we could do that might raise the birth rate — you know, if we had a better safety net, if we had paid leave and paid childcare, but also economic mobility, things that make people feel certain about their future,” she says.
Around the world, she says, efforts to push pronatalist policies to boost birth rates have faltered.
“It just doesn't actually work. There have been all sorts of efforts. Some of the East Asian countries have things in place that we Americans would die to have — like these long, extended leaves, access to fertility treatments…childcare availability,” she says. “But they haven't changed the work culture, and they haven't changed men's roles, and so it's not enough.”
Skeptics of pronatalism are difficult to spot inside this closed-door conference, where a handful of security and staff are screening attendees. But a small group of protesters is chanting outside on day one, accusing attendees of racist and Nazi sympathies.
“Behind a thin veil of pseudoscience and intellectualism, this event gave a platform to fascists, race scientists, and far-right ideologues who openly promote population control, racial hierarchies, and authoritarian rule,” Arshia Papari, a spokesperson for the Austin chapter of Students for a Democratic Society, which organized the protest, told CNN in an email.
Some at the conference joke about the small protest turnout. Others seem on edge and are hesitant to speak with media covering the event. One man tells CNN he followed friends in the tech industry to this event “by accident” and fears he could lose his job for attending.
Ahead of the conference, press coverage called out some speakers as “race science promoters and eugenicists,” and students accused the event of hosting Nazis.
Dolan says he sees those labels as “white noise.”
“I've heard those words used to describe people who I just I know to be incredibly empathic, people who love everybody, people who want everybody to succeed, people who have no correlation whatsoever to any of the movements that are being described by those words ostensibly,” he says. “And so yeah, you just can't be governed by people calling you names.”
Still, he says it's no surprise some at the conference are camera-shy.
“People are afraid of being mischaracterized. … Even I have this trepidation about this thing that I've poured my heart into being sort of raked over the coals and mischaracterized and used as ammunition in this fight that I think is kind of fundamentally wrong-headed,” Dolan says.
Dolan and others attending the conference say it's common for people here to agree on big-picture problems. But there are plenty of ways they don't see eye to eye. And that's part of the point.
“You're going to hear ideas that you disagree with. You're going to hear ideas I disagree with. And I don't think that it is appropriate to rule people out when they are coming in good faith to address a problem of this magnitude,” he says.
You're going to hear ideas that you disagree with. You're going to hear ideas I disagree with. And I don't think that it is appropriate to rule people out when they are coming in good faith to address a problem of this magnitude.
Kevin Dolan, Natal Conference organizer
Dramatically disparate groups are finding space in the pronatalist scene, according to Catherine R. Pakaluk, an associate professor of political economic thought at the Catholic University of America who's authored a book exploring why certain women choose to have large families.
“It's pretty difficult to draw a neat, tidy circle around everybody here,” she says. There are those on the extreme right, she says, and those who favor more immigration. There are tech bros who favor science like artificial wombs and in-vitro fertilization. And then there are “Trad Catholics and Mormons,” she says, “people who really believe strongly that marriage is between a man and a woman, and the children that they have together.”
For her part, Pakaluk says she doesn't agree with many of the views others at the conference espouse but wanted to come and present her research.
“One of the things that often gets skipped over in any discussion of natalism today is kind of the actual lives of women who make decisions about whether or not to bring a child into the world,” she says.
Dan Hess, a writer and father of six who regularly posts his analyses of declining birth rates under the X handle @MoreBirths, says diverse viewpoints are necessary to solve what he sees as a problem of epic proportions.
“It does not get solved without a big tent,” he says. As word spreads, Hess says he hopes more liberals will join the largely conservative conversation.
Writer and public policy consultant Paul Constance says that's why he's at NatalCon.
“The politics of most of the people who are here are abhorrent to me,” he says. “But that's not the reason I'm here. I think it's a really big, big topic, and progressives need to be in the conversation.”
Simone Collins weaves through the halls with a bonnet on her head and a baby strapped on her back.
She and her husband, Malcolm, have fashioned themselves into the public face of pronatalism. They head a foundation dedicated to the cause. And many attendees at the conference say they heard about it from the couple's podcast.
The bonnet is attention-grabbing — an ironic clapback at critics who invoke the oppression of bonnet-wearing characters in “The Handmaid's Tale” when they hear pronatalists' points.
“Two things can be true at the same time. Malcolm originally convinced me to get a bonnet to troll people, and then I realized — wait, a hair covering is really useful when you're doing really messy housework and when there's all these other factors. So I wear it both to troll, and because it's useful,” Simone says.
But unlike the dystopian fiction they hope her attire will invoke, the Collinses stress that, in reality they don't want to force anyone to have kids who doesn't want to.
“This movement isn't about shaming people into having kids or convincing people with no kids to have one or two,” Simone says. “It's about making it easier for families to have the family size they want, because people are not making that number anymore.”
If more isn't done, she says, the world's diversity will suffer.
“What we're heading toward, clearly, based on many localized birth rates, is a mass extinction event of cultural and ethnic and societal diversity,” Simone says. “That is really scary. I want a future in which there are thousands of different subgroups, not three.”
What we're heading toward, clearly, based on many localized birth rates, is a mass extinction event of cultural and ethnic and societal diversity. That is really scary. I want a future in which there are thousands of different subgroups, not three.
Simone Collins
If such dire predictions are true, why, then, are so many scholars pushing back against pronatalists' concerns?
Malcolm Collins claims many demographers are simply lying about the severity of the situation because it doesn't square with their beliefs.
He also argues it's “intensely unethical” to rely on immigration to solve the problem.
“As a wealthy country, yeah, we can continue to drain these other countries and dry up their talent pools. … but we are astronomically screwing these countries over,” he says.
The Collinses have four children and a fifth on the way. Because of health issues, the couple says they've used in vitro fertilization to grow their family. They openly discuss testing and selecting embryos for health and personality traits — and they're often accused of using pronatalism as code for eugenics.
Simone Collins says that's an inaccurate comparison.
“This is just people choosing among their own embryos. We're not talking about sterilizing people or all the classic problems that are out there with eugenics,” she says.
Benjamin Detry, 19, doesn't have any kids yet. But he tells CNN he's hoping to have at least five eventually, and here at the conference, he's looking for a partner.
Detry is one of numerous attendees wearing the yellow wristbands organizers hope will help singles pair up. He says he drove to Austin from Houston, where he's a college student, and spent his savings to attend the conference. But now that he's here, he's not sure about his prospects.
“There's a lot of lads here. There's not that many ladies,” he says. “So I wonder how the matchmaking event is going to turn out. Maybe it's going to be kind of like a Coliseum battle, you know, like where the winner takes all.”
Simone Collins tells us there's a good reason fewer women are at the conference than expected. At least six speakers dropped out of the event, she says, because they were pregnant.
“People are putting their money where their mouth is. Their family comes first,” she says, “and that's what pronatalism is all about.”
There's no Coliseum battle on NatalCon's agenda. But in addition to the wristbands, the conference is offering sessions on dating, courtship and matchmaking – some led by Simone.
Organizers say they're hoping to help foster real-life connections that are hard to find in today's app-driven dating landscape.
Constance, the policy consultant, says his 29-year-old daughter had joined other liberal family members in mocking him over his participation in NatalCon. But she had a surprising reaction when she learned about the conference's matchmaking side.
“She said, ‘If you find any viable candidates, here's a photo you can share.' That's how bad the dating scene is,” Constance says.
That's one area, at least, where pronatalists and critics of this movement may agree.
CNN's Catherine E. Shoichet reported from Washington. CNN's Meena Duerson and Deborah Brunswick reported from Austin.
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Russian-American woman Ksenia Karelina, who was serving a 12-year prison sentence for treason in Russia, was released as part of a prisoner exchange that saw her swapped for an accused smuggler held in the US.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on X early on Thursday that Karelina, an amateur ballet dancer who worked as a receptionist and had graduated from an aesthetician school, had been released and was on her way to the United States.
“American Ksenia Karelina is on a plane back home to the United States. She was wrongfully detained by Russia for over a year and President Trump secured her release,” Rubio said on X.
He added the president would “continue to work for the release of ALL Americans.”
Karelina was exchanged for Arthur Petrov, a dual Russian-German citizen who was being held in the US on charges of criminal offences related to export control violations, smuggling, wire fraud and money laundering, Russian state news agencies reported Thursday, quoting the FSB, the Russian security agency.
Two US officials familiar with the matter confirmed to CNN that Karelina was swapped for Petrov. The prisoner swap took place in Abu Dhabi on Thursday and was conducted by CIA Director John Ratcliffe, the officials said. One official said that while talks about the prisoner swap were going on for some time, the discussions really took shape last week when one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's closest advisers, Kirill Dmitriev, visited Washington.
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A Russian source close to the prisoner exchange confirmed to CNN that Dmitriev played an important role in exchange discussions.
Another source with knowledge of the situations said Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff was also involved in the negotiations.
News of the exchange came as Russian and US officials were meeting in Istanbul, Turkey, to discuss embassy operations. Diplomats from the two countries have met on several occasions since Trump took office in January, as the US president pushed for the war in Ukraine to end. Efforts to secure a ceasefire appear to have stalled in recent weeks, after Russia refused to sign up to a proposal presented by the US and backed by Ukraine.
The United Arab Emirates' Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed the exchange happened in Abu Dhabi on Thursday. The ministry said in a statement that the fact that Russia and the US chose Abu Dhabi as the location for the swap reflected “the close friendship between them and the UAE.”
The ministry said it was hoping “these efforts will contribute to supporting efforts to reduce tensions and promote dialogue and understanding, thus achieving security and stability at the regional and international levels.”
Petrov was charged for criminal offenses related to export control violations, smuggling, wire fraud and money laundering, according to the US Justice Department.
He was arrested in August 2023 in Cyprus at the request of the US and was extradited to the US in August 2024. He was 33 at the time.
According to the Justice Department, Petrov was allegedly smuggling US-made microelectronics to Russia where they were used to manufacture weapons and other equipment for the Russian military.
The US put export controls on many parts that could be used to make weapons after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, an effort to cut Russia off from Western technology.
Karelina's fiance, Chris van Heerden, said he was “overjoyed” to hear that she was on her way to the US, calling her “the love of my life.”
“She has endured a nightmare for 15 months and I cannot wait to hold her. Our dog, Boots, is also eagerly awaiting her return,” he said.
Van Heerden, went on to thank Trump, his special envoys Witkoff and Adam Boehler, the Ultimate Fighting Championship chief executive Dana White and film director Peter Berg, as well as the nonprofit organization Global Reach and Wasserman Foundation Executive Director Rica Rodman.
According to a source familiar, van Heerden, a former boxing champion, coaches at Berg's gym, which is how the film director became involved in the case.
Berg raised the case to White, who then personally shared details of Karelina's story with Trump in late February, the source familiar said. This made the case personal for the president who then took action to make it a priority, the source said.
Karelina, then 33, was sentenced in August. She was convicted of treason after she made a donation of just over $50 to Razom for Ukraine, a US-based charity supporting Ukraine.
Razom for Ukraine said Thursday it was “overjoyed” to learn that Karelina had been released, saying Russia's case against her was “a farce from the moment of her detention.”
“We're incredibly grateful that she is free — but the work will not end until all Americans and Ukrainians held unjustly in Russian captivity are released and Russia's ambitions to destroy and conquer Ukraine are defeated,” the group said in a statement.
Her trial was held in the same court in Yekaterinburg where Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was convicted of espionage and sentenced to 16 years in prison last July.
Gershkovich was released in a historic prisoner swap that included former US Marine Paul Whelan, the prominent Putin critic and a permanent US resident Vladimir Kara-Murza, and the Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva.
They were exchanged for a number of Russia citizens held in several countries, including convicted assassin Vadim Krasikov.
Karelina is a Los Angeles resident and amateur ballerina who became a US citizen in 2021. She entered Russia in January 2024 but the US did not learn of her arrest until February 8, 2024.
According to a website run by her supporters, Karelina traveled to Russia to visit her 90-year-old grandmother, sister, and parents, intending to return to her home in Los Angeles after two weeks.
Karelina's release marks the second release of an American citizen from Russia since Trump returned to the White House. Marc Fogel, an American teacher detained in Russia for more than three years, was released in February. He was swapped for the accused Russian money launderer Alexander Vinnik.
The Russian source close to the prisoner exchange on Thursday said the “Marc Fogel exchange in February created additional trust and enhanced cooperation in prisoner exchanges with President Trump's team.”
The US is tracking over half a dozen Americans detained in Russia, the US official said. Among them is Stephen Hubbard who has been officially declared by the US as wrongfully detained. Hubbard, 72, was sentenced to six years and 10 months in Russian prison last year for allegedly fighting as a mercenary for Ukraine.
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Beth Benike, CEO of the small company Busy Baby, explains how President Donald Trump's tariffs and trade war are affecting her business. Benike was just named Minnesota's Small Businessperson of the year and has just gotten her products onto the shelves of Walmart and Target.
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The Israeli military has fired Air Force reservists who publicly called for an immediate return of the remaining hostages in Gaza even if it requires an immediate ceasefire, according to a statement from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
In a letter published in Israel's major newspapers, hundreds of Air Force reservists and retirees said the IDF is fighting a war for political purposes without a military goal.
“At this time, the war mainly serves political and personal interests and not security interests,” the group wrote. “The continuation of the war does not contribute to any of its stated goals and will lead to the death of abductees, IDF soldiers and innocent civilians, and to the attrition of reservists.” The letter says the signatures include pilots and air crew. The letter didn't call for a refusal to serve.
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The public letter is another sign of the growing discontent within Israel at the continuation of the war after 18 months and the failure to return the remaining 59 hostages still held captive in Gaza. Nearly 70% of Israelis support ending the war in exchange as part of a deal to free the remaining hostages, according to a recent poll by Israel's Channel 12.
Israeli reservists have become increasingly vocal since Israel broke the ceasefire with Hamas last month and returned to war, feeling the personal and financial strain of multiple tours of reserve duty and questioning the Israeli government's commitment to negotiating a return of the hostages. The simmering frustration is a potential issue for a military that relies heavily on reservists in wartime.
The IDF Chief of Staff and the Air Force commander decided to fire the reservists who had signed the letter, including those who in active service. It's unclear how many of the hundreds of signatories are active or reserve, but the IDF said it was analyzing the list to see how many more are still in the military.
“It is impossible for someone who works a shift in (an Air Force) pit to later come out and express a lack of confidence in the mission. This is an impossible anomaly,” the IDF said in a statement. An IDF official said most of the signatories are not active reservists.
Reservist navigator Alon Gur, whose name appears on the letter, was permanently dismissed last month, according to the IDF, after he said on social media that Israel had reached the point where “the state again abandons its citizens in broad daylight” and “where the king becomes more important than the kingdom,” according to widespread reports in Israeli media. Gur, who posted the statement the day Israel relaunched military operations in Gaza, said he had informed his squadron commander that he was leaving the military.
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz slammed the letter and lauded the decision to fire the signatories.
Netanyahu cast the letter as written by “an extreme fringe group that is once again trying to break Israeli society from within.”
“Refusal is refusal—whether it is stated explicitly or disguised in euphemistic language,” he said in a statement.
Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has threatened to quit Netanyahu's government if the war ends, congratulated the IDF Chief of Staff and the Air Force commander for ousting the “refuseniks” – a term used for those refusing to serve in the military.
“This swift action is essential to make it clear that we will not again accept refusals and calls for rebellion against the IDF,” he wrote on social media.
The move to clamp down on the public protest appeared aimed at stemming increasingly vocal discontent among reservists and preventing a repeat of 2023, when waves of reservists said they would refuse to serve in protest of Netanyahu's judicial overhaul efforts
Nearly all of those reservists ultimately answered call-ups they received after Israel was attacked on October 7, but that wartime unity has begun to falter as the war has dragged on.
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When Georgetown University fellow Badar Khan Suri was arrested by federal officers outside his home in Arlington, Virginia, so began a multistate, week-long journey in custody that would end in a rural jail over 1,000 miles away.
An Indian national working as a professor and studying in the US on a visa, Khan Suri was handcuffed on March 17 and taken to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Chantilly, Virginia, for fingerprinting, DNA swabs and paperwork, according to an amended complaint filed by his attorneys. He was moved to a detention center in Farmville, Virginia, in the middle of the night, and then to an ICE office in Richmond.
Next, he was taken to an airport, shackled, and flown to a detention facility in Alexandria, Louisiana. On March 20, Khan Suri was told he'd be sent to New York the next day, but he was instead driven to the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas. He was housed in a common room with a TV playing 21 hours a day, given a thin plastic mattress for a bed, went without religious accommodations for several days and was given “used, dirty underclothing” to wear, according to the lawsuit.
In all, he was transferred 1,300 miles away from home even though two Virginia detention facilities were not operating at capacity, according to the lawsuit. The transfers to Louisiana and Texas, his attorneys argued, were “not necessary.”
Khan Suri's whirlwind journey is not unique. Other detained immigrants, including Tufts University grad student Rümeysa Öztürk and former Columbia University grad student Mahmoud Khalil, were taken on similarly circuitous routes to faraway facilities. All three were arrested near their homes in urban East Coast areas and swiftly shipped off to detention facilities in rural Louisiana and Texas.
These transfers underscore ICE's power in deciding where to house detained migrants – a power that some immigration attorneys say the Trump administration is now using to move disfavored migrants far from their attorneys, families and support systems.
“We've always seen transfers within the immigration system,” explained Adriel D. Orozco, senior policy counsel at the American Immigration Council, an immigrant advocacy group. “I hadn't seen such a drastic transfer system, in the sense of sending folks from the Northeast all the way down to the South. That seems to be more of a change under this Trump 2.0.”
Khan Suri's attorneys argued in their amended complaint that the moves represent a new government policy “to retaliate and punish noncitizens” like him who support Palestinian rights or are critical of Israeli policy.
“DHS has issued a directive that all individuals who are subject to the policy be transferred to detention centers in the south of the United States to jurisdictions that Respondents perceive will be more favorable to them, and where they will be far away from their families and attorneys, and therefore unable to promptly challenge their detention,” the filing states.
For its part, ICE defends its transfer decisions in terms of practicality and logistics. A spokesperson for the agency did not comment on any other reasons as suggested in Khan Suri's complaint.
The agency says on its website that detention is “non-punitive” and that it uses “limited detention resources to detain aliens to secure their presence for immigration proceedings or removal from the United States.”
Most immigration detention facilities are located along the southern border with Mexico. In fact, about half of all ICE detainees in the US are held in Texas and Louisiana, according to data from Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a nonpartisan data research organization that tracks immigration records.
Their transfers across multiple state lines have sparked jurisdictional battles between the US government and attorneys representing Öztürk, Khalil, Khan Suri and others. While those battles play out, they continue to be held in custody more than a thousand miles from home.
None of them have had their motions for release decided by a judge, and the legality of their detention have yet to be considered by the courts. None of them have been charged with a crime.
These types of interstate transfers have long frustrated immigration attorneys, who say they can be a form of “judge-shopping” to friendlier districts and limit migrants' ability to contact their lawyers and families.
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“Part of the problem is they can be picked up and moved around like chess pieces, and that goes back many years,” immigration attorney Neil A. Weinrib told CNN last month. “They've always done that deliberately.”
For Öztürk, Khalil and Khan Suri – each detained in connection to their apparent pro-Palestinian views – the underlying explanation for being moved thousands of miles away may be less relevant than its devastating impact.
While his jurisdictional battle plays out, Khalil, who is a permanent legal US resident, is sitting inside the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center, counting down the days until his wife is due to give birth later this month.
“Justice escapes the contours of this nation's immigration facilities,” Khalil wrote in a public letter dictated to his attorneys by phone last month.
“Who has the right to have rights? It is certainly not the humans crowded into the cells here. It isn't the Senegalese man I met who has been deprived of his liberty for a year, his legal situation in limbo and his family an ocean away. It isn't the 21-year-old detainee I met, who stepped foot in this country at age nine, only to be deported without so much as a hearing.”
Court filings on behalf of Khalil, Öztürk and Khan Suri show the challenges migrants face in the detention system, including the whiplash of being arrested and shipped across the country.
In video of Khalil's arrest, recorded by his wife, she can be heard asking officers multiple times where they are taking her husband. After ignoring her for several minutes, one of the officers says he's being taken to 26 Federal Plaza – the Immigration and Customs Enforcement District Office in Lower Manhattan.
The moment set off a chain of events that are still being litigated in court.
As officers drove Khalil downtown, his lawyer raced to file a habeas corpus motion – a petition to determine whether someone is being held legally – in a federal court in New York. The process took several hours and required Khalil's attorney to work into the night.
By the time the motion was filed, Khalil had been moved across the Hudson River to a detention facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey, without notice to his attorney. The government later told a judge the New Jersey detention center was unsuitable “because the facility was dealing with bedbug issues” and lack of space. Hours later, again without notifying his counsel, he was put on a plane from JFK airport to Dallas and then to Louisiana.
“Throughout this process, Mr. Khalil felt as though he was being kidnapped,” Khalil's attorneys wrote in documents to the court. “He was reminded of prior experience fleeing arbitrary detention in Syria and forced disappearance of his friends in Syria in 2013.”
Following oral arguments on Khalil's jurisdictional battle two weeks ago, his attorneys accused the government of purposely transferring not just Khalil but all the other student detainees. Ramzi Kaseem, one of the attorneys on Khalil's legal team described the moves to CNN as part of a coordinated strategy on the government's part.
“It's this shell game where the government is trying to make it hard for lawyers to prevent them from doing this so that they can pick the court where they want these cases to move forward,” Kaseem said. “For some reason they think Louisiana gives them home court advantage. They want to cut people off from their communities, from their base of support, from their lawyers, from their families, from their schools, their friends and isolate them so that they can deport them in silence.”
In Öztürk's case, ICE officers determined there would be “no available bedspace” for Öztürk in the New England region prior to arresting her, attorneys for the US Attorney's Office in Boston said in a filing.
But the lack of resources did not stop them from launching a dash across three states as they tried to find room – something her attorneys challenged later in court, saying the government had facility options in the New England area but simply declined to use them.
Her attorneys told a Boston court last week they were unable to locate her for several hours as immigration officers bounced her around the region.
First, Öztürk was moved to Methuen, Massachusetts; then to Lebanon, New Hampshire; and then to St. Albans, Vermont, where she was held overnight, according to court documents. From there she was transferred to Alexandria, Louisiana, followed by a final stop at the South Louisiana Correctional Facility in Basile – over 1,600 miles from her home in Boston.
“This all happened without notice to the court, without notice to her counsel,” Öztürk's attorneys told reporters following a hearing in Boston last week.
One key explanation for why the government moves detainees to faraway facilities is because the majority of detention facilities are located in the southern US.
The ICE detention system is made up of hundreds of jails, prisons and other facilities, and many are concentrated along the border with Mexico, according to TRAC. Texas houses over 12,000 detainees, by far the most of any state, followed by Louisiana with about 7,000 detainees, according to March data from TRAC.
As of March 17, there was an average daily population of about 40,000 ICE detainees – meaning Texas and Louisiana house about half of all people in the detention system. By contrast, Massachusetts held just about 400 detainees on average, New York held about 650 detainees and Virginia held about 750, TRAC data shows.
The government generally has a lot of power in choosing where to house detained migrants, Orozco explained.
“Unfortunately, there is a lot of discretion – at least, ICE states they have a lot of discretion – in where they decide to transfer individuals, and they've acted in that manner,” he said.
Immigration attorneys and civil rights advocates have sharply criticized many of these facilities for mistreating migrants and preventing them from properly defending their cases. They say the isolated nature of these rural detention facilities makes it difficult for migrants to communicate with attorneys, family and friends.
“When I've had clients, the difficulty there is not having a support system, not knowing what's going to happen to you inside of those facilities. (That) can make it so that person decides that they just want to leave,” Orozco said.
For example, Orozco noted one former client who had been in the US for over 10 years, was married to a permanent legal resident and had two US citizen children. “But after three months (in detention) she said she couldn't take being in that facility anymore, and so she decided to accept her removal and leave the United States,” Orozco said.
An ICE spokesperson did not comment on the attorney's allegations of detention location being used as a punishment.
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The isolation and difficult conditions in these facilities is a form of coercion, the nonprofit advocacy group Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights said in a 2024 report on the Louisiana immigration detention system.
“In NOLA ICE detention, officials isolate people with viable defenses to deportation from the legal and language resources needed to fairly present their claims,” the report stated. “And they use abusive treatment in punitive conditions to coerce people into renouncing those claims and accepting deportation to escape the misery of detention.”
Immigration attorneys have also criticized these detention transfers as a form of judge-shopping. The idea is that the judge or appeals court in Texas or Louisiana under the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals is likely to have more conservative legal views and be friendlier to the Trump administration's actions than a court in New York or Massachusetts. Trump appointed six of the active judges on the Fifth Circuit, in addition to some two-dozen Trump appointees who sit in the district courts the circuit covers.
“I think that there's maybe that kind of determination being made given that we're not seeing every person sent to Texas or Louisiana, so they're being very selective as to making sure that some of these folks are being sent to these facilities,” Orozco said.
Whatever the underlying reasons, court filings show the transfers have had harsh personal consequences for Khalil, Öztürk and Suri.
“His children keep asking their mother when their father will come home,” Suri's filing states. “Dr. Khan Suri normally holds his older son every night at bedtime, helping him fall asleep. Lately, his son has been crying uncontrollably and has stopped speaking. He is worried especially about his older son.”
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Social Security's acting commissioner recently said out loud what many beneficiaries are thinking these days — the agency's telephone customer service can “suck.”
“We need to show how bad we suck on the telephone so we can understand the problems,” acting commissioner Leland Dudek told agency executives at an operational meeting last month that was posted on YouTube. “Then we can be truthful with the public and then figure out rational ways to solve this problem.”
Complaints about Social Security's telephone services predate the Trump administration. But changes to Social Security amid a massive reorganization spurred by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency have prompted Americans to flood the agency's phone lines with questions, including whether they'll continue getting their benefits or will need to prove their identity in person.
So many more people have been calling in recent weeks that customer service representatives tell CNN it's much harder for them to help those with more standard needs, such as applying for benefits or getting a new card.
Hundreds of people have written to CNN recently with their concerns about Social Security, including multiple readers who've spoken about long waits on hold, dropped phone calls and unfulfilled requests for calls back. Adding to the frustration is that some of those who manage to get through are told there are no available appointments with telephone specialists or at their local field offices — and are advised to try again later.
“When you call the Social Security number before open hours, you are given a message that you are calling outside of business hours,” said Linda Obermeit, who has yet to have her issue resolved despite hours on the phone and at field offices. “However, when you call a few seconds later, you are informed that there are too many people in (the) cue and to call back later.”
Asked for comment, the Social Security Administration sent a response from a White House official, who said there would be no disruptions to service.
“Under President Trump's leadership, the Social Security Administration is taking bold steps to transform how they serve the public — improving frontline customer service, modernizing their technology, protecting beneficiaries and securing the integrity of their programs,” said Liz Huston, a White House spokesperson.
Some 48 million calls have been made to Social Security since the start of the fiscal year in October, up nearly 8 million, or 19%, from the same period a year prior, according to the agency's operational report meeting from March 28, which was also posted on YouTube. Agents have answered 14.1 million calls, or almost 100,000 more than last year.
In March alone, the agency received 10.4 million calls, the highest volume in seven years, according to last week's operational report meeting.
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The share of callers who heard a prerecorded disconnect message when representatives were busy shot up to 28.4% in March, after hovering between 0% and 3.4% since November 2023, according to Social Security's performance data. Fewer than 40% of calls reached an agent last month — a smaller share than in each month in 2024.
However, the average time waiting for a call back remained relatively the same at between 132 to 150 minutes over the past seven months, while the average hold time bounced around between one to two hours during that period.
Under Dudek, Social Security has beefed up its 800 number performance website, which now shows current wait times to speak to agents and to receive callbacks. On a recent Tuesday afternoon, the wait times topped three hours. Later that evening, they jumped to more than five and a half hours.
The site also prominently shows that there's no wait for the “my Social Security” website — an effort to push more people to the agency's online services.
Representatives have been getting many frantic calls from beneficiaries because of recent media coverage of the overhaul underway at the agency, including the slashing of staff and the effort to ban applying for retirement benefits and changing bank information over the telephone. (Earlier this week, Social Security reversed its plan to ban people from filing claims for retirement benefits over the phone.)
“They're all in a panic that they're going to lose their Social Security and insisting on appointments. It's just tying us up from getting the regular work done both at the 800 number and in the field offices because they're having appointments that aren't necessary,” said Barri Sue Bryant, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 2809, which represents workers at the call center in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
Bryant blames the extended wait times on the lack of staffing. The center, which had about 650 agents before the downsizing, has lost at least 33 customer service representatives, who have taken various incentives to depart, she said. Also, it could lose its IT and security teams, which would further hamper agents' ability to do their jobs.
Last Friday, there were still 500 callback requests in the queue at midnight, she pointed out.
In Poughkeepsie, New York, the 22 staffers and managers at the agency's field office could typically get through the few hundred calls they received each day, even if it entailed long waits for customers, said Amanda Bracco, representative for AFGE Local 3343, which represents the employees at the office. But now some folks coming in person tell her they have to call but immediately got a message saying there are no available agents — and the call would then disconnect.
“To me, that means even the queue for calls is full,” she said, noting that some of those who get through tell her they are very thankful that someone answered.
Erin Siniff has experienced firsthand the change in customer service over the telephone. In September, she had to help her brother-in-law apply for retirement benefits. She received a callback after 90 minutes and secured a phone appointment for him to file for his claim 10 days later.
But she had a lot more trouble helping her 86-year-old mother file for survivor benefits after her father passed away in late February. She called for three days but never got the return calls that were promised. Finally, on the fourth day, she and her mother got a callback after waiting for six hours — although they had been told they'd get a call in 60 minutes. But the representative wasn't able to make an appointment because the calendar was full and said her mom would be contacted when a spot opened up.
A week later, Siniff took her mom to a Social Security office about 40 minutes away in Silverdale, Washington. The representative said there were no available appointments that day but that they should receive a letter within two weeks. That didn't happen, so in early April, Siniff and her mom drove over an hour to the Port Angeles, Washington, office. A representative uploaded her mom's documents and arranged for a colleague to call her later in the day to complete the process.
Siniff, who used to be a social worker for the Department of Veterans Affairs and helped scores of people file for survivor and disability benefits with little trouble, said the ordeal was very frustrating and stressful for her mom.
“Her anxiety was getting high,” said Siniff. “We were sitting there attached to a phone, waiting for a callback. If it wasn't for that young lady in Port Angeles, my mom would still be waiting.”
Obermeit, however, hasn't been as lucky. She is still trying to apply for her ex-spouse's Social Security benefits, which divorced people can do in certain circumstances and which would boost her monthly income by several hundred dollars. More than a half-dozen phone calls and five trips to agency offices have yielded no results.
Obermeit lives in rural Chiloquin, Oregon, and has poor cell service at home. So when she finally secured a phone appointment, she drove a few minutes away where the reception is better. The retired property manager sat in her cold car for more than an hour, but the call never came. A representative finally reached out after she'd returned home, but the call failed. She called back but was told there were no more appointments available.
“It is a limbo hell — a Social Security purgatory, of sorts — of uncertainty and inability to get a claim processed, despite hours of driving and phone time,” she said.
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OpenAI countersued Elon Musk Wednesday, citing a pattern of harassment by Musk and asking a federal judge to stop him from any “further unlawful and unfair action” against OpenAI, in a court case over the future structure of the firm that helped launch the AI revolution.
Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman co-founded OpenAI in 2015, but Musk left before the company became a technology star. Recently Musk, who went on to create his own AI firm, xAI, in 2023, has tried to prevent the ChatGPT maker from transitioning to a for-profit model, culminating in the current court case. In order for OpenAI to secure the entire $40 billion of its current fundraising round, the company must complete its transition by the end of the year.
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“Through press attacks, malicious campaigns broadcast to Musk's more than 200 million followers on the social media platform he controls, a pretextual demand for corporate records, harassing legal claims and a sham bid for OpenAI's assets, Musk has tried every tool available to harm OpenAI,” the company wrote in a filing in Musk's existing lawsuit against OpenAI in the US District Court for the Northern District of California.
OpenAI asked the judge to stop Musk from any further attacks, as well as that Musk be “held responsible for the damage he has already caused.”
The two parties are set to begin a jury trial in spring next year.
In response, Musk's legal team referred to a $97.4 billion unsolicited takeover bid earlier this year from a Musk-led consortium, which OpenAI rejected. “Had OpenAI's board genuinely considered the bid as they were obligated to do, they would have seen how serious it was. It's telling that having to pay fair market value for OpenAI's assets allegedly ‘interferes' with their business plans,” Musk's lawyer Marc Toberoff said in a statement provided to Reuters.
In a post on X, the social media platform that Musk owns, OpenAI said: “Elon's nonstop actions against us are just bad-faith tactics to slow down OpenAI and seize control of the leading AI innovations for his personal benefit.”
Musk's xAI last month acquired X in a deal that values the social media company at $33 billion and allows the value of his artificial intelligence firm to be shared with co-investors in X.
Last year, Musk, who is also the CEO of electric carmaker Tesla, sued OpenAI and Altman, accusing OpenAI of straying from its founding mission – to develop AI for the good of humanity, not corporate profit. Musk did not respond to a request for comment on the OpenAI filing.
OpenAI and Altman have denied the allegations, while Altman alleges that Musk has been trying to slow down a competitor.
At stake in the lawsuit is the ChatGPT maker's transition to a for-profit model, which the start-up says is crucial to raising more capital and competing well in the expensive AI race.
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India has ended a facility that allowed neighboring Bangladesh to use its land routes and ports to export goods. India's Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs announced the step on Monday, rescinding the previous policy with immediate effect.The facility, introduced in June 2020, enabled Bangladesh to export goods to countries such as Bhutan, Nepal, and Myanmar via Indian ports and airports. The announcement coincides with Bangladesh currently facing a 29% tariff on its exports to the US, while also navigating strained relations with India over former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. New Delhi is also believed to be angered by recent remarks made in Beijing by Dhaka's interim government chief adviser, Muhammad Yunus, that India's seven northeastern states that border his country were landlocked and that Bangladesh was the “only guardian of the ocean for all this region.”In a press briefing on Wednesday, Indian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said, “Logistical delays and higher costs were hindering our own exports and creating backlogs.” He added, “To clarify, these measures do not impact Bangladesh exports to Nepal or Bhutan transiting through Indian territory.”During the recent meeting between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Yunus on the sidelines of the sixth BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) Summit in Bangkok, Modi conveyed India's “desire to forge a positive and constructive relationship with Bangladesh based on pragmatism.” He highlighted, however, that “rhetoric that vitiates the environment is best avoided,” the Indian Foreign Ministry said in a statement following the talks. Industry watchers have pointed out that New Delhi's decision would help increase Indian exports such as textiles, footwear, and gems and jewelry. Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) Director General Ajay Sahai was quoted by the PTI news agency as saying that India will now have more cargo capacity. Others such as the Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) had requested the Indian government to suspend the 2020 order allowing Bangladesh's export cargo to be transshipped through Delhi, citing congestion and increased costs. AEPC chairman Sudhir Sekhri stated that 20-30 loaded trucks arriving daily were causing delays, higher air freight rates, and making Indian apparel exports less competitive. Without the transshipment facility, Bangladeshi exporters may now encounter logistical delays, increased costs, and uncertainty, according to think tank Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI). Bangladeshi news outlet bdnews24 reported that Commerce Adviser Sheikh Bashir Uddin has begun consultations with senior members of the interim government to determine the next course of action.
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We are now moving inside the room, where the UK defence secretary John Healey opens today's meeting.
He starts by thanking over 200 military planners from 30 countries working on what the coalition could do to “put Ukraine in the strongest possible position to protect its sovereignty and to deter any further Russian aggression.”
He says the plans are “well developed” with “clear objectives” of securing safe skies, safe seas, a peace on the land, and supporting the Ukrainian armed forces “to become their own strongest possible deterrent”
“Our reassurance force for Ukraine would be a committed and credible security arrangement to ensure that any negotiated peace does bring what president Trump has pledged, a lasting peace for Ukraine,” he says.
Ministers will hear a presentation from UK and French chiefs of defence, Adm Tony Radakin and Gen Thierry Burkhard on the preparatory work so far.
He says the coalition also “cannot jeopardise the peace by forgetting about the war,” with more support needed for Ukraine.
“We're stepping up. We're serious. We're sending a signal to president Putin and to [Ukraine's defence] minister Umarov and the Ukrainian people. We stand with you in the fight, and we will stand with you in the peace,” he says.
And that's concludes the open part of the meeting as their talks will continue behind the closed doors.
… and on that note, it's a wrap from me, Jakub Krupa, for today.
UK defence secretary John Healey told a meeting of more than 30 countries that the “Coalition of the Willing” was working on “putting Ukraine in the strongest possible position” as he chaired their meeting in Brussels (15:11).
But multiple countries said that there were still too many outstanding questions to commit to their participation in any future reassurance force in Ukraine (14:33, 14:47, 15:04), as they called out Russia's unwillingness to agree to a meaningful ceasefire (14:37, 15:00).
Elsewhere in Brussels, the European Commission has confirmed that the EU will put the countermeasures against US goods – adopted yesterday and due to kick in on 15 April – on hold for 90 days (12:31).
The EU “wants to negotiate, wants to talk,” the bloc's spokesperson said, adding: “We are ready to make deals.” (12:35, 12:39, 12:42, 13:03).
And that's all from me, Jakub Krupa, for today.
If you have any tips, comments or suggestions, email me at jakub.krupa@theguardian.com.
I am also on Bluesky at @jakubkrupa.bsky.social and on X at @jakubkrupa.
Elsewhere, Portugal's caretaker government on Thursday announced a package of loans and other measures worth more than €10bn to help the economy weather the impact of US trade tariffs, Reuters reported.
“The world we knew has changed, we have to adapt and react, there is no certainty about what awaits us, but we were not caught by surprise,” prime minister Luis Montenegro told a news briefing after a cabinet meeting as he announced the plan.
Economy minister Pedro Reis said the package would include €5.2bn in financing lines for companies' working capital and investment, as well as another €3.5bn specifically for investment by exporters, with €400m in grants, Reuters said.
A snap legislative election will take place on 18 May, after Montenegro's government lost a key confidence vote last month.
We are now moving inside the room, where the UK defence secretary John Healey opens today's meeting.
He starts by thanking over 200 military planners from 30 countries working on what the coalition could do to “put Ukraine in the strongest possible position to protect its sovereignty and to deter any further Russian aggression.”
He says the plans are “well developed” with “clear objectives” of securing safe skies, safe seas, a peace on the land, and supporting the Ukrainian armed forces “to become their own strongest possible deterrent”
“Our reassurance force for Ukraine would be a committed and credible security arrangement to ensure that any negotiated peace does bring what president Trump has pledged, a lasting peace for Ukraine,” he says.
Ministers will hear a presentation from UK and French chiefs of defence, Adm Tony Radakin and Gen Thierry Burkhard on the preparatory work so far.
He says the coalition also “cannot jeopardise the peace by forgetting about the war,” with more support needed for Ukraine.
“We're stepping up. We're serious. We're sending a signal to president Putin and to [Ukraine's defence] minister Umarov and the Ukrainian people. We stand with you in the fight, and we will stand with you in the peace,” he says.
And that's concludes the open part of the meeting as their talks will continue behind the closed doors.
Dutch defence minister Ruben Brekelmans says today's meeting is more “political” about various scenarios for Ukraine.
He says that many countries, including the Netherlands, need to go through domestic approval procedures for any deployment, so “it is important that there is a clear picture on what such a mission would entail.”
He explicitly says it would be important to have the US's backing, but says the exact role needed would depend on the format of the mission.
“So you use the word peacekeeping mission, it's a very different definition than a assurance mission. So it really depends on the goal of the mission,” he says.
“I think it's very important to have the United States on board. But then it also needs to be clear what type of mission and what we ask from the United States. And that's what we will discuss also today,” he says.
Back in Brussels, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas notes in her comments that it has been over four weeks since Ukraine agreed to an unconditional ceasefire, but Russia is yet to make an equivalent commitment.
“It's clear that Ukraine wants peace, but Russia, so far, does not,” she says.
On reassurance force, she says there needs to be more clarity if its role is to deter, to monitor, or to keep peace on the ground.
“And that is very much related to whether we have peace or not. So far we don't have peace,” she says.
She is asked about the fact the US defence secretary is not involved in talks today and tomorrow, but sidesteps that and merely says that “it is also in the interest of the US that there is stability and peace in Europe.”
“We have to map what we all can do so this is the position where we are and … trying to also keep the United States on board,” she says.
Meanwhile, Polish prime minister Donald Tusk spoke on the phone with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen in the aftermath of the EU's decision to suspend its retaliatory tariffs on the US.
In a social media update he said:
Defending our interests in a tough and decisive way and at the same time protecting our transatlantic alliance against all odds is our common goal. This was the conclusion of my today's talk with @vonderleyen.
Swedish defence minister Pål Jonson also said that there were “a number of questions that we need to get clarified” to progress talks on the deterrence force in Ukraine.
“I think there [are] several things that have to sorted out before we can make any kind of commitment,” he says, but does not rule out Sweden engagement.
“There is strength in numbers,” he says.
Finnish defence minister Antti Häkkänen says that allied countries see “that Russia does not have enough desire for peace,” which makes it more important to look at strengthening Ukraine's position in talks.
He says the ministers will also get military briefings on the current situation on the frontline, and have a discussion on what sorts of forces and capabilities would be most helpful as the reassurance forces.
Häkkänen says that it remains important to have the US involved in guaranteeing Ukraine's security, but does not go into details.
Arriving at the meeting in Brussels, Latvian defence minister Andris Sprūds said the group has a clear goal to “support Ukraine through strength” to push for a “sustainable” peace.
He says the so-called “reassurance force” – a form of deployment of allied troops to Ukraine to safeguard peace in case of a peace deal – will be discussed, but added that “there are several dimensions to it,” and he “would not go … public before we make some decisions.”
He said some countries had “discussions … nationally … what they can contribute.”
He confirms Latvia “considers potentially contributing,” but says eastern countries need to also maintain strong forces to protect themselves from a potential Russian aggression.
Ministers from more than 30 countries in the so-called “Coalition of the Willing” are now arriving for their meeting in Brussels.
The summit, hosted by UK defence secretary John Healey and French defence minister Sébastien Lecornu, will look at advancing their plans in support of Ukraine.
I will bring you all the key lines from their meeting here.
You can watch arrivals with me below, and the talks start at the top of the hour.
Meanwhile, France is to tighten its ban on the use of mobile phones in middle schools, making pupils at the ages of 11 to 15 shut away their devices in a locker or pouch at the start of the day and access them again only as they are leaving.
The education minister told the senate she wanted children to be fully separated from their phones throughout the school day in all French middle schools from September.
Élisabeth Borne said: “At a time when the use of screens is being widely questioned because of its many harmful effects, this measure is essential for our children's wellbeing and success at school.”
In 2018, France banned children from using mobile phones in all middle schools – known as collèges. Phones must remain switched off in schoolbags and cannot be used anywhere in the school grounds, including at break-time.
Schools have reported a positive effect, with more social interaction, more physical exercise, less bullying and better concentration. But some did report a few children would sneak into the toilets to watch videos on phones at break.
Now the government says it is necessary to go further, fully separating children from their devices for the entire school day.
This enforced “digital pause” – as the French government calls it – has been tested in a pilot scheme in about 100 middle schools for the past six months, with children giving up their phones on arrival – placing them a locker or box, or in a special locked pouch that can only be unlocked by an electronic system at the school gates as they go home.
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EU spokesperson Gill gets asked to offer more detail on EU trade commissioner Šefčovič's call with US commerce secretary Lutnick and if the EU had any advance warning of the planned US tariff pause.
He says the pair spoke “two nights ago,” and it was “a kind of, a touching base call, just for both sides to provide a state of play.”
He then says there was no advance warning and appears to question if even Lutnick knew it was coming:
“I don't believe that any mention of the American pause was coming in that call, but then I doubt that the interlocutor was aware that it was coming. I could be wrong about that, but that just my own reflection.”
But the commission spokesperson Gill is having a slightly trickier time explaining why the EU has paused its countermeasures, even though they were imposed in response to the first round of US tariffs on steel and aluminium, which actually remain in place, and not the ‘reciprocal' tariffs that were paused by Trump last night.
He says:
The answer is quite clear.
We've pressed the pause button to allow space for negotiations.
So yes, the US, steel and aluminium tariffs are now in place, not just against us, but against the entire world. And yes, the car tariffs are in place.
But we are not going to take any further steps right now, because we want to leave space for negotiation. We want to talk to our American counterparts.
He also confirms that EU trade commissioner Šefčovič spoke with US commerce secretary Lutnick “a couple of nights ago, where they just kind of took stock of where things stood,” but adds “that was before the [pause] announcement by president Trump.”
Gill also gets asked about the technical process.
He says:
We have postponed what we had planned for next week.
What happened yesterday was that member states gave us a mandate to go forward with it. That's not, that doesn't mean it has automatically happened. They've simply given us a mandate to do it.
So our intention was to publish the legal act that would allow the tariffs to click in next week and we have now paused that.
China's 84% tariffs on US products come into force amid market relief after Trump pauses steep tariffs elsewhere
China says Donald Trump's trade war with Beijing “will end in failure” for Washington, hours after the US president announced he would increase his tariffs on the country's imports to 125%.
China's own 84% retaliatory tariffs on US imports came into effect on Thursday amid an escalating trade war between the world's two biggest economies.
Beijing's tariffs are the latest salvo against Trump, who on Wednesday announced a pause to his steepest tariffs on dozens of countries, capping them at 10% for 90 days, but excluding China from the U-turn after it refused to withdraw its retaliatory measures.
On Thursday, China's foreign ministry said Beijing was not interested in a fight “but will not fear if the United States continues its tariff threats.
“The US cause doesn't win the support of the people and will end in failure,” a ministry spokesperson, Lin Jian, said at a regular press conference.
Beijing's commerce ministry was less aggressive in tone, saying “the door to dialogue is open”, and adding: “We hope the US will meet China halfway, and, based on the principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation, properly resolve differences through dialogue and consultation.”
Markets rebounded after Trump's announcement of the sudden pause, following the most volatile period in financial markets since the pandemic.
Taiwan stocks soared 9.2% in early trading on Thursday. In Japan, the Nikkei 225 was up 7.2%, while in Seoul the Kospi was up more than 5%. In Australia, the ASX 200 jumped more than 6%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index climbed 2.69%, while the Shanghai composite index jumped 1.29%.
On Wall Street on Wednesday, the Dow index soared to nearly 8% higher, while the Nasdaq rose 12.2% to its best day in 24 years, after the announcement of the pause.
A China Daily editorial published on Wednesday night said “caving into the US pressure is out of the question for Beijing”.
The head of the World Trade Organization said on Wednesday that an escalating US-China tariff war could cut trade in goods between the two countries by 80%. Given they account for 3% of world trade, the conflict could “severely damage the global economic outlook”, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said.
Chinese companies selling products on Amazon were preparing to raise prices for the US or quit that market because of the “unprecedented blow” from the tariffs, the head of China's largest e-commerce association said.
Trump's 90-day pause maintained the blanket global 10% tariff but halted the steeper reciprocal tariffs.
In response, the European Union announced on Thursday it would also pause its new tariffs against the US for 90 days, to allow time for negotiations.
“I thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line; they were getting yippy, you know,” Trump said on Wednesday when asked why he had announced the pause.
Beijing had said earlier it would impose 84% tariffs on US products from midday local time on Thursday, put 18 US companies on trade restriction lists and bring in other countermeasures. It came after Trump's “liberation day” announcement of a global tariff regime, which added a 34% tariff to the 20% already levied on China, prompting Beijing to announce reciprocal tariffs of 34%.
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Trump warned China to withdraw them or he would respond but China refused, and the two sides embarked on a series of tit-for-tat raises. Trump pledged a levy of 104% and then 125% against Chinese imports, and left them in place while announcing a reprieve elsewhere.
“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,” Trump wrote, as he announced the latest US tariff assault on China.
Questioned by reporters, he claimed China “wants to make a deal, they just don't know how quite to go about it. They're proud people. President Xi [Jinping] is a proud man. I know him very well. They don't know quite how to go about it but they'll figure it out,” he said.
The China Daily editorial said on Wednesday: “It is not that China does not understand what the unprecedentedly high tariffs mean for its exports and the economy in general.
“Profits of export-oriented industries will take a blow and the resulting decline in manufacturing investment and consumer sentiment will dampen economic growth. But it also knows that kowtowing to the US's tariff bullying will gain it nothing, given that it is no secret the US is now intent on cutting China out of its consumer market and reshaping the global supply chains to serve its own narrow interests.”
China appears to be approaching other countries in an apparent attempt to shore up trading agreements away from the US.
China's commerce minister, Wang Wentao, has said in talks with his Malaysian counterpart that they are willing to work with trading partners in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) to strengthen coordination.
He also spoke to the EU trade and security commissioner on Tuesday, saying China was willing to deepen trade, investment and industrial cooperation, and that China and the EU would immediately restart negotiations on electric vehicles.
Meanwhile, Beijing's attempts to “join hands” with Australia – which relies heavily on China for trade but has a deep alliance with the US – were rebuffed by the country's defence minister, Richard Marles.
“We're not about to make common cause with China – that's not what's going to happen here,” Marles said. “We don't want to see a trade war between America and China, to be clear, but our focus is on actually diversifying our trade.”
Trump has dismissed the market volatility, saying “sometimes you have to take medicine”, but appeared to waver as predictions of a US recession grew stronger.
Governments that were facing higher export tariffs welcomed Trump's pause, but many were still affected by sector-based tariffs.
“We received the latest US announcement positively,” Japan's chief government spokesperson, Yoshimasa Hayashi, told a regular briefing. But he added: “We continue to strongly demand that the United States reviews measures on its reciprocal tariffs, tariffs on steel and aluminium, and tariffs on vehicles and auto parts.”
EU member states had approved retaliatory 25% tariffs on up to $23bn in US goods – targeting farm produce and products from Republican states – from next week, in response to sweeping steel and aluminium tariffs imposed by Trump.
The US president announced his decision at the same time as a congressional hearing featuring Jamieson Greer, his US trade representative.
“It looks like your boss just pulled the rug out from under you,” the Democratic representative Steven Horsford, of Nevada, told Greer. “This is amateur hour, and it needs to stop.”
Agencies contributed to this report
Mistake at Queensland fertility care clinic results in woman unknowingly giving birth to another patient's baby after embryos mixed up
A woman has given birth to another person's baby after their fertility care provider mixed up their embryos.
Monash IVF, which operates across Australia, has apologised after a patient at one of its Brisbane clinics had an embryo incorrectly transferred to her, meaning she gave birth to a child of another woman.
The error was identified in February after the birth parents requested their remaining embryos to be transferred to another IVF provider.
“Instead of finding the expected number of embryos, an additional embryo remained in storage for the birth parents,” the company said in a statement.
Monash IVF said an investigation confirmed an embryo from a different patient had been incorrectly thawed and transferred to the birth parents.
It was blamed on human error.
The birth parents were notified of the mistake within a week of the incident being discovered.
Monash IVF chief executive, Michael Knaap, apologised for the bungle and said the company would continue to support the patients.
“All of us at Monash IVF are devastated and we apologise to everyone involved,” he said.
“We have undertaken additional audits and we're confident that this is an isolated incident.”
The IVF provider asked Victorian senior counsel Fiona McLeod to investigate the incident and committed to implementing any recommendations in full.
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The incident was reported to the Reproductive Technology Accreditation Committee, the Queensland assisted reproductive technology regulator.
Monash IVF reached a $56m settlement with more than 700 former patients in August after it allegedly destroyed embryos during faulty genetic screening.
The class action claimed about 35% of embryos found to be abnormal through the fertility provider's flawed genetic testing were normal.
Monash IVF Group confirmed it had reached the settlement through mediation but noted it had made no admission of liability.
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Panama promotes itself “as the bridge of the world, heart of the universe” but lately the narrow Central American Isthmus and its namesake canal that joins the Atlantic to the Pacific have become the setting for a bitter clash between the world's two preeminent economic superpowers.
The escalating war of words between the US and China over the canal has left Panama – which does not have a military – baffled and brings to mind the old proverb of how “when elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.”
From the beginning of his second term, US President Donald Trump has claimed without proof that China secretly controls the canal where around 40% of US container traffic passes through. If China's alleged influence over the canal wasn't halted, Trump threatened to “take back” the iconic waterway that the US returned to Panama in 2000, employing military force if needed.
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Trump wants to reclaim the Panama Canal. He'd be taking on a waterway facing crisis
Panama's President José Raúl Mulino rejects Trump's claims but has also made significant efforts to placate the White House, such as dropping out of China's Belt and Road investment initiative in February.
In March, US investment giant BlackRock announced a $22.8 billion deal to buy 43 ports, including two located on either side of the Panama Canal, from CK Hutchison, the Hong Kong logistics company that the Trump administration has accused of being under Beijing's control – something Hutchison denies.
But those concessions seem to have only added fuel to the White House's bellicose rhetoric, most recently this week from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth during a visit to Panama to attend the Central American Security Conference.
“I want to be very clear, China did not build this canal,” Hegseth said Tuesday. “China does not operate this canal and China will not weaponize this canal. “Together with Panama in the lead, we will keep the canal secure and available for all nations through the deterrent power of the strongest, most effective and most lethal fighting force in the world.”
Beijing angrily fired back at Hegseth's verbal broadsides.
“Who represents the real threat to the canal? People will make their own judgment,” China's government retorted.
Hegseth's statements represented a shift – Panama was again a “partner” that, contrary to what Trump had said, “operates” the canal. Still, the defense secretary stopped short of saying publicly the canal belonged to Panama.
Related article
Pentagon tasked with providing ‘military options' to ensure US access to Panama Canal, memo says
In fact, the Pentagon appeared to omit a key line to that effect from a joint statement, which in the Panamanian version reads, “Secretary Hegseth recognized the leadership and inalienable sovereignty of Panama over the Panama Canal and its adjacent areas.”
The discrepancy over the statement called into mind a similar puzzling episode in February where the State Department announced that Panama would waive tolls on US Navy ships going through the canal; Mulino the next day angrily denied his government had ever agreed to that.
But on Wednesday Panama's Canal Affairs Minister José Ramón Icaza told reporters that the Panama Canal Authority agreed to find a “mechanism” that allows US Naval ships to pass through the canal at a “neutral cost” in exchange for security provided by those ships and the US recognizing Panamanian sovereignty over the canal.
Even though, according to Panama's government, US Navy ships only spend on average a few million dollars each year crossing through the canal, the Trump administration had pushed hard for the concession from the Canal Authority which according to Panamanian law is supposed to charge all countries the same rates for crossings.
Mulino has proven to be a key ally on immigration to Washington. During the Biden administration, Mulino had already begun closing the Darien Gap, where hundreds of thousands had crossed on their way to the US and by accepting deportation flights from the US.
But there are clearly limits on which US demands he can accommodate, as his countrymen and much of the region grow exasperated by increasing saber rattling from Trump and demands for further concessions.
On Wednesday, at a news conference, Hegseth alluded to the possibility of reestablishing US military bases to guard the canal.
Minutes later, with Hegseth looking on, Panama's Security Minister Frank Ábrego flatly denied that Mulino was considering the possibility of allowing US bases in the country.
It's not clear if Trump will take “no” for an answer and as the US-China tug of war over the canal heats up, Panama is clearly feeling the strain.
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The airline has apologised and begun informing passengers who are eligible for a refund, with an average value of $55
Virgin Australia is offering refunds to more than 60,000 passengers, after an internal error led to inflated itinerary change fees being charged over the past five years.
The airline has apologised and launched an itinerary change claim program, as it begins informing passengers who are eligible for refunds over the incorrect fees charged to customers making changes to their bookings between 21 April 2020 and 31 March this year.
A Virgin Australia spokesperson said the company recently discovered the issue and launched an internal investigation, which has found about 61,000 customers – or about 0.1% of all bookings processed in the five-year window – incurred the incorrect charges.
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The airline has since taken issue to prevent the charges from occurring in the future, while appointing Deloitte to conduct the refund claim process. It has launched an online portal for the program.
The average refund amount is $55 per guest. Guardian Australia is aware of customers who have been told they are eligible for as much as a $200 refund.
Virgin's spokesperson said “we sincerely apologise to those affected guests” and noted the airline had launched the refund program proactively. It has informed the consumer watchdog of the initiative.
The refund program is open for 12 months. Eligible customers will be contacted by the airline.
“At Virgin Australia, we have policies that determine when and how we reprice a guest's booking when they make a change to their itinerary,” the spokesperson said.
“We recently found that in some instances from 21 April 2020 to 31 March 2025 some bookings were repriced in a way that does not align with our policy and we are refunding all impacted guests for that amount.”
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“At Virgin Australia, we want to do the right thing and that means acknowledging when we get things wrong and fixing it.”
The spokesperson added that “any amounts that guests elect not to claim will be donated to charity”.
“A dedicated Virgin Australia team has also been working to fix the issue and we have undertaken a range of actions to prevent this from reoccurring in the future, so our guests can be confident when making changes to their bookings.”
The refund program and apology comes as the airline's private equity owner, Bain Capital, prepares for the company to return to the Australian stock exchange in June after a five-year absence.
The refund program and renewed push to return the company to the ASX come just week after Virgin Australia appointed its new chief executive, Dave Emerson, who will lead the airline into its new partnership with Qatar Airways this year.
CNN's Elie Honig analyzes President Donald Trump's remarks that he would use the power of the Justice Department to go after two first-term critics.
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Advocacy group says the firm has doubled the number of methane gas burning turbines it's using without permits
KeShaun Pearson took a seat in front of the Shelby county board of commissioners in Memphis, Tennessee, on Wednesday morning. In the gallery behind him, a small group of people held up signs that said “Our air = our lives” and “Our water, Our future.” With a manner-of-fact demeanor, Pearson addressed the commissioners.
“I'm here because today we've learned that xAI is using 35 methane gas burning turbines,” said Pearson, who is the director of the advocacy group Memphis Community Against Pollution. “They have submitted a permit to our Shelby county health department for 15, yet they are using double that amount with no permit.”
It's been known that xAI, Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company, has been using around 15 portable generators to help power its massive supercomputer in Memphis without yet securing permits. But new aerial images obtained by the Southern Environmental Law Center show that number is now far higher. The group says these gas turbines combined can generate around 420MW of electricity, enough to power an entire city.
“xAI has essentially built a power plant in South Memphis with no oversight, no permitting, and no regard for families living in nearby communities,” Amanda Garcia, senior attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center, said in a statement. “These dozens of gas turbines are doing significant harm to the air Memphians breathe every day.”
The 35 generators xAI is using are “illegal” and a “major source of air pollution”, the law center wrote in a letter to the Shelby county health department on Wednesday. It says these high emission rates violate the Clean Air Act, including specified limits on toxic and carcinogenic pollution.
Musk fired up his xAI facility in Memphis last summer. He calls the supercomputer “Colossus” and it's tasked with providing compute power for xAI's chatbot Grok. The building that houses Colossus is the size of 13 football fields and Musk has said he plans to double that.
Artificial intelligence requires an immense amount of energy to carry out computations and provide quick responses to user queries. For example, a query with ChatGPT needs nearly 10 times as much electricity as a typical Google search query, according to a report by Goldman Sachs. In the US, the majority of that electricity comes from burning fossil fuels like coal and gas, which are primary drivers of climate change.
xAI already has contracts to draw 150MW of electricity from Memphis' local utility, which is enough to power 100,000 homes a year. But Musk has said he needs even more energy to deal with power fluctuation issues at the plant. When the first few methane gas generators appeared outside the xAI facility last summer, it caused a stir because the Shelby county health department and the Environmental Protection Agency said xAI wasn't using permits to run those generators.
It appears the company found a loophole in the system that allows it to use the gas generators as long as they're not in the same location for more than 364 days. In January, xAI applied for a permit for 15 generators, but there was no mention of the additional 20 units in the application. The company has yet to be awarded any permits.
The Shelby county health department, Environmental Protection Agency and xAI did not immediately return requests for comment.
The Southern Environmental Law Center says these generators are running 24/7 and pump harmful nitrogen oxides into the air. Within one to two miles of xAI are several residential neighborhoods, where the people who live there have long dealt with industrial pollution. This area is historically Black and has higher rates of cancer and asthma and a lower life expectancy than other parts of the city.
In its letter to the health department, the Southern Environmental Law Center says an emergency order should be issued that requires xAI to cease or suspend the use of the 35 generators. If xAI doesn't comply, the group says, it should be penalized $25,000 each day it violates the Clean Air Act.
A representative from xAI, Brent Mayo, was on the agenda to speak with the Shelby county board of commissioners on Wednesday. But he didn't show up. The commission chair said she sent three emails to Mayo notifying him of the meeting and that “we did not hear back from him”. A representative for the Chamber of Commerce, which has worked with xAI to set up its facility in Memphis, told the commissioners that xAI didn't get the emails.
Members of the community, like Pearson, did speak to the commissioners on Wednesday. They all had concerns with xAI's pollution and the multiplying of its gas generators. Pearson is from one of the neighborhoods near xAI and said both of his grandmothers died of cancer in their 60s. He believes their deaths were caused by living so close to Memphis' industrial zone.
“Nobody else should be burying their families because these rogue, rich, white, racist people continue to build projects that are suffocating us,” Pearson said. “This is all preventable.”
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Facing a global market meltdown, President Donald Trump abruptly backed off his tariffs on most nations for 90 days, but raised his tax rate on Chinese imports to 145%.
Consumer egg prices reached record heights again in March, but experts say relief may come after the Easter holiday as growers recover from bird flu outbreaks.
A carton of eggs sit on a counter in the kitchen inside of 5 Rabanitos restaurant in Chicago, Feb. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)
Eggs are displayed in a grocery store in Carmel, Ind., Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
Cartons of eggs sit on a shelf in a Walmart store, March 10, 2025, in Englewood, Colo. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)
Eggs are displayed in a grocery store in Carmel, Ind., Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
Eggs are displayed in a grocery store in Carmel, Ind., Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
Eggs are displayed in a grocery store in Carmel, Ind., Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
Eggs are displayed in a grocery store in Carmel, Ind., Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
Eggs are displayed in a grocery store in Carmel, Ind., Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
U.S. egg prices increased again last month to reach a new record-high of $6.23 per dozen despite President Donald Trump's predictions, a drop in wholesale prices and no egg farms having bird flu outbreaks.
The increase reported Thursday in the Consumer Price Index means consumers and businesses that rely on eggs might not get much immediate relief. Demand for eggs is typically elevated until after Easter, which falls on April 20.
Eggs are displayed in a grocery store in Carmel, Ind., Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
Industry experts were expecting the index to reflect a drop in retail egg prices because wholesale egg prices fell significantly in March. University of Arkansas agricultural economist Jada Thompson said the wholesale prices did not start dropping until mid-March, so there may not have been enough time for the average price for the month to decline. And grocery stores may not have immediately passed on the lower prices.
Bird flu outbreaks were cited as the major cause of price spikes in January and February after more than 30 million egg-laying chickens were killed to prevent the spread of the disease. Only 2.1 million birds were slaughtered in March and none of them were on egg farms.
Egg prices hit $5.90 in February one month after setting a record at $4.95 per dozen, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The farms that had fall outbreaks have been working to resume egg production after sanitizing their barns and raising new flocks, but chickens must be about six months old before they start laying eggs. Thompson said those farms did not come back online as quickly as anticipated.
Eggs are displayed in a grocery store in Carmel, Ind., Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
In the latest U.S. Department of Agriculture numbers, there were only about 285 million hens laying eggs nationwide as of March 1, Before the outbreak, the flock typically numbered more than 315 million.
Since the current bird flu outbreak began, more than 168 million birds have been slaughtered, most of them egg-laying chickens. Any time a bird gets sick, the entire flock is killed to help keep bird flu from spreading. That can have an effect on the egg supply because massive egg farms may have millions of birds.
Eggs are displayed in a grocery store in Carmel, Ind., Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
Trump tried to take credit for the lower wholesale egg prices the USDA reported in recent weeks.
“The egg prices they were going through the sky. And you did a fantastic job,” Trump said to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins before he announced the details of his tariffs at the White House last week. ”Now we have lots of eggs and they are much cheaper now.”
But experts say the president's plan to fight bird flu by focusing on strengthening egg farmers' defenses against the virus is likely to be more of a long-term help.
The Agriculture Department tried to find egg imports to add to the supply and nearly 4 million dozens of eggs were brought into the country in February. But egg traders saw an opportunity with the high prices and 7.6 million dozens were exported. Numbers for March were not yet available.
“I think there are lots of people who are looking to see the egg prices coming down because they wanted to call it a win. And I think it's a loss for everybody. I think we all want to see egg prices come down,” Thompson said.
Rollins on Thursday suggested the rise in egg prices is temporary. She pointed to the overall consumer price index showing a slight dip in prices for goods and services across the U.S. economy in March and suggested egg prices will soon follow.
“We're also moving into the Super Bowl of eggs, which is Easter,” Rollins said. “So from the beginning, I've said this is sort of the high price for retail for eggs, but we feel very confident that will continue to come back down.”
Earlier this week, Trump said the annual White House egg roll would use real eggs again this year despite the high prices. Egg farmers typically donate more than 30,000 eggs for the event.
Eggs are displayed in a grocery store in Carmel, Ind., Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
U.S. egg prices did began falling in mid-March, according to Datasembly, a market research company that tracks prices at thousands of stores. Datasembly said eggs averaged $5.98 per dozen the week beginning March 16 and dropped to $5.51 the week beginning March 30.
But prices vary widely around the country, depending on the location of recent bird flu outbreaks and some state laws requiring eggs to be cage-free. At a Walmart in Richmond, California, a dozen eggs were $6.34 on Thursday. In Omaha, Nebraska, Walmart was selling eggs for $4.97 per dozen. California requires eggs sold to be cage-free; Nebraska doesn't.
The latest numbers could increase scrutiny of Cal-Maine Foods, which provides 20% of the nation's eggs, and other large egg producers.
Earlier this week, Cal-Maine acknowledged it is being investigated by the antitrust division of the U.S. Department of Justice, which is looking into egg price increases. Cal-Maine said it is cooperating with the investigation.
In its most recent quarter, which ended March 1, Cal-Maine said its net income more than tripled to $508.5 million compared to the same period a year ago.
The price of real eggs has some consumers turning to fake ones for Easter crafts this year.
Craft retailer Michaels said sales of its plastic egg craft kits — which were listed for $2.49 on the company's website Thursday — are up 20% over last year. Michaels said sales usually peak closer to Easter, but it started seeing a noticeable uptick in early March this year.
“With a little over a week still to go until Easter, our craft egg kits are nearly sold out,” the company said.
___
Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani contributed to this report.
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National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett discusses the trade progress after President Donald Trump paused most global tariffs for 90 days
FIRST ON FOX: Efforts to remove Chinese-owned GNC from U.S. military bases gained momentum this week as Sen. Ted Budd, R-N.C., introduced companion legislation to a House-led bill targeting the nutrition retailer.
Some 85 GNC stores currently operate on American military installations. Rep. Pat Harrigan, R-N.C., first introduced a bill to ban the company from doing business on American bases, citing national security and espionage concerns.
Now, fellow North Carolina Republican Budd is leading a similar effort in the Senate, decrying the stores as hubs to "exploit personal data."
Budd, joined by Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Rick Scott, R-Fla., introduced the Military Installation Retail Security Act, which would prohibit the Department of Defense from allowing businesses owned by adversarial nations – including China, Russia, Iran and North Korea – to operate on U.S. bases.
CHINESE-OWNED GNC STORES OPERATING ON US MILITARY BASES SPARK NATIONAL SECURITY CONCERNS
Sen. Ted Budd was one of three GOP senators who signed onto a bill to ban the Defense Department from authorizing companies owned by adversarial nations on U.S. bases. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)
At North Carolina's Fort Bragg, four GNC stores service approximately 53,700 troops, nearly 10% of the U.S. Army.
"Adversarial nations have no place owning and operating businesses on U.S. military bases, all the while gaining personal identification information of American citizens, just to turn a profit," Budd said in a statement.
"We shouldn't be allowing Chinese-affiliated companies in the United States, let alone on our military bases. This bill will ensure our adversaries can't exploit our military," Cotton added.
While much of Congress has focused on preventing Chinese land acquisitions near U.S. military installations, Harrigan said he was alarmed to find that a Chinese-owned company was already operating on U.S. bases largely unnoticed.
"It's even crazier [than foreign land purchases]," Harrigan told Fox News Digital last week.
In June 2020, vitamin retailer GNC filed for bankruptcy and was fully acquired by Harbin Pharmaceuticals – a partially state-owned Chinese enterprise that had already purchased a 40% stake in the company in 2018.
HEGSETH SAYS PANAMA AGREED TO ALLOW US WARSHIPS TO TRAVEL 'FIRST AND FREE' THROUGH CANAL
GNC was acquired by Chinese Harbin pharmaceuticals in 2020. (Reuters/Mario Anzuoni)
In 2019, GNC agreed to integrate its manufacturing with International Vitamin Corporation (IVC), which has a consortium of Chinese investors.
The company, founded in Pittsburgh, had already been operating on U.S. bases for years at the time of its sale, and thus its potential to help with Chinese surveillance on military bases was overlooked.
Roughly 85 GNC stores on military installations operate under "long-term concessions" contracts, meaning they are operated, staffed and supplied directly by GNC.
"I'm glad to have Sen. Budd step in to help drive this forward and make sure CCP-owned companies have zero place inside America's military infrastructure," Harrigan said of the new Senate bill.
In a statement to Fox News Digital, a GNC spokesperson pushed back on the legislation, saying: "Our systems are independently monitored and meet strict federal standards, partaking in multiple audits throughout the year."
"We love our military customers. Their well-being, whether it's their personal health or the safety of their information, will always come first. We're honored to be part of their communities and will continue to safeguard their information just like we do all our customers," GNC said.
Harrigan said the stores could identify individuals with vulnerabilities by tracking frequent purchases of testosterone, sleep aids or any other supplements. It could also potentially monitor deployment cycles based on changes in buying patterns, he added.
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In-store WiFi and mobile data tracking could reveal troop geolocations, Harrigan claimed, and loyalty apps or promo emails could be used to embed malicious links or software.
"This should be common sense," said Scott. "Allowing companies controlled by our biggest foreign adversaries – like Communist China, Russia and North Korea – to operate on U.S. military bases is a completely unacceptable threat."
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Watch live as House Republicans take up one of President Donald Trump's top election-related priorities, legislation that would require proof of citizenship when registering to vote in federal elections.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House passed one of Republicans' signature issues for the year on Thursday, approving legislation to require proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote for federal elections, one of President Donald Trump's top election-related priorities.
Nearly all Democrats lined up against the bill and warned that it risks disenfranchising millions of Americans who do not have ready access to the proper documents.
Trump has long signaled a desire to change how elections are run in the U.S. and last month issued a sweeping executive order that included a citizenship requirement among other election-related changes.
Republicans argued the legislation, known as the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, is necessary to ensure only citizens vote in U.S. elections and would cement Trump's order into law.
U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, a Wisconsin Republican who chairs the House committee that handles election legislation, said during Thursday's debate that the bill is meant to “restore Americans' confidence in our elections” and prevent noncitizens from voting.
This marks Republicans' second attempt at passing the SAVE Act. It passed the House last year but failed in the Senate amid Democratic opposition.
It's unlikely to fare any better this year. While Republicans won control of the Senate last fall, they have a narrow majority that falls short of the 60 votes they would need to overcome a filibuster.
Republicans hammered on the issue during last year's presidential election, even though voting by noncitizens is rare, already is illegal and can lead to felony charges and deportation.
The SAVE Act would require all applicants using the federal voter registration form to provide documentary proof of citizenship in person at their local election office. Among the acceptable documents are a valid U.S. passport and a government-issued photo ID card presented alongside a certified birth certificate.
Democrats and voting rights groups warn the legislation could lead to widespread voter disenfranchisement if it were to become law. The Brennan Center for Justice and other groups estimated in a 2023 report that 9% of U.S. citizens of voting age, or 21.3 million people, do not have proof of their citizenship readily available. Almost half of Americans don't have a U.S. passport.
In Kansas, a proof-of-citizenship requirement that passed in 2011 ended up blocking the voter registrations of more than 31,000 U.S. citizens in the state who were otherwise eligible to vote. The law was later declared unconstitutional by a federal court and hasn't been enforced since 2018.
“Just to exercise their inalienable right as citizens of this country, Republicans would force Americans into a paperwork nightmare,” said Rep. Joe Morelle, a Democrat from New York. “This bill is really about disenfranchising Americans — not noncitizens, Americans.”
A further concern came up several times Thursday: Married women would need multiple documents to prove their citizenship if they have changed their name.
It was a complication that arose in town hall elections held last month in New Hampshire, which was enforcing a new state law requiring proof of citizenship to register. One woman, since divorced, told a local elections clerk that her first marriage was decades ago in Florida and that she no longer had the marriage certificate showing her name change. She was unable to register and vote for her town election.
“This legislation would immediately disenfranchise the 69 million women who have changed their names after marriage or divorce,” said Rep. Deborah Ross, a Democrat from North Carolina.
Rep. Laurel Lee, a Republican from Florida, said the bill “contemplates this exact situation” of married women whose names have changed, saying it “explicitly directs states to establish a process for them to register to vote.”
Morelle countered by saying, “Why not write it in the bill? Why are we making the potential for 50 different standards to be set? ... How much paperwork do Republicans expect Americans to drown in?”
On a call with reporters Thursday, Vermont Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas, a Democrat, said she started trying to gather her own personal documents that would be required under the bill about 10 days ago. She doesn't yet have them together despite having more time and know-how than many other people.
“It pushes women out of the democratic process,” she said of the documentation requirement. “And it's not a coincidence. It's part of a strategy to make voting harder, to sow distrust in our elections.”
Democrats also said the bill would disproportionately affect older people in assisted care facilities, military service members who wouldn't be able to solely use their military IDs, people of color and working-class Americans who may not have the time or money to jump through bureaucratic hoops.
“The SAVE Act is everything our civil rights leaders fought against,” said Rep. Nikema Williams, a Democrat from Georgia.
Republicans have defended the legislation as necessary to restore public confidence in elections and say it allows states to adopt procedures to help voters comply. They have disputed Democratic characterizations of the bill.
Four Democrats voted in favor of the legislation: Reps. Ed Case of Hawaii, Henry Cuellar of Texas, Jared Golden of Maine and Marie Perez of Washington.
“The truth is, those who were registered to vote would still be able to vote under their current registration,” said Rep. Chip Roy, a Texas Republican who sponsored the bill. “We have mechanisms giving the state fairly significant deference to make determinations as to how to structure the situation where an individual does have a name change, which of course is often women.”
On Thursday, Roy said Cleta Mitchell, a key figure in Trump's campaign to overturn the 2020 election results, “had a significant hand in what we're doing here.” Mitchell, a longtime GOP lawyer, has played a central role in coordinating the movement to tighten voting laws across the country.
Trump lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden but has repeatedly made the bogus claim that it was stolen from him. There is no evidence to support Trump's claim: Elections officials and his own attorney general rejected the notion, and his arguments have been roundly dismissed by the courts, including judges he appointed.
Adrian Fontes, a Democrat who serves as Arizona's top state election official, described the voting proposal as a solution in search of a problem, given how rare noncitizen voting is.
“What it is doing is capitalizing on fear -- fear built on a lie,” Fontes said. “And the lie is that a whole bunch of people who aren't eligible are voting. That's just not true.”
___
Cassidy reported from Atlanta, Fernando from Chicago. Associated Press writer Geoff Mulvihill in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, contributed to this report.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
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The Federal Aviation Administration will investigate after two American Airlines regional jets bumped wings at Washington's Ronald Reagan National Airport.
“The wingtip of American Airlines Flight 5490 struck American Airlines Flight 4522 on a taxiway… around 12:45 p.m,” the FAA said in a statement.
Flight 5490 was headed to Charleston, South Carolina while flight 4522 was headed to JFK International Airport in New York.
“BlueStreak 5490, did we hit the aircraft next to us,” the pilot flying asks the tower in air traffic control audio captured by the website LiveATC.net
BlueStreak is the callsign for PSA Airlines, which operated the flight for American. The other plane was operated by Republic Airways.
“We think we might have hit the (Embraer) 175 short of (runway) 19,” the pilot says. “We just heard a loud, like a boom, like a thunk, before we took the runway,”
The winglet, which is a type of aerodynamic wing tip, was reported to have broken off.
“We can see a piece of a winglet on the ground behind the right wing of the Embraer,” the control tower was told by a pilot.
“Insane,” Rep. Josh Gottheimer, who was on one of the planes, told CNN. “Sitting there on runway and another plane hit… our wing.”
“Serving in Congress has come with some once in a lifetime experiences… like just now while stationary on the runway at DCA, another plane just bumped into our wing,” Rep. Nick LaLota posted to social media. “Heading back to the gate, but thankfully everyone is ok!.
In a lighthearted part of the post he noted Rep. Grace Meng was handing out grapes to other passengers.
“There is no effect on flight operations at Reagan National Airport, as both aircraft have returned to gates and no injuries were reported,” the airport said in a statement to CNN.
The aviation fender bender comes as the airport is coping with a series of recent incidents, including a mid-air collision in January that left 67 people dead and a military flyover last month that came dangerously close to a departing plane.
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Several U.S. lawmakers on Thursday were aboard an aircraft awaiting takeoff at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) when another plane "bumped" into its wing.
Rep. Nick LaLota, R-N.Y., wrote in a post on X that no one onboard was injured.
"Serving in Congress has come with some once in a lifetime experiences… like just now while stationary on the runway at DCA, another plane just bumped into our wing," LaLota wrote.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) confirmed in a preliminary statement that the wingtip of American Airlines Flight 5490 struck American Airlines Flight 4522 on a taxiway at DCA at around 12:45 p.m. local time.
PLANE UNDERGOES SECURITY SEARCH ‘AWAY FROM MAIN TERMINAL' NEAR DC AFTER OMINOUS SOUND REPORTED DURING FLIGHT
Rep. Nick LaLota shared a photo from aboard a plane after he said a second plane clipped its wing while on the tarmac of DCA on Thursday. (Rep. Nick LaLota / X)
American Airlines confirmed the incident and said, "Safety is our top priority, and we apologize to our customers for their experience."
The two planes involved in the wing clip included a Bombardier CRJ 900 with 76 passengers and four crew members headed to Charleston International Airport in South Carolina, and an Embraer E175 with 67 customers and four crew members headed to JFK International Airport in New York.
The planes were taken out of service and inspected by maintenance teams, American Airlines said. The damage was limited to a winglet on each aircraft, the airline said.
The Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority also confirmed the incident in a statement.
"There is no effect on flight operations at Reagan National Airport, as both aircraft have returned to gates and no injuries were reported," the statement said.
LaLota said that Rep. Grace Meng, D-N.Y., who was also onboard the plane, was handing out snacks to passengers as they waited to return to the gate.
SMALL AIRPLANE SKIDS OF RUNWAY INTO BAY DURING BOTCHED LANDING AT OREGON AIRPORT
"Glad my colleagues and I are okay! We are safely waiting on the tarmac, but we may need more snacks," Meng wrote in her own post on X. "I'm grateful no one was hurt today, but this incident underscores this urgent need [to] restore all FAA jobs that keep our runways safe."
Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., was also on the plane when a second aircraft apparently clipped its wing.
"While waiting to take off on the runway at DCA just now, another plane struck our wing," Gottheimer wrote. "Thankfully, everyone is safe."
The Democrat added: "Just a reminder: Recent cuts to the FAA weaken our skies and public safety."
LaLota's office told Fox News Digital in a statement that Reps. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., Richie Torres, D-N.Y., and Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., were among the passengers aboard the plane.
"Congressman LaLota intends to bring this firsthand experience to his work in Congress, advocating for stronger aviation oversight and enhanced public safety to help prevent similar incidents in the future," his office said.
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The FAA said the agency will investigate the incident.
Fox News' Grady Trimble and Ashley Cozzolino contributed to this report.
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'Special Report' anchor Bret Baier joins 'The Brian Kilmeade Show' to discuss the latest on President Donald Trump's tariffs, new details on Joe Biden's mental decline and the debate over paying college athletes.
FIRST ON FOX: A bipartisan duo of House lawmakers is moving to ensure the U.S. government is free from Chinese-made technology after President Donald Trump hiked tariffs against Beijing.
Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Texas, is leading the Securing America's Federal Equipment (SAFE) Supply Chains Act alongside Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif.
It would impose new guardrails on the technology the U.S. government is able to purchase by forcing a federal agency or office to only purchase it from "original equipment manufacturers" or "authorized resellers," according to the bill text obtained by Fox News Digital.
TRUMP SAYS HE'LL 'TAKE A LOOK' AT EXEMPTING SOME LARGER US COMPANIES HIT ESPECIALLY HARD BY TARIFFS
Chinese President Xi Jinping, left, and U.S. President Donald Trump, right (Getty Images)
The bill targets U.S. government technology purchased through the "gray market," an alternative channel for purchasing and selling genuine goods without the authorization of the manufacturer.
Fallon said his bill "dovetails" with Trump's hawkish stance on China.
"With the rising threat posed by Chinese aggression, not only in the Indo-Pacific, but here at home by means of artificial intelligence and cyberattacks, it's critical that the Department of Defense secure its vital infrastructure," Fallon explained to Fox News Digital.
"In order to do so, we must ensure that the U.S. military only purchases electronic equipment from approved vendors that are free from adversarial, particularly [Chinese Communist Party], influence."
Rep. Pat Fallon questions witnesses during a House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing on the U.S. southern border in the Rayburn House Office Building Feb. 7, 2023, in Washington. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
He praised Trump's "bold leadership" in the U.S. "breaking its dependency on Communist China."
"The SAFE Supply Chains Act dovetails with this endeavor and is in the best interest of U.S. national security," he said.
The White House said Thursday it had imposed 145% in new tariffs on China, up from the 125% Trump announced the day before.
DONALD TRUMP'S ALLIES, SUPPORTERS AND DONORS, LED BY ELON MUSK, PUSH TO END TARIFF WAR
While hiking rates on China, Trump said he would reduce tariffs on other countries that did not retaliate against the U.S. to his baseline of 10%.
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"Look, for years we've been ripped off and taken advantage of by China — and others, in all fairness — but by China, there's a big one. And it's just one of those things," Trump said Wednesday.
Fallon's bill has a counterpart in the Senate led by senators John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Gary Peters, D-Mich.
Elizabeth Elkind is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital leading coverage of the House of Representatives. Previous digital bylines seen at Daily Mail and CBS News.
Follow on Twitter at @liz_elkind and send tips to elizabeth.elkind@fox.com
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'Special Report' anchor Bret Baier joins 'The Brian Kilmeade Show' to discuss the latest on President Donald Trump's tariffs, new details on Joe Biden's mental decline and the debate surrounding paying college athletes.
The White House slammed Democrats for playing "partisan games" and calling for an investigation into alleged insider trading after President Donald Trump paused customized reciprocal tariffs for 90 days on Wednesday.
"It is the responsibility of the President of the United States to reassure the markets and Americans about their economic security in the face of nonstop media fearmongering. Democrats railed against China's cheating for decades, and now they're playing partisan games instead of celebrating President Trump's decisive action yesterday to finally corner China," White House spokesman Kush Desai said in comment to Fox Digital when asked about Democrats claiming Trump manipulated the market.
Sens. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., wrote a letter on Thursday to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, as well as Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, calling for an investigation into potential insider trading.
"This sequence of events raises grave legal and ethics concerns. The President, his family, and his advisors are uniquely positioned to be privy to and take advantage of non-public information to inform their investment decisions," the senators wrote.
TRUMP SAYS HE'LL 'TAKE A LOOK' AT EXEMPTING SOME LARGER US COMPANIES HIT ESPECIALLY HARD BY TARIFFS
President Donald Trump holds a chart as he delivers remarks on reciprocal tariffs during an event titled "Make America Wealthy Again" in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, D.C., on April 2. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)
Trump, ahead of pausing the reciprocal tariffs, posted to Truth Social, "BE COOL! Everything is going to work out well. The USA will be bigger and better than ever before!" and "THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT." The president had previously said he would not pause tariffs but was open to negotiating with other nations.
Trump paused only the higher, customized tariffs he placed on nations that historically installed trade barriers on U.S. goods, with nations across the world instead facing a lower 10% tariff on goods, as the Trump administration and world leaders hash out negotiations for the reciprocal tariffs.
DONALD TRUMP'S ALLIES, SUPPORTERS AND DONORS, LED BY ELON MUSK, PUSH TO END TARIFF WAR
Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., wrote a letter calling for an investigation into potential insider trading. (Screenshot/NBC)
China, however, was not part of the tariff pause and was instead hit with a higher 125% tariff after retaliating with its own additional tariffs against the U.S.
"I'm going to do my best to find out," Schiff, who has long been a Trump foe, told Time of investigating the president for alleged insider trading. "Family meme coins and all the rest of it are not beyond insider trading or enriching themselves. I hope to find out soon."
CHARLIE GASPARINO BREAKS DOWN TRUMP'S TARIFF PAUSE: ‘THIS IS WHAT FORCED THE HAND'
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the customized tariffs were paused due to Trump wanting to be "personally involved" in negotiations as dozens of nations contacted the White House to strike deals.
President Donald Trump is keeping high tariffs in place on China, while putting a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs for countries that have said they are open to negotiation. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
"We've had more than 75 countries contact us. And I imagine after today, there will be more. So it is just a processing problem. Each one of these solutions is going to be bespoke. It is going to take some time. And President Trump wants to be personally involved. So, that's why we're getting the 90-day pause," Bessent said during a gaggle with the media outside the White House on Wednesday afternoon.
Trump added on Wednesday that he was watching the volatile bond market, calling it "tricky" and making people a "little queasy," but denied it persuaded him to change course on customized tariffs.
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"I thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line. They were getting yippy. You know, they we're getting a little bit yippy, a little bit afraid, unlike these champions, because we have a big job to do. No other president would have done what I did. … I know the presidents, they wouldn't have done it, and it had to be done," Trump added in his remarks.
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A U.S.-Russian dual national jailed in Russia on treason charges was freed Thursday in a prisoner exchange with Washington, the woman's lawyer and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said. (Produced by Elaine Carroll)
This photo released by the state-run WAM news agency shows Yousef al-Otaiba, the UAE ambassador to the U.S., left, standing next to U.S.-Russian dual national Ksenia Karelina after her release at an airport in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (WAM via AP)
Ksenia Karelina sits in a glass cage in a court room in Yekaterinburg, Russia, Thursday, June 20, 2024. (AP Photo, File)
This photo released by the state-run WAM news agency shows U.S.-Russian dual national Ksenia Karelina getting on a private jet after her release at an airport in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (WAM via AP)
Ksenia Karelina speaks with her lawyer while standing in a glass cage in a court room in Yekaterinburg, Russia, Aug. 15, 2024. (AP Photo, File)
Ksenia Karelina sits in a glass cage in a court room in Yekaterinburg, Russia, Aug. 15, 2024. (AP Photo, File)
President Donald Trump greets Marc Fogel on the South Lawn at the White House, Feb. 11, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
Basketball player Brittney Griner listens to her verdict while standing in a cage in a courtroom in Khimki, outside Moscow, Russia, Aug. 4, 2022. (Evgenia Novozhenina/Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE – Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who was exchanged for U.S. basketball player Brittney Griner, speaks to the media at an opening for an exhibition of his artworks at the Mosfilm studio in Moscow, Russia, March 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Moscow freed a Russian American convicted of treason in exchange for a Russian German man jailed on smuggling charges in the U.S., a prisoner swap that was completed Thursday as the two countries met to repair ties.
Ksenia Karelina is “on a plane back home to the United States,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a post on social media platform X. She was arrested in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg in February 2024 and convicted of treason on charges stemming from a donation of about $52 to a charity aiding Ukraine. U.S. authorities have called the case “absolutely ludicrous.”
This photo released by the state-run WAM news agency shows Yousef al-Otaiba, the UAE ambassador to the U.S., left, standing next to U.S.-Russian dual national Ksenia Karelina after her release at an airport in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (WAM via AP)
Arthur Petrov was released as part of a swap in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, according to the Federal Security Service, or FSB, Russia's main security and counterintelligence agency. Petrov was arrested in Cyprus in August 2023 at the request of the U.S. on charges of smuggling sensitive microelectronics to Russia and extradited to the U.S. a year later.
Karelina was among a growing number of Americans arrested in Russia in recent years as tensions between Moscow and Washington spiked over the war in Ukraine. Her release is the latest in a series of high-profile prisoner exchanges Russia and the U.S. carried out in the last three years — and the second since President Donald Trump took office and reversed Washington's policy of isolating Russia in an effort to end the war in Ukraine.
CIA director John Ratcliffe hailed “the CIA officers who worked tirelessly to support this effort.” The CIA also emphasized that “the exchange shows the importance of keeping lines of communication open with Russia, despite the deep challenges in our bilateral relationship.”
President Donald Trump greets Marc Fogel on the South Lawn at the White House, Feb. 11, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
Meanwhile, Russian and U.S. diplomats met in Istanbul for a second round of talks on normalizing embassies' work following the first such meeting in February. The State Department said the delegations “exchanged notes to finalize an understanding to ensure the stability of diplomatic banking for Russian and U.S. bilateral missions.”
Ksenia Karelina sits in a glass cage in a court room in Yekaterinburg, Russia, Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024.(AP Photo/File)
It said the U.S. reiterated its concerns about the Russian ban on hiring of local staff, “the key impediment to maintaining for stable and sustainable staffing levels at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.”
Alexander Darchiyev, Russia's ambassador to Washington who led Moscow's delegation in the talks, praised their “positive atmosphere” and noted the parties agreed to continue discussions to facilitate diplomats' travel. He added that the Russian side also pushed for a quick return of its diplomatic property seized by U.S. authorities.
In February, Russia released American teacher Marc Fogel, imprisoned on drug charges, in a swap that the White House described as part of a diplomatic thaw that could advance peace negotiations. That same month, Russia released another American just days after arresting him on drug smuggling charges.
Karelina, a former ballet dancer also identified in some media as Ksenia Khavana, lived in Maryland before moving to Los Angeles. She was arrested when she returned to Russia to visit her family last year.
The FSB accused her of “proactively” collecting money for a Ukrainian organization that was supplying gear to Kyiv's forces. The First Department, a Russian rights group, said the charges stemmed from a $51.80 donation to a U.S. charity aiding Ukraine.
Karelina's lawyer, Mikhail Mushailov, said on Instagram that she had been in touch with her family since her release.
AP correspondent Laurence Brooks reports on a prisoner swap between Moscow and Washington.
This photo released by the state-run WAM news agency shows U.S.-Russian dual national Ksenia Karelina getting on a private jet after her release at an airport in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (WAM via AP)
“I am overjoyed to hear that the love of my life, Ksenia Karelina is on her way home from wrongful detention in Russia,” Karelina's fiancé, Chris van Heerden, said in a statement. “She has endured a nightmare for 15 months and I cannot wait to hold her. Our dog, Boots, is also eagerly awaiting her return.”
He thanked Trump and his envoys, as well as prominent public figures who had championed her case.
White House national security adviser Mike Waltz said on X that “President Trump and his administration continue to work around the clock to ensure Americans detained abroad are returned home to their families.”
The exchange was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
Karelina was headed to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, according to a person familiar with the situation who insisted on anonymity to discuss her case.
The United Arab Emirates' state-run WAM news agency released photos of Karelina boarding a plane and one of her standing next to Yousef al-Otaiba, the UAE's ambassador to the U.S.
The FSB, which said President Vladimir Putin had pardoned Karelina before the swap, released a video showing her being escorted to a plane somewhere in Russia. The footage then featured of what appeared to be the scene of exchange at the Abu Dhabi airport, with Petrov walking off a plane and shaking hands with Russian officials on the tarmac.
The video showed Petrov undergoing medical checkups on a flight to Russia. “I have no particular complaints, just a bit tired,” he said.
Another video released by the FSB later in the day showed him walking off a plane after arriving in Russia.
Petrov was accused by the U.S. Justice Department of involvement in a scheme to procure microelectronics subject to U.S. export controls on behalf of a Russia-based supplier of critical components for the country's weapons industries. He was facing a 20-year prison term in the U.S.
Abu Dhabi was the scene of another high-profile prisoner swap between Russia and the United States. In December 2022, American basketball star Brittney Griner was traded for the notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.
The UAE has been a mediator in prisoner swaps between Russia and Ukraine, while the skyscraper-studded city of Dubai has become home to many Russians and Ukrainian who fled there after the start of Moscow's 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
___
Litvinova reported from Tallinn, Estonia. Associated Press writer Eric Tucker in Washington contributed.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
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When Georgetown University fellow Badar Khan Suri was arrested by federal officers outside his home in Arlington, Virginia, so began a multistate, week-long journey in custody that would end in a rural jail over 1,000 miles away.
An Indian national working as a professor and studying in the US on a visa, Khan Suri was handcuffed on March 17 and taken to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Chantilly, Virginia, for fingerprinting, DNA swabs and paperwork, according to an amended complaint filed by his attorneys. He was moved to a detention center in Farmville, Virginia, in the middle of the night, and then to an ICE office in Richmond.
Next, he was taken to an airport, shackled, and flown to a detention facility in Alexandria, Louisiana. On March 20, Khan Suri was told he'd be sent to New York the next day, but he was instead driven to the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas. He was housed in a common room with a TV playing 21 hours a day, given a thin plastic mattress for a bed, went without religious accommodations for several days and was given “used, dirty underclothing” to wear, according to the lawsuit.
In all, he was transferred 1,300 miles away from home even though two Virginia detention facilities were not operating at capacity, according to the lawsuit. The transfers to Louisiana and Texas, his attorneys argued, were “not necessary.”
Khan Suri's whirlwind journey is not unique. Other detained immigrants, including Tufts University grad student Rümeysa Öztürk and former Columbia University grad student Mahmoud Khalil, were taken on similarly circuitous routes to faraway facilities. All three were arrested near their homes in urban East Coast areas and swiftly shipped off to detention facilities in rural Louisiana and Texas.
These transfers underscore ICE's power in deciding where to house detained migrants – a power that some immigration attorneys say the Trump administration is now using to move disfavored migrants far from their attorneys, families and support systems.
“We've always seen transfers within the immigration system,” explained Adriel D. Orozco, senior policy counsel at the American Immigration Council, an immigrant advocacy group. “I hadn't seen such a drastic transfer system, in the sense of sending folks from the Northeast all the way down to the South. That seems to be more of a change under this Trump 2.0.”
Khan Suri's attorneys argued in their amended complaint that the moves represent a new government policy “to retaliate and punish noncitizens” like him who support Palestinian rights or are critical of Israeli policy.
“DHS has issued a directive that all individuals who are subject to the policy be transferred to detention centers in the south of the United States to jurisdictions that Respondents perceive will be more favorable to them, and where they will be far away from their families and attorneys, and therefore unable to promptly challenge their detention,” the filing states.
For its part, ICE defends its transfer decisions in terms of practicality and logistics. A spokesperson for the agency did not comment on any other reasons as suggested in Khan Suri's complaint.
The agency says on its website that detention is “non-punitive” and that it uses “limited detention resources to detain aliens to secure their presence for immigration proceedings or removal from the United States.”
Most immigration detention facilities are located along the southern border with Mexico. In fact, about half of all ICE detainees in the US are held in Texas and Louisiana, according to data from Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a nonpartisan data research organization that tracks immigration records.
Their transfers across multiple state lines have sparked jurisdictional battles between the US government and attorneys representing Öztürk, Khalil, Khan Suri and others. While those battles play out, they continue to be held in custody more than a thousand miles from home.
None of them have had their motions for release decided by a judge, and the legality of their detention have yet to be considered by the courts. None of them have been charged with a crime.
These types of interstate transfers have long frustrated immigration attorneys, who say they can be a form of “judge-shopping” to friendlier districts and limit migrants' ability to contact their lawyers and families.
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A glimpse at complaints inside Louisiana and Texas ICE detention centers holding Mahmoud Khalil and Badar Khan Suri
“Part of the problem is they can be picked up and moved around like chess pieces, and that goes back many years,” immigration attorney Neil A. Weinrib told CNN last month. “They've always done that deliberately.”
For Öztürk, Khalil and Khan Suri – each detained in connection to their apparent pro-Palestinian views – the underlying explanation for being moved thousands of miles away may be less relevant than its devastating impact.
While his jurisdictional battle plays out, Khalil, who is a permanent legal US resident, is sitting inside the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center, counting down the days until his wife is due to give birth later this month.
“Justice escapes the contours of this nation's immigration facilities,” Khalil wrote in a public letter dictated to his attorneys by phone last month.
“Who has the right to have rights? It is certainly not the humans crowded into the cells here. It isn't the Senegalese man I met who has been deprived of his liberty for a year, his legal situation in limbo and his family an ocean away. It isn't the 21-year-old detainee I met, who stepped foot in this country at age nine, only to be deported without so much as a hearing.”
Court filings on behalf of Khalil, Öztürk and Khan Suri show the challenges migrants face in the detention system, including the whiplash of being arrested and shipped across the country.
In video of Khalil's arrest, recorded by his wife, she can be heard asking officers multiple times where they are taking her husband. After ignoring her for several minutes, one of the officers says he's being taken to 26 Federal Plaza – the Immigration and Customs Enforcement District Office in Lower Manhattan.
The moment set off a chain of events that are still being litigated in court.
As officers drove Khalil downtown, his lawyer raced to file a habeas corpus motion – a petition to determine whether someone is being held legally – in a federal court in New York. The process took several hours and required Khalil's attorney to work into the night.
By the time the motion was filed, Khalil had been moved across the Hudson River to a detention facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey, without notice to his attorney. The government later told a judge the New Jersey detention center was unsuitable “because the facility was dealing with bedbug issues” and lack of space. Hours later, again without notifying his counsel, he was put on a plane from JFK airport to Dallas and then to Louisiana.
“Throughout this process, Mr. Khalil felt as though he was being kidnapped,” Khalil's attorneys wrote in documents to the court. “He was reminded of prior experience fleeing arbitrary detention in Syria and forced disappearance of his friends in Syria in 2013.”
Following oral arguments on Khalil's jurisdictional battle two weeks ago, his attorneys accused the government of purposely transferring not just Khalil but all the other student detainees. Ramzi Kaseem, one of the attorneys on Khalil's legal team described the moves to CNN as part of a coordinated strategy on the government's part.
“It's this shell game where the government is trying to make it hard for lawyers to prevent them from doing this so that they can pick the court where they want these cases to move forward,” Kaseem said. “For some reason they think Louisiana gives them home court advantage. They want to cut people off from their communities, from their base of support, from their lawyers, from their families, from their schools, their friends and isolate them so that they can deport them in silence.”
In Öztürk's case, ICE officers determined there would be “no available bedspace” for Öztürk in the New England region prior to arresting her, attorneys for the US Attorney's Office in Boston said in a filing.
But the lack of resources did not stop them from launching a dash across three states as they tried to find room – something her attorneys challenged later in court, saying the government had facility options in the New England area but simply declined to use them.
Her attorneys told a Boston court last week they were unable to locate her for several hours as immigration officers bounced her around the region.
First, Öztürk was moved to Methuen, Massachusetts; then to Lebanon, New Hampshire; and then to St. Albans, Vermont, where she was held overnight, according to court documents. From there she was transferred to Alexandria, Louisiana, followed by a final stop at the South Louisiana Correctional Facility in Basile – over 1,600 miles from her home in Boston.
“This all happened without notice to the court, without notice to her counsel,” Öztürk's attorneys told reporters following a hearing in Boston last week.
One key explanation for why the government moves detainees to faraway facilities is because the majority of detention facilities are located in the southern US.
The ICE detention system is made up of hundreds of jails, prisons and other facilities, and many are concentrated along the border with Mexico, according to TRAC. Texas houses over 12,000 detainees, by far the most of any state, followed by Louisiana with about 7,000 detainees, according to March data from TRAC.
As of March 17, there was an average daily population of about 40,000 ICE detainees – meaning Texas and Louisiana house about half of all people in the detention system. By contrast, Massachusetts held just about 400 detainees on average, New York held about 650 detainees and Virginia held about 750, TRAC data shows.
The government generally has a lot of power in choosing where to house detained migrants, Orozco explained.
“Unfortunately, there is a lot of discretion – at least, ICE states they have a lot of discretion – in where they decide to transfer individuals, and they've acted in that manner,” he said.
Immigration attorneys and civil rights advocates have sharply criticized many of these facilities for mistreating migrants and preventing them from properly defending their cases. They say the isolated nature of these rural detention facilities makes it difficult for migrants to communicate with attorneys, family and friends.
“When I've had clients, the difficulty there is not having a support system, not knowing what's going to happen to you inside of those facilities. (That) can make it so that person decides that they just want to leave,” Orozco said.
For example, Orozco noted one former client who had been in the US for over 10 years, was married to a permanent legal resident and had two US citizen children. “But after three months (in detention) she said she couldn't take being in that facility anymore, and so she decided to accept her removal and leave the United States,” Orozco said.
An ICE spokesperson did not comment on the attorney's allegations of detention location being used as a punishment.
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The isolation and difficult conditions in these facilities is a form of coercion, the nonprofit advocacy group Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights said in a 2024 report on the Louisiana immigration detention system.
“In NOLA ICE detention, officials isolate people with viable defenses to deportation from the legal and language resources needed to fairly present their claims,” the report stated. “And they use abusive treatment in punitive conditions to coerce people into renouncing those claims and accepting deportation to escape the misery of detention.”
Immigration attorneys have also criticized these detention transfers as a form of judge-shopping. The idea is that the judge or appeals court in Texas or Louisiana under the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals is likely to have more conservative legal views and be friendlier to the Trump administration's actions than a court in New York or Massachusetts. Trump appointed six of the active judges on the Fifth Circuit, in addition to some two-dozen Trump appointees who sit in the district courts the circuit covers.
“I think that there's maybe that kind of determination being made given that we're not seeing every person sent to Texas or Louisiana, so they're being very selective as to making sure that some of these folks are being sent to these facilities,” Orozco said.
Whatever the underlying reasons, court filings show the transfers have had harsh personal consequences for Khalil, Öztürk and Suri.
“His children keep asking their mother when their father will come home,” Suri's filing states. “Dr. Khan Suri normally holds his older son every night at bedtime, helping him fall asleep. Lately, his son has been crying uncontrollably and has stopped speaking. He is worried especially about his older son.”
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Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., talks to reporters just after House Republicans approved their budget framework that is central to President Donald Trump's agenda, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., left, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., make statements to reporters ahead of vote in the House to pass a bill on President Donald Trump's top domestic priorities of spending reductions and tax breaks, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., left, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., make statements to reporters ahead of vote in the House to pass a bill on President Donald Trump's top domestic priorities of spending reductions and tax breaks, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., departs after he and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., made statements to reporters ahead of a vote in the House to pass a bill on President Donald Trump's top domestic priorities of spending reductions and tax breaks, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans narrowly approved their budget framework Thursday, a political turnaround after Speaker Mike Johnson worked into the night to satisfy GOP holdouts who had refused to advance trillions of dollars in tax breaks without deeper spending cuts.
Johnson stood with Senate Majority Leader John Thune early in the morning at the Capitol to shore up President Donald Trump's “big, beautiful bill,” and they committed to seeking at least $1.5 trillion in cuts to federal programs and services. The speaker had abruptly halted voting Wednesday night.
“I told you not to doubt us,” Johnson, R-La., said afterward.
He acknowledged the week's economic turmoil as the financial markets “have been a little unstable.” Americans “want to know Congress is on the job. And I'm here to tell you we are,” the speaker said.
The 216-214 vote pushed the budget plan forward, one more milestone for Johnson, and the next step in a lengthy process to unlock the centerpiece to the president's domestic agenda of tax cuts, mass deportations and a smaller federal government. A failed vote, particularly as the economy was convulsing over Trump's trade wars, would have been a major setback for the party in power in Washington. Two conservative Republicans voted against it, as did all Democrats.
Trump, at a black-tie fundraising dinner this week, had admonished Republicans to “stop grandstanding” on the budget.
By Thursday morning, Trump had shifted his tone.
“Biggest Tax Cuts in USA History!!! Getting close,” Trump said.
The House action still leaves weeks, if not months, ahead, on a final product, with more votes in Congress. Johnson could lose only a few detractors from his slim Republican majority. Democrats, in the minority, lack the votes to stop the package, but they have warned against it.
But by Wednesday afternoon, the outcome was in flux. At least a dozen conservative Republicans, if not more, were firmly against the plan. Several of them, including members of the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus, made the unusual move of walking across the Capitol to meet privately with Senate GOP leaders to insist on deeper cuts.
As night fell, Johnson pulled a group of Republicans into a private meeting room as House proceedings came to a standstill. They stayed into the night hashing out alternatives, and were back at it in the morning.
Johnson said he spoke with Trump for about five minutes while the GOP meeting was taking place.
“The president is very anxious for us to get this done,” Johnson said.
But House GOP conservatives, including several of those who met with Trump this week, were concerned that the Senate GOP's blueprint, approved last weekend, did not cut spending to the level they believe necessary to help prevent soaring deficits.
“The Math Does Not Add Up,” Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, had posted earlier on social media.
Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., the Freedom Caucus chair, led others to meet with the senators.
In the end, Harris, Roy and almost all the holdouts came on board. They said they were assured by Johnson, Thune and Trump that there would be steep cuts ahead. Republican Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Rep. Victoria Spartz of Indiana voted “no.”
“We got as much as we could,” said Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn. ”We realized it was bigger than us.”
Before the vote, Thune, R-S.D., tried to assure House conservatives that many GOP senators were aligned with their pursuit of spending reductions.
AP correspondent Ben Thomas reports House Republicans have postponed a vote on a budget framework.
“We certainly are going to do everything we can,” Thune said.
But the details ahead will matter. Key Republican senators already signaled their disapproval of some $800 billion in House-proposed cuts that could hit Medicaid and other vital programs.
Johnson tried to insist that the health care and other services that millions of Americans rely on, particularly Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, would be spared. Republicans instead are seeking to impose new restrictions on benefits and cut what they portray as waste, fraud and abuse, following billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency.
The House and Senate are at the beginning phase of a process as they turn their budget resolutions into legislative text — a final product expected later this spring or summer.
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said the budget plan is reckless and callous, proposing cuts to give tax breaks to the wealthy.
“We're here to make it clear,” Jeffries said. “Hands off everyday Americans struggling to make ends meet.”
Central to the budget framework is the Republican effort to preserve the tax breaks approved in 2017, during Trump's first term, while potentially adding the new ones he promised during his 2024 campaign. That includes no taxes on tipped wages, Social Security income and others, ballooning the price tag to some $7 trillion over the decade.
The package also allows for budget increases with some $175 billion to pay for Trump's deportation operation and as much for the Defense Department to bolster military spending.
The plan would also raise the nation's debt limit to allow more borrowing to pay the bills. Trump had wanted lawmakers to take the politically difficult issue off the table. With debt now at $36 trillion, the Treasury Department has said it will run out of funds by August.
But the House and Senate need to resolve their differences on the debt limit, as well. The House GOP increases the debt limit by $4 trillion, but the Senate lifted it to $5 trillion so Congress would not have to revisit the issue again until after the midterm elections in November 2026.
To clip costs, the Senate is using an unusual accounting method that does not count the costs of preserving the 2017 tax cuts, some $4.5 trillion, as new spending, another factor that is enraging the House conservatives.
With Trump's trade wars hovering over the debate, House Republicans tucked a provision into a procedural vote that would prevent House action — as the Senate has taken — to disapprove of Trump's tariffs.
___
Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick, Stephen Groves, Leah Askarinam and Matt Brown contributed to this report.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Rescue crews continued their search efforts on Wednesday at a nightclub in Santo Domingo after its roof collapsed earlier this week, killing at least 184 people.
A person is comforted before identifying the body of a family member who died at the Jet Set nightclub, days after its roof collapsed during a concert and killed more than 200 people, outside the National Institute of Forensic Pathology in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Rescue workers stand at the Jet Set nightclub days after its roof collapsed, killing more than 200 people in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
The hat and sunglasses of Dominican singer Rubby Perez, who died in the roof collapse at the Jet Set nightclub during his merengue concert, sit on his casket during his wake at the Eduardo Brito National Theater in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Zulinka, center, the daughter of Dominican singer Rubby Perez who died in the roof collapse at the Jet Set nightclub during his merengue concert, cries during his wake at the Eduardo Brito National Theater in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Mourners attend a memorial for Rubby Perez, the merengue singer who was performing at the Jet Set nightclub when its roof collapsed, killing more than 200 people, at the National Theater in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
An excavator works at the site of the Jet Set nightclub days after its roof collapsed during a concert, killing more than 200 people in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Dominican singer Juan Luis Guerra, left, attends a wake of Rubby Perez, the merengue singer who was performing at the Jet Set nightclub when its roof collapsed, killing more than 200 people, at the National Theater in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
A poster of victim Rubby Perez is seen at a makeshift vigil for the victims of the Jet Set club roof collapse in the Dominican Republic, Wednesday, April 9, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)
Dominican Republic President Luis Abinader, center right, and his wife Raquel Arbaje Soni speak with the family of Dominican singer Rubby Perez who died in the roof collapse at the Jet Set nightclub while performing in concert, during the wake at the Eduardo Brito National Theater in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
People pray for their missing relatives outside Jet Set nightclub after its roof collapsed during a merengue concert in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ricardo Hernandez)
People attend a Mass for the victims of the Jet Set club roof collapse at St. Elizabeth's Church, Wednesday, April 9, 2025 in New York. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) — Memorials were taking place Thursday for a merengue star and others killed when a cement roof collapsed at a popular nightclub in the Dominican Republic, as the number of dead surged to 221 and crews completed their search for bodies.
Mourners clad in black and white streamed into Santo Domingo's National Theater, where the body of Rubby Pérez lay inside a closed coffin. Pérez had been performing on stage at the packed Jet Set club early Tuesday when dust began falling from the ceiling and, seconds later, the roof caved.
Zulinka, center, the daughter of Dominican singer Rubby Perez who died in the roof collapse at the Jet Set nightclub during his merengue concert, cries during his wake at the Eduardo Brito National Theater in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
President Luis Abinader and first lady Raquel Arbaje arrived at the theater and stood beside Pérez's coffin for several minutes. Some mourners doubled over in tears as a recording of Pérez singing the national anthem played. Renowned Dominican musician Juan Luis Guerra was among those gathered to pay their respects.
Pérez, 69, had turned to music after a car accident left him unable to pursue his dream of becoming a professional baseball player. He was known for hits including “Volveré,” which he sang with Wilfrido Vargas's orchestra, and “Buscando tus besos” as a solo artist.
More than 200 people are confirmed dead in the collapse of a roof at a nightclub in the Dominican Republic. AP correspondent Donna Warder reports.
Just blocks from the memorial for Pérez, heavy equipment began withdrawing from the site where Jet Set once stood and rescue crews packed up their equipment.
Meanwhile, a group of prosecutors arrived.
Rescue workers search for bodies at the Jet Set nightclub after its roof collapsed during a merengue concert in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
It is still unclear what caused the roof to collapse or when the building was last inspected. The government has said it will launch a thorough investigation, and the club's owners have said they are cooperating with authorities.
Juan Manuel Méndez, director of the Center of Emergency Operations, broke down as he addressed reporters.
“Thank you, God, because today we accomplished the most difficult task I've had in 20 years,” he said, moving the microphone away from his face as he cried. Other officials patted him on the back as he continued, “Please forgive me,” before passing the microphone to an army official.
Officials said 189 people were rescued alive from the rubble. More than 200 were injured, with 24 of them still hospitalized, including eight in critical condition.
People attend a Mass for the victims of the Jet Set club roof collapse at St. Elizabeth's Church, Wednesday, April 9, 2025 in New York. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)
“If the trauma is too great, there's not a lot of time” left to save patients in that condition, said Health Minister Víctor Atallah. He and other doctors said some of the injured suffered fractures to the skull, femur and pelvis.
Many people have been anxiously waiting for news of their loved ones, growing frustrated with the drip-drip of information provided by hospitals and the country's forensic institute.
At least 146 bodies have been identified, authorities said Thursday.
María Luisa Taveras told TV station Noticias SIN that she was looking for her sister.
Dominican singer Juan Luis Guerra, left, attends a wake of Rubby Perez, the merengue singer who was performing at the Jet Set nightclub when its roof collapsed, killing more than 200 people, at the National Theater in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
“We have gone everywhere they have told us,” she said, her voice breaking.
Taveras said the family has spread out, with a relative stationed at each hospital and at the National Institute of Forensic Pathology. Dozens of people waited at the institute Thursday, wearing face masks and complaining about the smell as they demanded the release of their loved ones' bodies.
“The odor is unbearable,” said Wendy Sosa, who has been waiting since Wednesday morning for the body of her cousin, 61-year-old Nilka Curiel González. Sosa told The Associated Press by phone that the situation there was “chaotic,” and that officials had set up a refrigerated container to handle the volume of bodies being delivered.
She wept as she described her cousin as gracious, authentic, and “very empathetic.”
A poster of victim Rubby Perez is seen at a makeshift vigil for the victims of the Jet Set club roof collapse in the Dominican Republic, Wednesday, April 9, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)
Victims identified so far include former MLB players Octavio Dotel and Tony Enrique Blanco Cabrera; and Nelsy Cruz, the governor of the northwestern province of Montecristi whose brother is seven-time Major League Baseball All-Star Nelson Cruz.
Dotel will be buried Thursday in Santo Domingo. Hundreds of people attended his wake on Wednesday, including Hall of Famer David Ortiz, formerly of the Boston Red Sox. Ortiz said the number of people who attended Dotel's wake spoke volumes.
“He was a person whom everyone loved,” Ortiz told reporters. “It's very hard, very hard, truly.”
MLB Hall of Famer Pedro Martínez attended another wake Thursday.
“There are no words to describe the pain we are all feeling,” said Martínez, adding that he knew more than 50 of those who died. “Life is but a breath.”
Also killed was a retired United Nations official; saxophonist Luis Solís, who was playing onstage when the roof fell; New York-based fashion designer Martín Polanco; the son and daughter-in-law of the minister of public works; the brother of the vice minister of the Ministry of Youth; and three employees of Grupo Popular, a financial services company, including the president of AFP Popular Bank and his wife.
People pray for their missing relatives outside Jet Set nightclub after its roof collapsed during a merengue concert in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ricardo Hernandez)
More than 20 victims came from Haina, Rubby Pérez's hometown, just southwest of Santo Domingo.
On Thursday, the governor held a communal wake, setting up 10 stands for coffins beneath a banner that read: “Haina bids farewell to her beloved children with immense sorrow.”
Among the mourners was Juancho Guillén, who lost his wife three months ago and whose brother, sister and brother-in-law died at Jet Set.
“This family is in shock, is devastated,” he told Noticias SIN. “We're practically dead too.”
___
Coto reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Ukraine's Defense Minister Rustem Umerov arrives for a coalition of the willing defence ministers meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, left, speaks with Britain's Defense Secretary John Healey, center, as French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu arrives for a coalition of the willing defence ministers meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
Belgium's Defense Minister Theo Francken, right, talks with Estonia's Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur, right, during a coalition of the willing defence ministers meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
Britain's Defense Secretary John Healey, center, talks with Romania's Defense Minister Angel Tilvar as they arrive for a coalition of the willing defence ministers meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu, right, talks with Romania's Defense Minister Angel Tilvar as they arrive for a coalition of the willing defence ministers meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu arrives for a coalition of the willing defence ministers meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
Flags of the Alliance members flap in the wind prior to a coalition of the willing defence ministers meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
Britain's Defense Secretary John Healey, left, sits next to French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu as he talks during a coalition of the willing defence ministers meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
BRUSSELS (AP) — Britain's defense minister on Thursday urged his counterparts from around 30 countries to press ahead with plans to deploy troops to Ukraine to police any future peace agreement with Russia, as questions remained over whether the United States would provide backup.
Chairing the first meeting of the so-called coalition of the willing at the level of defense ministers, U.K. Defense Secretary John Healey said its members must ensure “that we're fully prepared for the moment a peace agreement is reached.”
“We must be ready for when that peace comes. That's why the work of this coalition is so vital,” Healey said at NATO headquarters in Brussels. He added that 200 military planners have been developing plans to deepen European involvement in Ukraine.
In a post on social media, Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said that “Ukraine is ready for peace — one that is just and backed by strength.”
Ukrainian government officials and military analysts have said that Russian forces are preparing to launch a fresh military offensive in Ukraine in the coming weeks to maximize pressure on Kyiv and strengthen the Kremlin's negotiating position in ceasefire talks.
As usual with coalition gatherings, the United States did not take part. The success of the coalition's operation hinges on U.S. backup with airpower or other military assistance, but the Trump administration has made no public commitment to provide support.
The Netherlands, Sweden and Finland underlined the “crucial” role of the United States.
“The United States is a crucial player still in guaranteeing lasting security” in Ukraine, said Finnish Defense Minister Annit Häkkänen. His Swedish counterpart, Pål Jonson, said success in Ukraine requires “some form of U.S. engagement” while Dutch Defense Minister Ruben Brekelmans called American support “very important” but said the form it took might differ, depending on the chosen type of European mission in Ukraine.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said ministers were “trying to keep the United States on board.”
Amid that uncertainty and U.S. warnings that Europe must take care of its own security and that of Ukraine in future, the force is seen as a first test of the continent's willingness to defend itself and its interests.
Its make-up will depend on the nature of any peace agreement, but the contingent is unlikely to be stationed at Ukraine's border with Russia. It would be located further from the ceasefire line, perhaps even outside Ukraine, and deploy to counter any Russian attack.
Building a force big enough to act as a credible deterrent is proving a considerable effort for nations that shrank their militaries after the Cold War but are now rearming. U.K. officials have talked about possibly 10,000 to 30,000 troops.
Healey said that the “reassurance force for Ukraine would be a committed and credible security arrangement to ensure that any negotiated peace does bring what President Trump has pledged: a lasting peace for Ukraine.”
But some countries are reluctant to contribute personnel without U.S. support. The Europeans cannot match U.S. weapons systems, intelligence gathering and satellite surveillance capabilities.
More fundamentally, members of the coalition are still trying to establish how the force would operate: leading countries want a robust deterrence force to defend against any Russian attack.
Brekelmans said key questions must be answered like “what is the potential mission? What is going to be the goal? What is the mandate? What would we do in different scenarios, for example, if there would be any escalation regarding Russia?”
Some countries — Italy and the Netherlands, for example — require the approval of their national parliaments before they can deploy troops.
On Friday, representatives from around 50 nations will gather at NATO to drum up military support for Ukraine. That meeting will be chaired by Britain and Germany. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is not expected to take part.
———
AP writer Sam McNeil contributed to this report from Barcelona, Spain.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
A carton of eggs sit on a counter in the kitchen inside of 5 Rabanitos restaurant in Chicago, Feb. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)
Eggs are displayed in a grocery store in Carmel, Ind., Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
Cartons of eggs sit on a shelf in a Walmart store, March 10, 2025, in Englewood, Colo. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)
Eggs are displayed in a grocery store in Carmel, Ind., Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
Eggs are displayed in a grocery store in Carmel, Ind., Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
Eggs are displayed in a grocery store in Carmel, Ind., Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
Eggs are displayed in a grocery store in Carmel, Ind., Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
Eggs are displayed in a grocery store in Carmel, Ind., Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
U.S. egg prices increased again last month to reach a new record-high of $6.23 per dozen despite President Donald Trump's predictions, a drop in wholesale prices and no egg farms having bird flu outbreaks.
The increase reported Thursday in the Consumer Price Index means consumers and businesses that rely on eggs might not get much immediate relief. Demand for eggs is typically elevated until after Easter, which falls on April 20.
Industry experts were expecting the index to reflect a drop in retail egg prices because wholesale egg prices dropped significantly in March. University of Arkansas agricultural economist Jada Thompson said the wholesale prices did not start dropping until mid-March, so there may not have been enough time for the average price for the month to decline even though prices started to fall at the end of the month. And grocery stores may not have immediately passed on the lower prices.
Bird flu outbreaks were cited as the major cause of price spikes in January and February after more than 30 million egg-laying chickens were killed to prevent the spread of the disease. Only 2.1 million birds were slaughtered in March and none of them were on egg farms.
Egg prices hit $5.90 in February one month after setting a record at $4.95 per dozen, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The farms that had fall outbreaks have been working to resume egg production after sanitizing their barns and raising new flocks, but chickens must be about six months old before they start laying eggs. Thompson said those farms did not come back online as quickly as anticipated.
In the latest U.S. Department of Agriculture numbers, there were only about 285 million hens laying eggs nationwide as of March 1, down from 293 million the previous month. Before the outbreak, the flock typically numbered more than 315 million.
Since the current bird flu outbreak began, more than 168 million birds have been slaughtered, most of them egg-laying chickens. Any time a bird gets sick, the entire flock is killed to help keep bird flu from spreading. That can have an effect on the egg supply because massive egg farms may have millions of birds.
The disease is difficult to control because it is spread easily through the droppings of wild birds that carry the avian flu virus. Bird flu has also inflected other animals, including dairy cattle and several dozen farm workers but officials maintain it is not a significant threat to humans.
Trump tried to take credit for the lower wholesale egg prices the USDA reported in recent weeks.
“The egg prices they were going through the sky. And you did a fantastic job,” Trump said to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins before he announced the details of his tariffs at the White House last week. ”Now we have lots of eggs and they are much cheaper now.”
But experts say the president's plan to fight bird flu by focusing on strengthening egg farmers' defenses against the virus is likely to be more of a long-term help.
“I think there are lots of people who are looking to see the egg prices coming down because they wanted to call it a win. And I think it's a loss for everybody. I think we all want to see egg prices come down,” Thompson said.
Trump and Vice President JD Vance both trumpeted the overall decline in inflation last month before most of Trump's tariffs took effect, but they did not directly address egg prices.
Rollins on Thursday suggested the rise in egg prices is temporary. She pointed to the overall consumer price index showing a slight dip in prices for goods and services across the U.S. economy in March and suggested egg prices will soon follow.
“We're also moving into the Super Bowl of eggs, which is Easter,” Rollins said. “So from the beginning, I've said this is sort of the high price for retail for eggs, but we feel very confident that will continue to come back down.”
Earlier this week, Trump said the annual White House egg roll would use real eggs again this year despite the high prices. Egg farmers typically donate more than 30,000 eggs for the event.
U.S. egg prices did began falling in mid-March, according to Datasembly, a market research company that tracks prices at thousands of stores. Datasembly said eggs averaged $5.98 per dozen the week beginning March 16 and dropped to $5.51 the week beginning March 30.
But prices vary widely around the country, depending on the location of recent bird flu outbreaks and some state laws requiring eggs to be cage-free. At a Walmart in Richmond, California, a dozen eggs were $6.34 on Thursday. In Omaha, Nebraska, Walmart was selling eggs for $4.97 per dozen. California requires eggs sold to be cage-free; Nebraska doesn't.
Egg prices are still expected to decline further later this spring, but the latest numbers could also increase scrutiny of Cal-Maine Foods, which provides 20% of the nation's eggs, and other large egg producers.
Earlier this week, Cal-Maine acknowledged it is being investigated by the antitrust division of the U.S. Department of Justice, which is looking into egg price increases. Cal-Maine said it is cooperating with the investigation.
In its most recent quarter, which ended March 1, Cal-Maine said its net income more than tripled to $508.5 million compared to the same period a year ago. The company said its revenue nearly doubled to $1.42 billion, largely because of higher egg prices.
The price of real eggs has some consumers turning to fake ones for Easter crafts this year. Craft retailer Michaels said its craft egg kit, which features a dozen plastic eggs for $2.49, is a top seller and has sold three times faster than the company expected.
___
Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani contributed to this report.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Watch live as House Republicans take up one of President Donald Trump's top election-related priorities, legislation that would require proof of citizenship when registering to vote in federal elections.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House passed one of Republicans' signature issues for the year on Thursday, approving legislation to require proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote for federal elections, one of President Donald Trump's top election-related priorities.
Nearly all Democrats lined up against the bill and warned that it risks disenfranchising millions of Americans who do not have ready access to the proper documents.
Trump has long signaled a desire to change how elections are run in the U.S. and last month issued a sweeping executive order that included a citizenship requirement among other election-related changes.
Republicans argued the legislation, known as the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, is necessary to ensure only citizens vote in U.S. elections and would cement Trump's order into law.
U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, a Wisconsin Republican who chairs the House committee that handles election legislation, said during Thursday's debate that the bill is meant to “restore Americans' confidence in our elections” and prevent noncitizens from voting.
This marks Republicans' second attempt at passing the SAVE Act. It passed the House last year but failed in the Senate amid Democratic opposition.
It's unlikely to fare any better this year. While Republicans won control of the Senate last fall, they have a narrow majority that falls short of the 60 votes they would need to overcome a filibuster.
Republicans hammered on the issue during last year's presidential election, even though voting by noncitizens is rare, already is illegal and can lead to felony charges and deportation.
The SAVE Act would require all applicants using the federal voter registration form to provide documentary proof of citizenship in person at their local election office. Among the acceptable documents are a valid U.S. passport and a government-issued photo ID card presented alongside a certified birth certificate.
Democrats and voting rights groups warn the legislation could lead to widespread voter disenfranchisement if it were to become law. The Brennan Center for Justice and other groups estimated in a 2023 report that 9% of U.S. citizens of voting age, or 21.3 million people, do not have proof of their citizenship readily available. Almost half of Americans don't have a U.S. passport.
In Kansas, a proof-of-citizenship requirement that passed in 2011 ended up blocking the voter registrations of more than 31,000 U.S. citizens in the state who were otherwise eligible to vote. The law was later declared unconstitutional by a federal court and hasn't been enforced since 2018.
“Just to exercise their inalienable right as citizens of this country, Republicans would force Americans into a paperwork nightmare,” said Rep. Joe Morelle, a Democrat from New York. “This bill is really about disenfranchising Americans — not noncitizens, Americans.”
A further concern came up several times Thursday: Married women would need multiple documents to prove their citizenship if they have changed their name.
It was a complication that arose in town hall elections held last month in New Hampshire, which was enforcing a new state law requiring proof of citizenship to register. One woman, since divorced, told a local elections clerk that her first marriage was decades ago in Florida and that she no longer had the marriage certificate showing her name change. She was unable to register and vote for her town election.
“This legislation would immediately disenfranchise the 69 million women who have changed their names after marriage or divorce,” said Rep. Deborah Ross, a Democrat from North Carolina.
Rep. Laurel Lee, a Republican from Florida, said the bill “contemplates this exact situation” of married women whose names have changed, saying it “explicitly directs states to establish a process for them to register to vote.”
Morelle countered by saying, “Why not write it in the bill? Why are we making the potential for 50 different standards to be set? ... How much paperwork do Republicans expect Americans to drown in?”
Democrats also said the bill would disproportionately affect older people in assisted care facilities, military service members who wouldn't be able to solely use their military IDs, people of color and working-class Americans who may not have the time or money to jump through bureaucratic hoops.
“The SAVE Act is everything our civil rights leaders fought against,” said Rep. Nikema Williams, a Democrat from Georgia.
Republicans have defended the legislation as necessary to restore public confidence in elections and say it allows states to adopt procedures to help voters comply. They have disputed Democratic characterizations of the bill.
Four Democrats voted in favor of the legislation: Reps. Ed Case of Hawaii, Henry Cuellar of Texas, Jared Golden of Maine and Marie Perez of Washington.
“The truth is, those who were registered to vote would still be able to vote under their current registration,” said Rep. Chip Roy, a Texas Republican who sponsored the bill. “We have mechanisms giving the state fairly significant deference to make determinations as to how to structure the situation where an individual does have a name change, which of course is often women.”
On Thursday, Roy said Cleta Mitchell, a key figure in Trump's campaign to overturn the 2020 election results, “had a significant hand in what we're doing here.” Mitchell, a longtime GOP lawyer, has played a central role in coordinating the movement to tighten voting laws across the country.
Trump lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden but has repeatedly made the bogus claim that it was stolen from him. There is no evidence to support Trump's claim: Elections officials and his own attorney general rejected the notion, and his arguments have been roundly dismissed by the courts, including judges he appointed.
Adrian Fontes, a Democrat who serves as Arizona's top state election official, described the voting proposal as a solution in search of a problem, given how rare noncitizen voting is.
“What it is doing is capitalizing on fear -- fear built on a lie,” Fontes said. “And the lie is that a whole bunch of people who aren't eligible are voting. That's just not true.”
___
Cassidy reported from Atlanta, Fernando from Chicago.
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This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. ©2025 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Market data provided by Factset. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Legal Statement. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper.
A skier miraculously survived an avalanche after deploying an emergency airbag. (Instagram/@leoloux_)
A former "All-American" athlete at Dartmouth College died from injuries following a skiing crash on Saturday afternoon at a Lake Tahoe, California, ski resort.
Ellery "Ellie" Curtis, 26, died from a head injury suffered during the crash at Palisades Tahoe on Saturday, April 5, the Placer County Sheriff's Office told Fox News Digital.
The Waitsfield, Vermont, native was pronounced dead at the scene.
"Our hearts go out to her family and all who loved her as they navigate this unimaginable loss," Placer County Sheriff's Office spokesperson Elise Soviar said.
ASPIRING FIREFIGHTER DIES IN SNOWBOARDING ACCIDENT AT POPULAR SKI RESORT
Ellery "Ellie" Dolan Curtis, 26, died following a ski accident at Palisades Tahoe on Saturday. (Ellery Curtis via Instagram)
Curtis crashed while skiing down the "Ahhh Chute" trail on the Palisades' KT-22 lift, Palisades Tahoe Public Relations Manager Patrick Lacey told Fox News Digital.
Lacey said that the ski patrol team had responded immediately and provided on-site medical care, but Curtis died at the scene.
NEVADA GIRL, 7, KILLED IN LAKE TAHOE SKI RESORT BOULDER ACCIDENT: POLICE
The mountains and trees along Highway 50 are covered in snow as viewed on January 28, 2017, near South Lake Tahoe, California. (George Rose/Getty Images)
The former second-team All-American skier placed eighth in the giant slalom competition at the NCAA Championships during her senior year in 2022.
During her college career, Curtis also earned USCSCA National Collegiate All-Academic Ski Team honors three times, according to the college.
"Ellie was amazing. She was one of the hardest workers I've had in my 10 years at Dartmouth, and that's off the snow also," Dartmouth women's alpine ski coach John Dwyer told Valley News. "She was a tremendous student."
YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK EMPLOYEE DIES FROM MYSTERIOUS INJURIES IN STAFF HOUSING
Dwyer said Curtis was known as someone who was "dedicated to being the best skier she could be."She was fast and unrelenting and there was nothing that was going to get in her way," her former coach said.
A native of Waitsfield, Vermont, Curtis was a former member of the Dartmouth College ski team and an accomplished skier. (Ellery Curtis via Instagram)
According to her LinkedIn profile, she graduated in 2022 with a bachelor's degree in government and environmental studies from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.
She was based in San Francisco and worked as a regulatory analyst for the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC).
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"Ellie was a valued member of the CPUC, and she will be deeply missed. She came to the CPUC to protect the environment she cared about so deeply and was very excited about starting her career here. Our hearts go out to her family, friends, colleagues, and all who were touched by her kindness," agency spokesperson Terrie Prosper said in a statement to KTVU.
Sarah Rumpf-Whitten is a U.S. Writer at Fox News Digital.
Sarah joined FOX in 2021, where she has assisted on coverage of breaking and major news events across the US and around the world, including the fallout following the "Defund the police" movement, the assassination attempts on President Donald Trump's life and illegal immigration.
She has experience reporting on topics including crime, politics, business, lifestyle, world news and more. You can follow her on Twitter and LinkedIn.
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The Dave Johnson coal-fired power plant is silhouetted against the morning sun in Glenrock, Wyo., July 27, 2018 (AP Photo/J. David Ake, File)
The Warrick Power Plant, a coal-powered generating station, operates on Tuesday, April 8, 2025, in Newburgh, Ind. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)
The Warrick Power Plant, a coal-powered generating station, operates on Tuesday, April 8, 2025, in Newburgh, Ind. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)
A crew works to move coal down the Ohio River on Tuesday, April 8, 2025, in Evansville, Ind. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A new executive order from President Donald Trump that's part of his effort to invigorate energy production raises the possibility that his Department of Justice will go to court against state climate change laws aimed at slashing planet-warming greenhouse gas pollution from fossil fuels.
Trump's order, signed Tuesday, comes as U.S. electricity demand ramps up to meet the growth of artificial intelligence and cloud computing applications, as well as federal efforts to expand high-tech manufacturing. It also coincides with “climate superfund” legislation gaining traction in various states.
Trump has declared a “ national energy emergency " and ordered his attorney general to take action against states that may be illegally overreaching their authority in how they regulate energy development.
“American energy dominance is threatened when State and local governments seek to regulate energy beyond their constitutional or statutory authorities,” Trump said in the order.
He said the attorney general should focus on state laws targeting climate change, a broad order that unmistakably puts liberal states in the crosshairs of Trump's Department of Justice.
Michael Gerrard, director of the Columbia University's Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, said it would be an “extraordinarily bold move” for the federal government to go to court to try to overturn a state climate law.
Gerrard said the quickest path for Trump's Department of Justice is to try to join ongoing lawsuits where courts are deciding whether states or cities are exceeding their authority by trying to force the fossil fuel industry to pay for the cost of damages from climate change.
Democratic governors vowed to keep fighting climate change.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom accused Trump of “turning back the clock” on the climate and said his state's efforts to reduce pollution “won't be derailed by a glorified press release masquerading as an executive order.”
The group Climate Mayors, which includes the mayors of America's biggest cities, said in a statement from its chair, Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, that the federal government is overreaching its authority and ignoring the “enormous costs of continued environmental destruction and the political and social harm of retreating American leadership.”
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, cochairs of the U.S. Climate Alliance, which includes 22 governors, said they “will keep advancing solutions to the climate crisis.”
Vermont and New York are currently fighting challenges in federal courts to climate superfund laws passed last year. Trump suggested the laws “extort” payments from energy companies and “threaten American energy dominance and our economic and national security.”
Both are modeled on the 45-year-old federal superfund law, which taxed petroleum and chemical companies to pay to clean up of sites polluted by toxic waste. In similar fashion, the state climate laws are designed to force major fossil fuel companies to pay into state-based funds based on their past greenhouse gas emissions.
Several other Democratic-controlled states, including New Jersey, Massachusetts, Oregon and California, are considering similar measures.
The American Petroleum Institute, which represents the oil and natural gas industries, applauded Trump's order that it said would “protect American energy from so-called ‘climate superfunds.'”
“Directing the Department of Justice to address this state overreach will help restore the rule of law and ensure activist-driven campaigns do not stand in the way of ensuring the nation has access to an affordable and reliable energy supply,” it said.
The American Petroleum Institute, along with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, filed the lawsuit against Vermont. The lawsuit against New York was filed by West Virginia, along with several coal, gas and oil interests and 21 other mostly Republican-led states, including Texas, Ohio and Georgia.
Make Polluters Pay, a coalition of consumer and anti-fossil fuel groups, vowed to fight Trump's order and accused fossil fuel billionaires of convincing Trump to launch an assault on states.
The order, it said, demonstrates the “corporate capture of government” and “weaponizes the Justice Department against states that dare to make polluters pay for climate damage.”
Separately, the Department of Justice could join lawsuits in defense of fossil fuel industries being sued, Gerrard said.
Those lawsuits include ones filed by Honolulu, Hawaii, and dozens of cities and states seeking billions of dollars in damages from things like wildfires, rising sea levels and severe storms.
In the last three months, the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to get involved in a couple climate-themed lawsuits.
One was brought by oil and gas companies asking it to block Honolulu's lawsuit. Another was brought by Alabama and Republican attorneys general in 18 other states aimed at blocking lawsuits against the oil and gas industry from Democratic-led states, including California, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Jersey and Rhode Island.
Trump's order set off talk in state Capitols around the U.S.
That includes Pennsylvania, where Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro is contesting a court challenge to a regulation that would make it the first major fossil fuel-producing state to force power plant owners pay for greenhouse gas emissions.
John Quigley, a former Pennsylvania environmental protection secretary and a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania's Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, wondered if the Department of Justice would begin challenging all sorts of state water and air pollution laws.
“This kind of an order knows no bounds,” Quigley said. “It's hard to say where this could end up.”
___
Associated Press reporter Sophie Austin in Sacramento, California, contributed to this report. Follow Marc Levy on X at: https://x.com/timelywriter
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Honorary Starter Jack Nicklaus acknowledges the patrons, as fellow Honorary Starter Tom Watson applauds, on the first hole during the first round at the Masters golf tournament, Thursday, April 10, 2025, in Augusta, Ga. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
From left: Honorary Starters Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, and Tom Watson stand with their caddies as they pose on the first hole during the first round at the Masters golf tournament, Thursday, April 10, 2025, in Augusta, Ga. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
The names of Honorary Starters' Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, and Tom Watson are displayed on the tee box on the first hole during the first round at the Masters golf tournament, Thursday, April 10, 2025, in Augusta, Ga. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Honorary Starter Jack Nicklaus plays his shot on the first hole during the first round at the Masters golf tournament, Thursday, April 10, 2025, in Augusta, Ga. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Honorary Starter Gary Player stretches on the first hole during the first round at the Masters golf tournament, Thursday, April 10, 2025, in Augusta, Ga. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Honorary Starter Jack Nicklaus places his ball on the tee on the first hole during the first round at the Masters golf tournament, Thursday, April 10, 2025, in Augusta, Ga. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Honorary Starter Tom Watson hits from the first hole during the first round at the Masters golf tournament, Thursday, April 10, 2025, in Augusta, Ga. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Honorary Starter Tom Watson plays his shot from the first hole during the first round at the Masters golf tournament, Thursday, April 10, 2025, in Augusta, Ga. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Honorary Starter Jack Nicklaus acknowledges the patrons after his shot on the first hole during the first round at the Masters golf tournament, Thursday, April 10, 2025, in Augusta, Ga. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) — Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson walked across the dew-soaked grass outside the Augusta National clubhouse to warm applause, and when they reached the first tee box shortly after sunrise Thursday, patrons who had staked out viewing spots with their green Masters folding chairs rose to their feet.
Then the three luminaries turned the traditional honorary tee shots that open the Masters into a comedy sketch about their aging bodies.
“The tee is yours,” Masters chairman Fred Ridley said to Nicklaus.
“Maybe,” Nicklaus said. “If I don't fall down putting this (tee) in the ground.”
Nicklaus pumped his fist after successfully teeing up his golf ball, then felt the need to warn the spectators: “Oh boy. Woo! Watch out.”
The 85-year-old Nicklaus said later that a primary thought in his head was not to kill anyone with an errant shot. He hit it solidly enough and found the left edge of the wide fairway of Tea Olive, the scenic opening hole.
Player, 89, kicked his leg after his tee shot, and the 75-year-old Watson outdrove them both with a swing that has held up over time. Augusta National staffers positioned along the fairway scurried out to collect the three ceremonial golf balls, and the Masters was underway. The first official pairing was Davis Riley and Patton Kizzire, going off in a twosome before groups of three the rest of the day.
Thirty-nine years after winning his last green jacket, Nicklaus was joined by his wife, Barbara, known widely as the First Lady of Golf. She was dressed in the traditional white caddie bib of the Masters, and toted along her husband's small bag with the single club he needed for his ceremonial duties — a purple-shafted driver.
The tradition of honorary starters began in 1963, when club co-founder Bobby Jones asked Scottish pros Fred McLeod and Jock Hutchinson to lead off the opening round. They served in the role into the 1970s, when the custom was paused for a handful of years. In 1981, Gene Sarazen and Byron Nelson assumed the job. Sam Snead joined a few years later. And their opening tee shots became as much a part of the Masters experience as those pimento cheese sandwiches.
Arnold Palmer served as a starter from 2007 until his death in 2016. Nicklaus had joined him in 2010 and Player two years later. Watson made it a group of three again three years ago — a trio with a combined 11 green jackets and 35 major championships to their names.
After getting relief from the chilly morning air, the honorary starters donned their green jackets and took questions about a variety of topics at a freewheeling and occasionally awkward news conference.
“I've got a young girlfriend (who's) changed my life. How about that, at 90, finding a girlfriend. Tom's not as old as me, but he's also found a new one,” Player said.
Asked if he wanted to weigh in on that subject, Watson lifted his hands, smiled and shook his head.
Player, Nicklaus and Watson agreed on two topics: They think Rory McIlroy is going to win this year's Masters to complete the career Grand Slam, and they believe players should always talk to the media after their rounds, even if they played poorly — something McIlroy didn't do at Pinehurst No. 2 after his heartbreak at last year's U.S. Open.
“He has the best swing in golf, without a question. He's the fittest golfer. He does a deadlift of 400 pounds,” Player said. “It's just the right time for him to win now, and the golf course, there's no golf course that suits a man better than it does for Rory.”
Nicklaus said he had lunch with McIlroy last week and the world's second-ranked player detailed how he planned to play every shot.
“He got done with the round. I didn't open my mouth. I said, ‘Well: I wouldn't change a thing. That's exactly how I would try to play the golf course,'” Nicklaus said.
As for players talking to reporters — a subject that came up again this spring when Collin Morikawa told the media, “I don't owe anyone anything” — Nicklaus said players could choose not to speak after their rounds, but he can't recall ever making that choice himself. Player said competitors should be required by the PGA Tour to talk.
“I think there should be a PGA rule, that if you're requested to go after a round, it's our obligation to do this,” Player said. “If you ask for somebody to go to the press room, whether you shoot 90 or you shoot 60, you should have to go there.”
___
AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
People wait for the trailhead at Glacier Point to re-open at Yosemite National Park, Calif., June 18, 2016. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
FILE- Steam rises a the Norris Geyser Basin in Yellowstone National Park, Wyo., Spet. 2009. (AP Photo/Beth Harpaz, File)
Sheer cliffs rise at Zion National Park, near Springdale, Utah., Sept. 16, 2015. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)
During a hike in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 1995, Don Barger climbed Chilhowee Mountain hoping to gaze across the valley below. All he saw was a wall of gray haze.
Today, he said, he can see some 50 miles (80 kilometers) across that same valley to the Cumberland Mountains.
A 26-year-old federal regulation known as the regional haze rule has helped cut down on pollution over national parks, wilderness areas and tribal reservations, restoring some of the nation's most spectacular natural vistas for outdoor lovers like Barger. But conservationists fear those gains may be lost after President Donald Trump's administration announced in March the rule is among dozens of landmark environmental regulations that it plans to roll back.
“It means a promise that was made to the American public is lost,” Barger, 74, said. “More and more generations of people are going to grow up as ignorant as I was, not realizing what I'm missing and not seeing.”
Haze forms when small particles of air pollution, such as sulfur dioxide or nitrogen oxides, scatter and absorb sunlight, blurring views and decreasing visibility.
Congress amended the Clean Air Act in 1977 to make restoring and maintaining visibility a goal for 156 national parks, wilderness areas, wildlife refuges and tribal reservations across 36 states. That includes places like the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina and Tennessee; Grand Canyon National Park; Glacier National Park; and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
After years of drafting and litigation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency adopted regulations known as the regional haze rule in 1999 to implement the amendments.
The rule calls for attaining natural visibility conditions by the year 2064 and mandates that states come up with plans that include limitations on emissions, compliance schedules and monitoring strategies. Older facilities that emit pollution, such as coal-fired power plants, must adopt mitigation technology such as scrubbers or shut down periodically to decrease overall annual emissions.
The states' plans have been plagued with delays as the EPA approves parts of them and rejects others. For example, two big oil- and coal-producing states, North Dakota and Wyoming, and industry groups filed petitions in federal court in January seeking review of EPA decisions rejecting their plans, according to the Harvard Law School's Environmental and Energy Law Program.
The rule works in conjunction with other federal antipollution regulations, but it's been crucial in clearing the skies over national parks and wilderness areas.
An Associated Press analysis of data from a nationwide network of monitoring sites from 1999, when the rule was implemented, through 2023 shows 93% of the parks and wilderness areas have seen improved air quality on clear days. No parks or wilderness areas have seen any notable worsening in visibility.
Visibility in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was twice as good on a typical clear day in 2023 as it was in 1999, marking the biggest improvement among the national parks.
The EPA estimates that between 2007 and 2018 the rule has cut 500,000 tons of sulfur dioxide and 300,000 tons of nitrous oxides annually. The average visual range has increased from 90 miles to 120 miles (144 kilometers to 193 kilometers) in some western parks and from 50 to 70 miles (80 kilometers to 112 kilometers) in some eastern parks, according to the Harvard program.
Trump's EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, announced March 12 that the agency would look to roll back 31 landmark environmental regulations, including the regional haze rule. Zeldin called the announcement the “most consequential day of deregulation in American history” and said in an essay published in the Wall Street Journal that the administration is “driving a dagger through the heart of climate-change religion.”
Asked for comment on the regional haze rule, the EPA said they want to better account for pollution from outside the U.S. and from natural sources and avoid unnecessary burdens for states and industry.
In a cost-benefit analysis of the rule before it took effect, the EPA found it would cost energy producers up to $98 billion by 2025 while providing about $344 billion in benefits such as health care savings.
Producers argue that the haze rule has done its job and it doesn't make sense to continue to impose costs on them.
“This is a matter of diminishing returns,” said Jonathan Fortner, interim president and CEO of the Lignite Energy Council, which advocates for North Dakota's coal industry. “The air is clean, the data proves it, and the science backs that up. The rule's being misapplied, not because we disagree with clean air goals, but because we're already there.”
Two federal properties in North Dakota are subject to the rule, the Lostwood National Wildlife Refuge and Theodore Roosevelt National Park. The AP analysis found both sites have seen dramatic visibility improvements over the five years from 2019 to 2023.
EPA officials did not respond to an AP request for a list of power plants that have closed due to the regional haze rule. A number of energy industry groups did not return repeated requests for comment, including the U.S. Energy Association and the National Utility Contractors Association.
Advocates of the rule say eliminating it could lead to reduced tourism and the economic boom visitors bring to national park regions. The National Park Service estimates 325 million people visited national parks in 2023, spending $26.4 billion in gateway communities.
Nothing appears likely to change overnight. Conservationists expect the Trump administration to pursue a rollback through language revisions in the rule, a process that would require a public comment period and would likely trigger court challenges that could last years.
“I've watched the Great Smoky Mountains National Park emerge from the chemical haze that once enshrouded it and was getting worse,” Barger said. “It's just this visceral sense of place. We had lost it entirely. The Clean Air Act is working and it's a work in progress. You have to stay with it or it doesn't work.”
___
Associated Press Science Writer Seth Borenstein contributed to this report.
___
The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
A logo of Prada is seen at a store in Hong Kong Sunday, June 12, 2011. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu, File)
ROME (AP) — The Prada Group announced a deal Thursday to buy crosstown Milan fashion rival Versace from the U.S. luxury group Capri Holdings under terms that values one of the most recognizable names in Italian fashion at 1.25 billion euros ($1.4 billion).
The deal will put Versace, known for sexy silhouettes and bold Greco and Medusa motifs, under the same roof as Prada's “ugly chic” aesthetic and the youth-driven Miu Miu whose stunning growth in recent years has far outpaced the market. Prada said the 47-year-old Versace brand offered “significant untapped growth potential.''
“This is exactly the strength for our group. There are no overlaps in terms of creativity, in terms of customer,″ said Lorenzo Bertelli, Prada's chief marketing officer, who is being groomed to one day take over the business that his parents — Miuccia Prada, the group's creative force and largest shareholder, and Patrizio Bertelli, its chairman and executive director — have turned into a global fashion juggernaut.
“We are buying a brand with huge potential, with a very recognizable aesthetic,” Lorenzo Bertelli said, underlining that the Versace brand name recognition, putting it among the top 10 in the world, far outweighs its business performance.
The final value of the deal will be adjusted at closing, which is expected in the second half of the year, the Prada Group said. It will be funded by 1.5 billion euros in new debt and has been approved by the Prada and Capri Holdings board of directors.
Prada Chief Executive Andrea Guerra said the deal was aimed at building a “sustainable revenue growth” and boosting the brand's identity, and was not about squeezing synergies. Prada's statement underlined that Versace will “maintain its creative DNA and cultural authenticity, ” while benefitting from its “industrial capabilities, retail execution and operations expertise. ”
There are no plans to change the CEO and Miuccia Prada will not be involved in the creative side of Versace, the executives said. Guerra added that the recent creative shakeup at Versace, with Miu Miu head of design Dario Vitale replacing Donatella Versace as creative director effective April 1, had nothing to do with the deal. He called it “an independent, very personal” decision by Vitale.
Lorenzo Bertelli said the experience of Miu Miu's growth had shown that small changes can make all the difference. ”We don't need to change the brand, revolutionize it. We need to just evolve it, make the right things happen, and all together they are hopefully going to bring a huge spark and bring back Versace to be a huge success,'' he said.
Capri Holdings, which owns Michael Kors and Jimmy Choo, paid $2 billion for Versace in 2018, but had been struggling to position Versace's bold profile in the recent era of “quiet luxury.″
Versace represented 20% of Capri Holdings 2024 revenue of 5.2 billion euros. An analyst presentation for the Prada deal said that Versace would represent 13% of the Prada Group's pro-forma revenues, with Miu Miu coming in at 22% and Prada at 64%. The Prada Group, which also includes Church's footwear, reported a 17% boost in revenues to 5.4 billion euros last year.
Donatella Versace, who took over as creative director at the fashion house founded by her brother, Gianni Versace, after his 1997 murder, continues with the fashion house in the new role of chief brand ambassador.
“I am absolutely delighted to become part of the Prada family,'' she wrote in a post on Instagram beneath a photograph of herself and Miuccia Prada. ”I am honored to have the brand in the hands of such a trusted Italian family business, and I am ready to support this new era for the brand in any way I can.”
The Italian government welcomed a deal that appears to secure Versace's longer term future as other family-owned fashion brands have faltered or even disappeared after opening up to outside investors.
“An historic ‘Made in Italy' brand is Italian again,'' Industry Minister Adolfo Urso said.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Author, wife of Weezer bassist arrested after being shot by police who say she pointed a gun at them
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Jillian Lauren, author and wife of Weezer bassist Scott Shriner, was shot and injured by Los Angeles police and arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after pointing a gun at officers from her front yard, authorities said Wednesday.
The 51-year-old Lauren, identified by police as Jillian Shriner and listed as Jillian Lauren Shriner in jail records, had injuries that were not life-threatening after the shooting in the northeast Los Angeles neighborhood of Eagle Rock on Thursday, the LAPD said in a statement.
Her representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment and there is no indication Scott Shriner was involved in the incident. Weezer is scheduled to play the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on Saturday.
Police said they were assisting California Highway Patrol officers in their search for three suspects from a misdemeanor hit-and-run. Lauren was not among the suspects. But while pursuing one of them who had reportedly been running through a backyard, police came upon Lauren in the front yard of her neighboring residence, holding a handgun.
They ordered her several times to drop the gun, but she refused, and pointed it at them, police allege. They did not say whether she fired the gun, but said she was hit by police gunfire and fled into her home, where they took her into custody then took her to a hospital.
A 9-millimeter handgun was recovered from Shriner's home, the police statement said.
She was later booked and released after posting $1 million bond, LA County jail records showed.
Lauren has not made a court appearance, and it was not immediately clear whether she has hired a lawyer. There were no immediate responses to an email to her manager and a message left on her author website. There was also no response to an email seeking comment from a representative for Weezer.
Lauren is the author of two bestselling memoirs, 2010's “Some Girls: My Life in a Harem” and 2015's “Everything You Ever Wanted.”
Weezer is a Los Angeles band beloved for their 1994 record unofficially known as the “Blue Album,” featuring songs including “Say It Ain't So” and “Buddy Holly.” Shriner joined the band in the early 2000s.
Lauren and Shriner married in 2005, and they have two children.
One of the three hit-and-run suspects was found, cited by the CHP and released.
___
This story first moved April 9, 2025 and was updated on April 10, 2025, to reflect Shriner's release from jail.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
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Kseniia Petrova's path from a Harvard laboratory to an immigration cell began with frogs.
The Russian national who has been working as a researcher at Harvard Medical School failed to declare “non-hazardous” frog embryos she was carrying with her on her return to the US from France in February, Petrova's attorney said. Rather than issue a fine, Petrova's exchange visitor visa was revoked, and she was taken into custody.
Revoking Petrova's visa was “a punishment grossly disproportionate to the situation,” her attorney, Greg Romanovsky, said, calling the error on the customs form “inadvertant.”
CNN did not receive a response from the Department of Homeland Security to a request for comment, but the department told ABC News, “Messages found on (Petrova's) phone revealed she planned to smuggle the materials through customs without declaring them.”
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Petrova now sits in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Louisiana, ICE records show, waiting for a June 9 hearing that could end with her return to Russia, where Petrova's attorney says she would face immediate arrest over her previous outspoken opposition to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
“Her detention is not only unnecessary, but unjust,” Romanovsky said.
CNN has reviewed court filings, statements from attorneys and announcements from dozens of universities and colleges around the country and confirmed that more than 340 students, faculty and researchers have had their visas revoked this year.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last month the State Department, under his direction, revoked more than 300 visas, with most of those being student visas.
The earliest high-profile cases focused on those accused of supporting terror organizations, as was the case with Mahmoud Khalil's arrest following pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University.
Now, an increasing number of student deportation threats involve the revocation of visas based on relatively minor offenses like years-old misdemeanors, according to immigration attorneys, or sometimes no reason at all.
The targeting of foreign nationals affiliated with prestigious American universities comes amid the Trump administration's larger immigration crackdown, including claiming broad powers to declare some migrants gang members and deporting them without a hearing.
“All of these tools that exist in the (immigration) statute have been used before, but they use them in a way that causes mass hysteria, chaos and panic with the hope that students won't get proper legal advice and they'll just, through attrition, leave the country,” said Jeff Joseph, president-elect of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
A visa is a document that allows people to legally enter the US at an airport or border crossing, and it is not unusual for student visas to be revoked for a variety of reasons, Minneapolis-based immigration attorney David Wilson told CNN. But forcing people already in the US to immediately leave the country is something very different, he said, especially in the middle of an academic term.
“A visa is like the key to start a car,” Wilson said. “It's quite different, though, to stop the car in the middle of the street and tell the person they have to get out.”
That difference is at the heart of the lawsuit filed Monday by a Dartmouth graduate researcher from China. Xiaotian Liu – a computer science student who has studied in the United States since 2016 – asked a court for a temporary restraining order to keep the government from throwing him out of the country.
Liu's F-1 student visa was revoked, something his attorneys acknowledge the State Department has the right to do, but they say that doesn't give ICE the ability to immediately force him to leave the US, especially since he was given no explanation for it.
“He has not committed any crime or even a traffic violation,” his attorneys said in a court filing. “Nor has he shown any violence (or even participated in any protest) in the United States or elsewhere.”
A federal judge in New Hampshire granted Liu's request for a temporary restraining order Wednesday. CNN reached out to DHS for comment on Liu's case.
Even visitors who have been given reasons for their deportation are often surprised by what they hear.
A graduate student at the University of Minnesota, Doğukan Günaydin, was detained by ICE on March 27 because of a prior drunk driving conviction, a senior Homeland Security official told CNN.
In a court filing, Günaydin's attorney says online records show that his visa revocation wasn't official until seven hours after he was taken into custody while on his way to class, according to CNN affiliate KARE.
Wilson, who is not involved in Günaydin's case, said driving while intoxicated is grounds to revoke a visa, but he's never seen it used to kick someone out of the country.
“Saying that your (legal) status is ended because of that, there's no precedent for that,” he said. “There's no authority for that.”
While the Department of Homeland Security has publicly touted many of its efforts to deport students and faculty, the process of revoking a visa is handled by the State Department, which has been more tight-lipped.
“Due to privacy considerations, and visa confidentiality, we generally will not comment on Department actions with respect to specific cases,” a spokesperson told CNN in response to questions about multiple incidents.
More than 1.5 million people were in the US under student visas issued by the Department of Homeland Security in 2023, according to a government report, while the State Department says the Exchange Visitor Program it manages “provides opportunities to around 300,000 foreign visitors from 200 countries and territories per year.”
In many cases, immigration attorneys have said, the Trump administration declined to provide any details on their visa revocation decisions unless forced to do so in court.
In the case of Khalil, it was only after he filed suit that the government cited his failure to state he had previously worked for the British Embassy in Beirut and was an unpaid intern with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. By the time his case got a hearing, he had already been moved more than a thousand miles away to custody, in Louisiana.
Students and families aren't the only ones being left in the dark. Several universities – including the University of Texas at Austin, Stanford University and UCLA – said the government never directly informed them that they had students whose visas had been revoked. In many cases, schools learned of the decision only after checking a government database and discovering authorization had been revoked without a specific explanation.
“The termination notices indicate that all terminations were due to violations of the terms of the individuals' visa programs,” UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk in a statement to students and faculty Sunday.
Many students have had their visas revoked with no further action taken to this point, while some have been taken into custody with the authorities' intention to deport them.
“The very public actions that are being taken by ICE and the Department of Homeland Security around some of these students, where they are removing these students from their homes or from their streets, that's not usually done unless there is a security issue when a student visa is revoked,” Sarah Spreitzer with the America Council on Education told the Associated Press. “The threat of this very quick removal is something that's new.”
The lack of certainty about what is leading some scholars to lose their right to study in the US is sending a chill through the international student community.
“I think I want to speak in the name of everyone here, we are feeling anxious,” said a freshman on a student visa enrolled at one of Philadelphia's renowned universities.
CNN granted the student anonymity for fear of retaliation.
“We feel anxiety because we don't know what's going to happen,” the student explained in an interview with CNN between a day filled with work-study, classes and homework. “People could be targeted without being related to something, you know?”
Some students are receiving notification of the loss of their legal status, often accompanied with the suggestion that they “self-deport” rather than challenge their deportation in court and face the risk of being detained. CBP One, an online application that Customs and Border Protection used to schedule arrivals for people seeking asylum during the Biden administration, was changed last month to “CBP Home” to allow people to notify the government that they will voluntarily leave the US.
“The CBP Home app gives aliens the option to leave now and self-deport, so they may still have the opportunity to return legally in the future and live the American dream,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement. “If they don't, we will find them, we will deport them, and they will never return.”
The threat of being forced out of the United States permanently is being coupled with a financial cost. The Department of Homeland Security stated in a social media post that the agency could fine an immigrant $998 per day for remaining in the country after receiving “a final order of removal.”
Among those who have chosen to leave are Momodou Taal, who had been told to turn himself in to immigration custody while his case was being heard in the courts.
“I have lost faith I could walk the streets without being abducted,” Taal said on X.
As the immigration cases slowly work their way through the courts, the speed and unpredictability of the move to deport immigrants who were in the country legally is alarming a lot of Wilson's legal clients.
“I have individuals who naturalized 10 years ago asking if they have a parking ticket, can they travel?” he said. “People are being terrorized because of the uncertainty that the slightest contact with law enforcement will trigger a consequence that will unravel their life in the United States.”
CNN's Jeff Winter, Danny Freeman, Yash Roy, Gloria Pazmino, Maria Aguilar Prieto and Javon Huynh contributed to this report.
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Detained Russian-American ballerina Ksenia Karelina is on her way back to the United States after Moscow released her in exchange for U.S. prisoner Arthur Petrov.
Russian-American ballerina Ksenia Karelina, who has been wrongfully detained in Russia for more than a year, is on her way back to the United States, Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed early Thursday.
Moscow released Karelina in exchange for German-Russian citizen Arthur Petrov, who was arrested in 2023 in Cyprus at the request of the U.S. on charges of exporting sensitive microelectronics, The Wall Street Journal reported.
"American Ksenia Karelina is on a plane back home to the United States. She was wrongfully detained by Russia for over a year and President Trump secured her release. @POTUS will continue to work for the release of ALL Americans," Rubio wrote on X.
AMERICAN BALLERINA ACCUSED OF SPYING STANDS TRIAL IN MOSCOW FOR $51 UKRAINE DONATION
Russian-American ballerina Ksenia Karelina, who has been wrongfully detained in Russia for more than a year, is on her way back to the United States, Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed early Thursday. (Eleonora Srebroski/Handout/Reuters)
Karelina was sentenced to 12 years in a Russian penal colony after pleading guilty to treason for donating $51.80 to a Ukrainian charity in early 2024.
She was initially detained for "petty hooliganism" while visiting family in Russia in February 2024, but the charge was later upgraded to treason after accusations that she was acting as an American spy.
AMERICAN BALLERINA LEFT OUT OF RUSSIA PRISONER SWAP PLEADS GUILTY TO TREASON
US-Russian ballerina, Ksenia Karelina, was branded an American spy when her treason trial opened in Russia on June 20, 2024. (East2West)
Eleonra Srebroski, Karelina's former stepmother, told Fox News she's "euphoric" regarding her return.
"My spirit is high. We are extremely happy. This is beyond any emotion…This is healing," Srebroski said. "We were putting a lot of hope in the Trump administration, and we knew she would be next after Marc Fogel. We support Trump even more."
Srebroski said that Karelina began giving other inmates facial massages, as she previously worked in a spa in Los Angeles.
"She is a tough cookie. She doesn't complain. She was keeping quiet. She even started doing facial massages on other inmates," the former stepmother said.
Russian authorities claimed that Karelina, who lived in Los Angeles, raised money for the Ukrainian army and took part in "public actions" that supported Ukraine while in the U.S.
Her boyfriend, boxer Chis Van Deerden, told Fox News Digital last year that she was "proud to be Russian, and she doesn't watch the news. She doesn't intervene with anything about the war."
Chris Van Heerden, Karelina's boyfriend, told Fox News Digital last year that she was proud to be American and Russian. (Fox News)
She was left out of a massive August 2024 prisoner swap that resulted in the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan and Alsu Kurmasheva.
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Details surrounding Karelina's arrival on U.S. soil were not immediately released.
She is the latest American prisoner detained in another country to be freed under President Donald Trump's administration. In February, Trump brought American history teacher Marc Fogel, who had been detained in Russia since 2021, back to the U.S.
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President Donald Trump has reportedly fired National Security Agency Director Timothy Haugh, who also leads U.S. Cyber Command, and NSA Deputy Director Wendy Noble.
The first thing I read each morning for the last four years was the top-secret President's Daily Brief – a summary of the most sensitive intelligence and analysis on global issues. From the president on down to cabinet members and other senior officials, we relied on that summary to warn us about China's aggressive cyber operations, terrorist plots, Iran's malicious activities, and other geopolitical risks. Invariably, these insights were derived mostly from intelligence collected by one entity: the National Security Agency. Why? Because in a world defined by digital communications and technology, the NSA is America's most effective intelligence service.
That's why the abrupt firings a few days ago of NSA Director Gen. Timothy Haugh and Deputy Director Wendy Noble – two highly experienced and apolitical leaders – at a time when the U.S. is facing unprecedented cyberattacks from China and others is a gift to our adversaries. As President Donald Trump considers replacements for these vital roles, he and his national security team would be well-served to prioritize competence and leadership over politics. Here's why.
First, the NSA director and deputy director roles are unique in the U.S. government. Unlike the heads of other departments and agencies, who are primarily charged with overseeing policy, interfacing with external stakeholders and managing the workforce – all important tasks – they don't need to be substantive experts to lead the agency.
RARE CRIMINAL CONFESSIONS, BRITISH SPY SECRETS FROM 115 YEARS AGO UNVEILED IN NEW EXHIBIT
Not so at the NSA. By virtue of the highly technical nature of cyber operations and signals intelligence activities – intercepting the communications of our adversaries – it's imperative that NSA leaders understand both the technical details and the strategic implications of the complex operations under their command.
The National Security Agency is getting new leadership after President Donald Trump fired two top people. It's essential that their replacements have the unique set of skills needed for the job. (Getty Images)
They need to know how to build and deploy software platforms and code to launch cyber operations. They need to understand the cryptologic issues and programs that enable intelligence collection and harden U.S. defenses against cyberattacks. They also need to understand the immense power of the capabilities under their control.
The horrific leaks by Edward Snowden illustrated the geopolitical consequences associated with expansive NSA operations even when you have competent professionals leading the agency. It's no job for amateurs. This is precisely why presidents since NSA's inception in 1952 have always selected leaders with deep technical expertise to run this highly sophisticated agency. Just as we need qualified doctors overseeing the emergency room of a hospital, we need competent, qualified leaders at the NSA.
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Second, the decapitation of NSA leadership came at a time when China is undertaking increasingly aggressive cyber operations against the United States, as evidenced by the recent Salt Typhoon cyberattacks against US telecommunications networks.
As Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard stated last month, "Beijing is advancing its cyber capabilities for sophisticated operations aimed at stealing sensitive U.S. government and private sector information, and pre-positioning additional asymmetric attack options that may be deployed in a conflict." These are not abstract threats.
Turmoil at the NSA – the agency principally responsible for detecting and countering Chinese cyber espionage – could not have come at a worse time. The unprecedented firings, apparently without cause, will have a chilling effect on the workforce and morale at the agency and signal that politics is more important than apolitical, objective analysis and production that has always defined the intelligence profession.
The impacts will be further amplified if other senior NSA officials retire or leave for more lucrative positions in industry to avoid becoming the next victim of baseless political attacks. The ultimate beneficiaries of chaos at America's most consequential spy agency will be America's adversaries, who will look to exploit the crisis.
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The Trump administration has an opportunity to minimize the damage caused by these firings by selecting professionals with the competence and experience to lead NSA moving forward. This isn't about politics, or at least it shouldn't be.
All Americans should care about having the best and brightest leading the NSA at a time when we're facing rising threats at home and abroad – from China and Iran to ISIS and drug cartels. Choosing otherwise is a dangerous proposition that benefits only our adversaries.
Brett M. Holmgren was the acting director of the National Counterterrorism Center and assistant secretary of State for the Bureau of Intelligence and Research under the Biden administration.
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Fox News senior national correspondent Rich Edson reports on the highlights of Secretary of State Marco Rubio's push for peace in Brussels on 'Special Report.'
For nearly eight decades, the United States has shouldered a disproportionate burden in maintaining global peace, prosperity and order. After World War II, we had little choice. The world lay in ruins, and America alone had the industrial strength and confidence to lead. We opened our markets, extended our military shield, rebuilt broken nations and underwrote a new international system.
But that era is over. And our policies haven't caught up.
Today, wealthy nations like Germany, France, Japan, South Korea — and yes, Canada — enjoy universal healthcare, world-class infrastructure and generous social safety nets, all while under-investing in their own defense and benefiting from privileged access to American markets. Their security remains subsidized by U.S. taxpayers, our troops and defense treaties forged when these nations were fragile and vulnerable.
TRUMP ADMIN FIRES NAVY ADMIRAL AT NATO TARGETED BY CONSERVATIVE GROUP
Now they are competitors. They sell into our markets while protecting their own. They underfund defense while relying on us to keep the peace. Meanwhile, our own infrastructure is crumbling, our debt exceeds $36 trillion, and too many Americans remain uninsured, under-trained or economically stuck.
The U.S. says it remains committed to NATO, but wants more from our allies. FILE: Heads of state pose for a group photo during the NATO 75th anniversary celebratory event at the Andrew Mellon Auditorium on July 9, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
The American people are asking: Why are we still doing this?
President Donald Trump's proposed reciprocating tariffs aren't just about trade. They mark the clearest signal yet that the era of strategic altruism is ending. For decades, we accepted lopsided trade deals and tolerated unfair tariffs from allies in exchange for Cold War alignment. That made sense in 1947. Even in 1987. It doesn't make sense now.
Take Canada. Our friendly neighbor to the north enjoys one of the largest per capita trade surpluses with the United States while protecting key industries like dairy, telecom and energy through tariffs and regulation. Canada also continues to fail its NATO defense spending commitment, investing only 1.3% of GDP when the standard is 2%. Over the past 18 years, it has under-invested by more than $258 billion. Yet somehow the outrage is directed at the U.S. for demanding fairness.
Or Europe. Despite facing Russian aggression, many EU countries still fall short of NATO targets, preferring to spend on domestic programs while letting the U.S. deter their enemies.
Russia is no longer the global menace it once was. The war in Ukraine has exposed a brittle, corrupt and backward military. Its economy is fragile, its influence shrinking, and its population aging. It is not a superpower — it is a wounded regional actor with nuclear weapons.
China presents a more sophisticated challenge. But even it faces a looming demographic collapse, economic slowdowns, and rising global backlash.
Our response should not be to double down on outdated security guarantees or trade relationships that favor them more than us. The answer is to refocus America's power and priorities.
We are still the world's most powerful nation — economically, militarily, technologically. What we lack is alignment between our global commitments and our national interests.
Many NATO allies spent years underfunding their militaries. FILE: Finnish Air Force F-18 are seen during a NATO Baltic Air Policing drill. (John Thys/AFP via Getty Images)
That's why this moment demands bold action. Incremental change is no longer enough.
We must begin to phase out our role as the primary security guarantor for nations that are fully capable of defending themselves. This includes Europe — and Canada. The U.S. should remain in NATO but as a strategic deterrent, not the first line of defense. Allies must rearm, reinvest and take responsibility for their sovereignty.
We must also renegotiate or exit trade relationships that disadvantage American workers and industries. If tariffs are the tool, use them with judgment. They are not economic warfare — they are leverage. They show that America is serious about fairness.
Most importantly, we must rebuild at home. Our roads, ports, power grid, schools and healthcare systems need modernizing. Our industrial base must be restored. Our workforce must be re-skilled. And our economy must be made resilient — not dependent.
Some critics say this strategy risks a trade war. Maybe. But far better to recalibrate now, while we're strong, than wait until we're overextended and vulnerable.
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Others worry we'll alienate allies. That's possible too. But true partnerships require shared sacrifice. If these countries are our equals, then it's time they act like it.
To those who prefer gradualism and summit diplomacy, I say this: we don't have the luxury of slow change. The global order is shifting. Our adversaries and allies alike are watching.
We are still the world's most powerful nation — economically, militarily, technologically. What we lack is alignment between our global commitments and our national interests.
This is a tipping point. If we don't meet it with strength, we will drift into decline — not because we lacked power, but because we lacked purpose.
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America must stop managing the old world and start shaping the new one.
It's time to stop apologizing for our strength — and start using it to protect our people, our economy and our future.
John Rakolta Jr. served as the United States ambassador to the United Arab Emirates. He is the chairman of the board of directors for Walbridge, one of America's largest industrial construction firms.
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A Washington, D.C., bartender fended off three teens who attempted to carjack him at a gas station in Northwest, and the entire ordeal was captured on surveillance footage. Credit: FOX 5 DC
Carjackers targeting luxury vehicles throughout the United States are sending stolen cars to an unlikely destination in an attempt to maximize profits while minimizing the chances of getting caught.
The nation's capital has served as an unlikely vessel for stolen luxury vehicles in recent years, with Washington seeing the highest vehicle theft rate throughout the country in 2023, according to data from the National Insurance Crime Bureau.
In 2023, carjacking rates within Washington were so high, the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) devised an undercover operation to take down an 18-year-old repeat offender who was allegedly working with other teenagers.
POLICE OFFICER REVEALS TIPS TO AVOID CARJACKINGS, REMAIN SAFE IF YOU'VE FALLEN VICTIM TO ONE
A steering wheel lock of a car in Washington on June 6, 2023. (Celal Gunes/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Federal prosecutors allege Cedae Hardy orchestrated six separate carjackings alongside several co-conspirators throughout Maryland and Washington, with one attempt ending with a victim being shot multiple times.
Hardy allegedly unknowingly communicated with undercover MPD officers via text message to organize handovers in a downtown parking garage. In one instance, authorities intercepted messages between Hardy and his alleged co-conspirator showing the pair plotting to steal a Mercedes-Benz SL550. Just 22 minutes after the armed carjacking, Hardy arrived at the Florida Avenue Garage in downtown Washington. The vehicle was sold two days later to an undercover officer for $1,200, according to the Department of Justice.
Hardy is facing multiple felony charges and has also been tied to an additional conspiracy ring responsible for dozens of alleged carjackings, with one incident resulting in a victim being shot to death.
An attorney representing Hardy declined Fox News Digital's request for comment.
Hardy, along with several other teenage defendants, allegedly conspired to commit 33 carjackings between December 2022 and June 2023, according to the DOJ.
CALIFORNIA COUPLE HIKES UP HAWAII VOLCANO TO ESCAPE CARJACKING, ROBBERY
A Metropolitan Police Department car drives through Washington on Aug. 30, 2023. (Al Drago for Washington Post via Getty Images)
Prosecutors allege Hardy, along with Keyonte Rice, 19, Landrell Jordan III, 19, and Malik Norman, 20, conspired to carjack victims and sell the stolen vehicles or use them for future crimes.
In one instance, Hardy and Rice allegedly shot a 39-year-old man to death in a failed carjacking attempt in a Maryland apartment complex parking lot. According to prosecutors, the pair were driving a vehicle from a separate armed carjacking and allegedly set the victim's car on fire hours after the murder.
"[My client] has pleaded not guilty," attorney Robert Jenkins, who is representing Norman, told Fox News Digital. "I don't believe that the government will be able to establish that Mr. Norman participated directly in the use of any violence or the taking of any vehicles through any carjackings. I think the allegation against Mr. Norman is [he] may have at one point in time become in possession of certain vehicles that may have, at one point in time, been stolen through carjacking. But Mr. Norman himself never possessed any firearms, never confronted anyone for the purpose of seizing their vehicle and did not participate directly in any of those activities."
The attorneys for Rice and Jordan did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
CONNECTICUT MAN PUNCHES PREGNANT WOMAN IN VIOLENT CARJACKING ATTEMPT AT DUNKIN' DONUTS DRIVE-THRU
"Soft-on-crime policies in major cities like Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles are the tail that wags the dogs when it comes to stolen high-end cars," attorney Andrew Stoltmann told Fox News Digital. "When the thieves know they either won't get caught, or if they do get caught the penalty will be a de minimus slap on the wrist, it provides a green light for them to operate with impunity when it comes to stealing luxury cars."
The rise in carjackings marks a stunning statistical reversal amid the pandemic, with reports of offenses nearly quadrupling between 2020 and 2021.
Last year, New Jersey officials announced 29 individuals were charged after federal and local officials joined forces to execute a takedown of a "major international carjacking and stolen car trafficking ring," according to ICE.
The group allegedly operated within the Northeast, targeting luxury vehicles – specifically high-end SUVs – by holding victims at gunpoint or bumping the vehicles on a highway, forcing owners to exit their cars.
The CMA CGM Marco Polo makes its way toward the Elizabeth-Port Authority Marine Terminal as seen from Bayonne, N.J., May 20, 2021. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
DEADLY FLORIDA CARJACKING TIED TO KILLING OF TOW TRUCK DRIVER, POLICE SAY; DEPUTY SUSPECTED OF LEAKING
"The more we learn about the sophisticated pipeline between the supply and demand for stolen luxury cars, the better we can choke off that route and disrupt the flow," Col. Rick Fuentes, superintendent of the New Jersey State Police, said in a press release. "The scope of those arrested and charged shows just how organized this dangerous criminal enterprise had become."
The carjackers targeted vehicles at car washes, valet stations and airports, looking for victims who may have got out of their car while leaving the engine running. The thieves would then obtain the electronic key fob for the vehicle – critical to the resale value – and make their escape.
Once a vehicle was stolen, the carjackers would move it to a location to ensure no tracking devices were installed, primarily storing cars in parking garages, residential backyards or private storage areas.
Throughout the sting, titled Operation Jacked, roughly 140 of the 160 vehicles recovered were found at ports throughout New York or New Jersey.
VENEZUELAN MIGRANTS ALLEGEDLY CARJACK OFF-DUTY NYPD OFFICER'S PERSONAL VEHICLE AT GUNPOINT: REPORT
Cars are seen parked at the port in Bayonne, N.J., on Aug. 21, 2021. (REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File)
While some cars were sold within the U.S., most were shipped internationally to West Africa via shipping containers with misrepresented bills of lading.
"Think of it as criminal arbitrage," Stoltmann said. "They can get significantly bigger profit margins overseas than they can here in the United States, even given the costs of shipping these cars halfway across the world. Crucially, there are virtually no penalties whatsoever if they get caught in possession with a United States stolen car in Africa."
The Port Authority of New Jersey directed Fox News Digital to ICE for additional information.
Once the vehicles make their way overseas to Africa, they become virtually untraceable while entering a network of commerce where stolen cars are in high demand.
In response to the influx of stolen vehicles traveling across borders, Interpol has ramped up efforts to combat the sale of cars traveling from America and Europe by increasing the efficacy of entry checks, according to the agency.
SUSPECTS ON LOOSE AFTER CARJACKING CAUGHT ON VIDEO, WOMAN'S REMAINS FOUND IN BURNED SUV
A warning sign in Washington, D.C., on June 6, 2023. (Celal Gunes/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
However, officials' ability to track the number of cars flowing into the country remains unknown, with stories of local gangs working alongside law enforcement within Africa to transport the stolen vehicles into countries there for profit, according to a 2022 report published by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.
Vehicles are registered with a VIN number upon arriving in West Africa, but vehicle laundering hubs throughout the region offer scammers the opportunity to alter the identification number or purchase counterfeit registration paperwork. One known hub in Birnin Konni in Niger sells fake license plates for just $16, with fake vehicle titles costing as little as $2.50, according to the report.
"Stolen vehicles are a business that involves numerous people who seem far from suspicious, such as traders, garage owners and mechanics, and even political leaders, in the sense that they may benefit from the sales," a former Niger car thief said in the report.
MAN ACTED AS ‘HUMAN SHIELD' FOR GIRLFRIEND DURING DC CARJACKING, SHOT 5 TIMES
A warning sign in Washington, D.C., on June 6, 2023. (Celal Gunes/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Back home in the U.S., unlikely criminals are carrying out these transnational crimes.
In Washington, 49% of reported carjackings this year have been committed by juveniles, with 78% of offenders having home addresses within the local area, according to data from MPD.
"Theft rings typically recruit younger people because they know if they do get caught, they will likely be sentenced as a minor, which has much less severe consequences for those who get caught," Stoltmann told Fox News Digital.
The majority of this year's arrests by the MPD have consisted of teenagers, with the youngest offenders just 12 years old.
REALTOR-TURNED-MURDER SUSPECT CHARGED WITH CLIENT COUPLE'S SLAYING HELD AT GUNPOINT BY THEIR SON: POLICE
A steering wheel lock of a car in Washington, D.C., in June 2023. (Celal Gunes/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
"These are organized rings, and they recruit people, and it's much easier to recruit younger people when they know the penalties are so minor for getting caught," Stoltmann said.
As carjacking incidents throughout the country continue to climb – with 1,020,729 reported incidents in 2023 – experts are discovering new methods being used by thieves.
RFID cloning disks or the Flipper Zero Device have the ability to replicate radio signals emitted by key fobs, with criminals using tracking devices to follow vehicles they are interested in stealing, according to the NICB.
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"Vehicle crimes have surged across the nation since the start of the pandemic, especially in dense urban areas," an NICB spokesperson told Fox News Digital. "Even though this past year we've seen a 17% decrease in vehicle thefts, we're still not yet at pre-pandemic figures, and some areas hit harder than others are still experiencing significant highs in all types of auto thefts."
The NICB suggests drivers protect themselves and their cars by parking in well-lit areas, not leaving a running vehicle unattended, and calling law enforcement as soon as possible if their vehicle is stolen.
Julia Bonavita is a U.S. Writer for Fox News Digital and a Fox Flight Team drone pilot. You can follow her at @juliabonavita13 on all platforms and send story tips to julia.bonavita@fox.com.
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What was supposed to be a historic, era-defining trade war launched by US President Donald Trump against a range of countries has, for now, narrowed in on a singular target: China.
Trump announced a three-month pause Wednesday on all the “reciprocal” tariffs that had gone into effect hours earlier – with one exception, deepening a confrontation set to dismantle trade between the world's two largest economies. Then on Thursday, Beijing made good on its vow to bring in its own retaliatory tariffs.
The pace of that escalation has been stunning. Over the course of a week, Trump's tariffs on Chinese imports have jumped from 54% to 104% and now 125% – figures that add to existing levies imposed prior to the president's second term. And China has retaliated in kind, raising additional, retaliatory duties on all US imports to 84%.
The showdown sets up an historic rupture that will not only cause pain for both of these deeply intertwined economies – but add tremendous friction to their geopolitical rivalry.
“This is probably the strongest indication we've seen pushing towards a hard decoupling,” said Nick Marro, principal economist for Asia at the Economist Intelligence Unit, referring to an outcome where the two economies have virtually no trade or mutual investment.
“It's really hard to overstate the expected shocks this is going to have, not just to the Chinese economy itself, but also to the entire global trading landscape,” as well as on the US, he said.
Trump appeared to link his decision not to grant China the same reprieve as other nations to Beijing's swift retaliation, telling reporters Wednesday that “China wants to make a deal, they just don't know how quite to go about it.”
But the view from Beijing looks dramatically different.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping, China's most powerful leader in decades, sees no option for his country to simply capitulate to what it calls America's “unilateral bullying.” And he's playing to the crowd. Publicly, Beijing has drummed up fervent nationalism around its retaliation – part of a strategy it's been quietly preparing for more than four years since Trump was last in office.
While China has long said it wants to talk, Trump's rapid escalation instead appears to have confirmed for Beijing that the US doesn't. And in Xi's calculation, observers say, China is prepared not just to fight back, but to use Trump's trade turmoil to strengthen its own position.
“Xi has been very clear for a very long time that he expects China will enter a period of protracted struggle with the United States and its allies, that China needed to prepare for that, and they have quite extensively,” said Jacob Gunter, lead economy analyst at Berlin-based think tank MERICS.
“Xi Jinping has accepted that the gauntlet is thrown down, and they are ready to put up a fight.”
Whether Trump would have suspended his so-called retaliatory tariffs on China alongside other nations had Beijing not moved so swiftly to retaliate remains an open question. Canada had retaliated but was included in the reprieve, which does not remove a 10% universal tariff imposed last week.
Regardless, Trump, who the White House described earlier this week as having a “spine of steel,” and Xi now appear locked in a war of attrition with the potential to upset a lopsided but highly integrated trade relationship worth roughly half a trillion dollars.
For decades, China has been the world's factory floor, where increasingly automated and high-tech production chains churn out everything from household goods and shoes to electronics, raw materials for construction, appliances and solar panels.
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Those factories satisfied the demand of American and global consumers for affordable goods but fueled an enormous trade deficit – and a feeling among some Americans, including Trump, that globalization has stolen US manufacturing and jobs.
Trump's ratcheting up of tariffs to well over 125% could now cut China's exports to the US by more than half in the coming years, by some estimates.
Many goods from China won't be able to be quickly replaced – driving up US consumer prices, potentially for years, before new factories come online. That could ring up a tax hike for Americans of roughly $860 billion before substitutions, JP Morgan analysts said Wednesday.
In China, a wide swath of suppliers are likely to see their already narrow margins completely erased, with a new wave of efforts to establish factories in other countries set to begin.
The scale of the tariffs could lead to “millions of people becoming unemployed” and a “wave of bankruptcy” across China, according to Victor Shih, director of the University of California San Diego's 21st Century China Center. Meanwhile, US exports to China could “go close to zero,” he added.
“But China can sustain that (situation) much more so than American politicians can,” he said.
That's, in part, because China's ruling Communist Party leaders do not face swift feedback from voters and opinions polls.
“During Covid they shut down the economy (causing) untold employment, suffering – no problem.”
Beijing too believes it can weather the storm.
“In response to US tariffs, we are prepared and have strategies. We have engaged in a trade war with the US for eight years, accumulating rich experience in these struggles,” a commentary on the front page of Communist Party mouthpiece People's Daily said Monday.
It noted Beijing could take “extraordinary efforts” to boost domestic consumption, which has been persistently weak, and introduce other policy measures to support its economy. “The plans to respond are well-prepared and ample,” the commentary said.
And in the face of unknowns about how much further measures could escalate, voices from Beijing appear calm.
“The ultimate outcome hinges on who can withstand a longer ‘economic war of attrition,'” economist Cai Tongjuan of China's Renmin University wrote in a state media op-ed earlier this week. “And China clearly holds a greater advantage in terms of strategic endurance.”
Beijing in recent weeks has also been talking to countries from Europe to Southeast Asia in a bid to expand trade cooperation – and one up the US by winning over American allies and partners exasperated by the on-again-off-again trade war.
But it's been bracing for US trade frictions since Trump's first trade war and his campaign against Chinese tech champion Huawei, which were a wake-up call to Beijing that its economic rise could be derailed if it wasn't prepared.
“The Chinese government have been preparing for this day for six years – they knew this was a possibility,” said Shih in California, who added that Beijing had supported countries to diversify supply chains and looked to manage some of its domestic economic challenges in preparation, among other efforts.
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Today, China is much better placed to weather a broader trade conflict, experts say. Compared with 2018, it's expanded its trade relations with the rest of the world, reducing the share of US exports from roughly one-fifth of its total to less than 15%.
Its manufacturers have also set up extensive operations in third countries like Vietnam and Cambodia, in part to take advantage of potentially lower US duties.
China has also built out its supply chains for rare earths and other critical minerals, upgraded its manufacturing technology with AI and humanoid robots and ramped up its advanced technology capabilities, including semiconductors. Since last year, the government has also worked, with varying success, to address issues like weak consumption and high local government debt.
“(China's) weaknesses are significant, but in the context of an all-out brawl, these are manageable. The US is not going to be able to, on its own, bring China's economy to the edge of destruction,” said Scott Kennedy, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in the US.
“As much as Washington doesn't want to admit it, when China says you can't contain China economically, they have a point.”
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• Tariff pause: President Donald Trump announced a 90-day pause on all “reciprocal” tariffs except those imposed on China, which will see tariffs increased to at least 125%. The US stock market soared on the news, with the S&P 500 posting its best day since October 2008. Asian markets were also rallying early on Thursday.
• What experts are saying: Joe Brusuelas, the chief economist of consulting firm RSM US, warned the shift in tariff policy may not be enough to stave off a recession. And in a note to clients, Goldman Sachs economists projected a 45% chance of a recession over the next 12 months.
• Sanders weighs in: Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders railed against the impact of Trump's tariffs, as well as the federal layoffs ordered by Elon Musk and DOGE in a CNN town hall tonight. He also said he believes Trump is serious about running for a third term in office.
Our live coverage of Donald Trump's presidency has ended. Get the latest here
Japan has welcomed President Donald Trump's pause on sweeping global tariffs but urged the US to review its additional 25% levies on steel, aluminum and car products.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said on Thursday that Tokyo was “positive” about Trump's announcement of a 90-day halt on “reciprocal” tariffs for all countries except China, days after Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba spoke with the US leader in a phone call.
But Japan has conveyed its concern about existing tariffs to the US and would press its ally to review the additional duties, Hayashi said.
“We will continue to strongly urge the US to review its measures on reciprocal tariffs and tariffs on steel and aluminum products, as well as on automobiles and auto parts,” he said.
Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 index shot up 8% in early hours of trading on Thursday as financial markets across the Asia Pacific region bounced back following Trump's announcement.
Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was “surprised” she was brought into the Oval Office during President Donald Trump's executive order signing with the press, according to her spokesperson.
“The governor was surprised that she was brought into the Oval Office during President Trump's press conference without any notice of the subject matter. Her presence is not an endorsement of the actions taken or statements made at that event,” the spokesperson told CNN.
“At the White House today, Governor Whitmer had a meeting with Speaker Hall and President Trump to discuss the northern Michigan ice storm, investing in Michigan's defense assets, like Selfridge Air National Guard Base, tariffs and the importance of creating good-paying American jobs and bringing back critical supply chains, and keeping our Great Lakes clean and safe,” the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said Whitmer sees the 90-day pause as a “step in the right direction,” but that she remains concerned about how tariffs will hurt US auto companies.
Read more about Whitmer's trip to the White House.
A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to resume refugee admissions and reinstate funding for resettlement agencies.
Judge Jamal Whitehead of the US District Court for the Western District of Washington presided over a hearing in Pacito v. Trump, a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's suspension of the US Refugee Admissions Program and the abrupt withholding of millions of dollars in critical funds from refugee-serving agencies.
Frustration has been mounting among immigrant rights advocates, who have accused the administration of defying legal obligations and leaving vulnerable families in limbo.
The suit, brought by the International Refugee Assistance Project on behalf of Church World Service, HIAS, Lutheran Community Services Northwest, and nine impacted people, argues that the administration's actions violate statutory obligations and court orders requiring the continued processing of refugees conditionally approved before President Donald Trump took office.
“The government is doing nothing to accept pre-approved refugees,” Linda Evarts, attorney for the challengers, said in a hearing Wednesday.
“The defendants are cherry-picking the rules — they are essentially playing Wack-a-Mole.”
Whitehead on Wednesday sided with the challengers.
“Individuals conditionally approved before January 20, 2025, remain protected in full by the First Injunction, meaning the Government must continue processing, admitting, and providing resettlement support to them—and funding USRAP partners to the extent necessary to do so—consistent with this Court's previous order,” the judge wrote.
A Carnegie Mellon University student whose visa was revoked this week told CNN his future is now hanging in the balance, his degree is at risk, and his bags are packed.
Jayson Ma, a 24-year-old Chinese national who has been in the US since 2016 on a valid student visa, said he learned about his status revocation after getting a call from his school.
“I have my suitcase half-packed and it's something I'm mentally preparing for,” Ma told CNN. I just want my life to go back to normal, I want to go back to school, finish school and not have to worry about getting arrested.”
Joe Murphy, an attorney representing Ma, told CNN there is nothing in his client's background that would make him a safety risk to any community and that he has not received any official documentation ordering him to leave the US.
“Jayson has not received a formal notice of a termination of his status,” Murphy said. “The school hasn't terminated him, so he's going to be attending classes until somebody tells us he has to stop.”
Some context: More than 340 students, faculty and researches have had their visas revoked in recent weeks as part of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown.
State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce declined to answer specific questions Wednesday about the criteria the Department is using to revoke international student visas.
“What we can tell you is that the department revokes visas every day in order to secure our borders and to keep our community safe, and we'll continue to do so.”
CNN's Yan Kaner contributed reporting to this post.
The Department of Education agreed to pause enforcement of a Trump administration policy targeting school programs that consider race, according to court filings posted Wednesday in a legal challenge to the new initiative.
For the next two weeks, the administration will not bring any enforcement actions or investigations under a so-called “Dear Colleague” letter sent to schools in February that threatened to withhold federal funding from schools if they engaged in diversity, equity and inclusion programs or if race played a role in other aspects of student life.
The letter was geared toward all preschool, elementary, secondary and postsecondary educational institutions, as well as state educational agencies that receive financial assistance from the federal government.
The National Education Association and its New Hampshire chapter sued over the policy, alleging that the letter as both impermissible vague and encroaching “on teaching and academic freedom.”
The challengers had asked for a judge to issue a temporary restraining order this week as they said they faced a deadline to turn over certain information related to the policy. That deadline has been extended to April 24. With the new agreement, the judge will be able to dismiss the temporary restraining order request as moot and the case will move to the next phase of the litigation.
The Trump administration has taken action against several elite universities, demanding changes to their DEI programs. Cornell University, Northwestern University, Princeton University and Columbia University have suffered funding losses in recent weeks. The administration is also considering freezing $510 million in grants to Brown University. And Harvard University received a letter outlining policy demands in order to keep $9 billion in federal funding.
Sen. Bernie Sanders advised young people who are disillusioned by electoral politics to organize, hold lawmakers accountable and to listen to those with opposing viewpoints in order to make impactful change in the country.
“What I would say to young people and all people: Go outside your zone of comfort. It's easy to talk to people who agree with you every day, but you're going to have to listen to other people who may disagree with you,” Sanders said in response to a question tonight at a CNN town hall from Sterling McDowell — a Democrat and college student — who asked what the most effective way for young people to organize is.
He also emphasized the importance of young people understanding “what the stakes are,” pointing to the negative impacts of climate change and a depleted economy.
“If we don't change the economy around, your generation may well have a lower standard of living than your parents,” Sanders warned.
Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said he believes President Donald Trump will attempt to run for a third term in office.
When asked by CNN's Anderson Cooper whether he believes Trump is serious about a third term, Sanders said, “Yeah, I do.”
“What he wants is power and wealth for his oligarch friends. So nothing would surprise me about Trump,” Sanders said during tonight's CNN town hall.
In response to another question from an American University student about whether a singular focus on oligarchy is sufficient to address the skepticism in democratic institutions, Sanders contended that the dissatisfaction with the political system is valid.
“Both political parties are dominated by big money interests,” said Sanders, who caucuses with Democrats. “So people have a right to be angry. But our answer is to improve the situation, to create a vibrant democracy. To get big money out of the political process is an enormously important thing.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders called the cuts to the federal government workforce led by the Department of Government Efficiency “outrageous.”
“Arbitrarily throwing 83,000 workers in the veterans administration, lowering the quality of care for our veterans, delaying the kind of time in which they're going to get their benefits, is a total outrage,” Sanders said tonight during a CNN town hall with Anderson Cooper.
In response to a question from Marge Watchorn — a Democrat from Ellicott City, Maryland, who has worked in the federal government for 30 years — on what he would say to workers concerned about the cuts, Sanders warned workers in all sectors of the implications DOGE's layoffs could have.
He predicted more widespread job losses in the future from the onset of artificial intelligence and robotics to fill roles.
“And you think (Elon) Musk and his friends are saying, ‘Oh my goodness, how do we protect American workers from the explosion in technology that we're seeing?'“They don't give a damn about you. If this is what they could do to federal employees, think about what they could do to people in the private sector,” Sanders said
JPMorgan Chase is sticking with its recession call.
The bank still sees a 60% chance of a US and global recession even after President Donald Trump issued a 90-day pause to most tariffs.
“Combined with the ongoing policy chaos on trade and domestic fiscal matters, along with the still-large losses in equity markets and hit to confidence, it remains difficult to see the US avoiding recession,” JPMorgan economists wrote in a report published tonight.
JPMorgan argued that “all else being equal,” the decision to unwind the “draconian” country-specific tariffs announced on “Liberation Day” is a positive.
“However, not all else is equal and the net of where we stand remains concerning,” the bank said.
Specifically, JPMorgan said the 10% universal tariffs still in place are a “large shock” – equal to 7.5 times the 2018 to 2019 trade war shock.
“More shocking is the increase in China tariffs to an astounding 125%,” the bank said, noting that this amounts to a roughly $860 billion tax hike before substitutions are accounted for.
“We believe that the US war on trade is far from over, and today was merely the end of the beginning,” JPMorgan said.
Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders said President Donald Trump is ruining America's relationship with its allies, particularly Canada and Mexico, with his rhetoric and tariff plans.
When asked by CNN's Anderson Cooper at tonight's town hall whether Trump's retaliatory tax on most countries, which he largely paused earlier today — permanently damaged the economy and US' international reputation, Sanders said allies are now puzzled and disappointed with recent actions taken by the administration.
“These are our allies. We found World War II. We defeated Nazism, fighting with our friends in UK and France, throughout Europe,” the Vermont senator said. “And now they're saying, ‘What in the God's name is going on with the United States of America?”He continued: “We want to be a model to the world. We want people to look at us and say, ‘We want to be like the United States.' Not ‘Oh God, the United States. What are they doing?'”
CNN's town hall with Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is starting now.
Sanders will answer questions from moderator Anderson Cooper and a live audience that will include a mix of Democrats, Republicans and Independents.
You can watch the town hall in the video player at the top of this page.
What to know: Sanders, a progressive who caucuses with Democrats, has been on the road to multiple cities in recent weeks as a part of his cross-country “Fighting Oligarchy” tour, alongside Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Financial markets across the Asia Pacific region bounced back on Thursday.
The stock markets in Japan and South Korea – both US allies hit by President Donald Trump's tariffs on steel, aluminum and cars – are in the black as traders breathe a sigh of relief over news of a 90-day suspension on “reciprocal” levies.
In the early hours of trading, Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 index shot up 8%. South Korea's Kospi index was up more than 5%. In Australia, the ASX 200 was also 5% higher.
Hong Kong's benchmark Hang Seng Index opened strongly, trading about 4% higher. In mainland China, the Shanghai Composite Index was up 1.5%. Those gains came despite Trump upping tariffs on China to at least 125%. Investors say they're expecting further policy support from the Chinese government to buoy the financial markets and the economy.
House Speaker Mike Johnson punted on a key vote tonight on the Senate's budget blueprint, an essential step in advancing President Donald Trump's agenda, as a group of House GOP conservatives demanded party leaders agree to steep spending cuts.
Johnson said he had personally spoken with the president about the need to postpone the vote to make concessions to a group of Republicans demanding spending cuts.
“He understands it. He supports the process. He wants us to do this right and do it well, and sometimes it takes a little bit more time to do that,” the speaker said.
Read more here about the contentious debate over the budget blueprint
House Republicans passed a bill today to end the authority of federal trial court judges to issue orders that extend beyond the parties in a case, as Republicans have been looking for ways to respond to federal judges seen as blocking President Donald Trump's agenda.
The bill passed 219-213. GOP Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio was the sole GOP lawmaker who voted no.
Trump and his ally Elon Musk have publicly pushed GOP lawmakers to go further and impeach federal judges impeding the administration, a call that a number of far-right GOP lawmakers have seized on, introducing impeachment resolutions in the House.
But House GOP leadership has signaled that they don't have the votes to greenlight the effort and are pursuing other avenues. This legislation, led by GOP Rep. Darrell Issa of California, was one of those avenues.
President Donald Trump is expected to hold a Cabinet meeting at 11 a.m. ET tomorrow, according to a White House official.
The meeting comes after Trump's announcement of a 90-day pause on his sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs with the exception of China.
During the president's Cabinet meeting held last month, he had teased tariffs on a variety of products.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said today that he is not engaging with Chinese officials on tariffs, nor is Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. However, President Donald Trump “expects to have conversations” with Chinese President Xi Jinping, he said.
“That is between them,” Lutnick told CNN at the White House. “If we get a contact, we will just pass it to the president.”
“The answer really is: it's a phone call between the two leaders of these giant countries, and that they can work it out together,” Lutnick added.
This comes as Trump said in the Oval Office that he expects Xi will call him at some point.
Europe's determination to fight back could be behind US President Donald Trump's 90-day pause on “reciprocal tariffs,” Germany's incoming chancellor Friedrich Merz said today.
Speaking to German TV channel RTL as Trump made the announcement, Merz said: “From my point of view, it's a reaction to the Europeans' resolve.”
He quoted top EU official Ursula von der Leyen: “We are determined to fight back.”
The incoming leader said ideally, transatlantic trade would see 0% tariffs.
CNN will host a town hall with independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders tonight.
The event will be moderated by CNN's Anderson Cooper and will air at 9 p.m. ET.
During the town hall, Sanders will answer questions from both Cooper and a live audience that will include a mix of Democrats, Republicans and independents.
Sanders, a progressive who caucuses with Democrats, has been on the road to multiple cities in recent weeks as a part of his cross-country “Fighting Oligarchy” tour, alongside Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
The senator has attempted to find a path forward as many Americans call for a stronger strategy from the Democratic Party to counter President Donald Trump. Sanders has held in-person events and townhalls in different GOP-held Congressional districts and hosting a cross-country “Fighting Oligarchy” tour.
The Town Hall will stream live for Pay TV subscribers via CNN.com, CNN connected TV, and mobile apps. The Town Hall will also be available On Demand beginning April 10 to pay TV subscribers via CNN.com, CNN apps, and Cable Operator Platforms.
Alarm inside the Treasury Department over signs of distress in the US government bond market played a key role President Donald Trump's decision to hit pause on his “reciprocal” tariff regime, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent raised those concerns directly to Trump in their meeting that preceded the announcement, underscoring the concerns shared by White House economic officials who had briefed the president on the accelerating selloff in the US Treasury market earlier in the day.
The market turmoil has rattled administration officials and market participants because it's the exact opposite of what historically occurs in moments of global economic crisis or volatility. US Treasuries are considered the safest corner of the market. It's the place investors across the globe flee toward with the assurance that the dominant US role in the global financial system will ensure asset safety.
But at the same moment Trump's tariffs were causing foreign leaders to question the durability of longstanding US security and economic alliances, the rapid selloff of safe-haven assets raised concern that financial markets have similar concerns.
Trump acknowledged he'd been watching the bond market, telling reporters after the announcement the market is “very tricky.”
A spike in yields in the 10-year benchmark was of particular concern for Treasury officials. When the yields rise, US consumers face higher costs on things like mortgage rates for homes and financing costs for businesses.
GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik has a new House leadership role after President Donald Trump pulled her nomination to be US ambassador to the United Nations last month amid concerns over slim margins in the House.
Stefanik announced that House Speaker Mike Johnson appointed her to be the Chairwoman of House Republican Leadership — a role that comes with staff and its own budget. She will also resume her committee assignments on the House Intelligence, Armed Services and Education and Workforce panels.
“I am honored to be appointed Chairwoman of House Republican Leadership to lead House Republicans in implementing President Donald Trump's mandate from the American people for an America First agenda that includes securing our borders, strengthening our national security, growing our economy, and combating the scourge of antisemitism across our country” Stefanik said in a statement.
While Stefanik said this type of role has been used by Republicans in the past under a different title, it is unclear how her role will fit into the current House GOP leadership structure.
Trump's decision to withdraw Stefanik's nomination for a Cabinet spot sent House Republicans scrambling as Stefanik's former post as Conference Chair had already been filled by GOP Rep. Lisa McClain.
But Johnson vowed to find a seat for Stefanik, the 10-year House veteran and Trump ally, at the leadership table.
President Donald Trump said he wants Iran to thrive, but he won't allow Tehran to have nuclear weapons.
“We're not going to let them have a nuclear weapon,” he said today in the Oval Office. “I want them to thrive. I want Iran to be great. The only thing they can't have is a nuclear weapon. They understand that.”
As the US and Iran are set to hold direct nuclear talks, Trump provided no timeline for when he would like to see a favorable conclusion. However, he said the US will take military action if necessary.
“If it requires military (action), we're going to have military (action.) Israel will obviously be very much involved in that. They'll be the leader of that. But nobody leads us. We do what we want to do,” he added.
President Donald Trump said the decision to announce a 90-day pause on his sweeping reciprocal tariffs came together this morning after meeting with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
“I would say this morning, over the last few days, I've been thinking about it. I've been dealing with Scott, with Howard, with some other people that are very professional. And I think it probably came together early this morning, fairly early this morning, just wrote it up,” Trump said during a media event at the White House this afternoon.“It was written from the heart. And I think it was well written too, but it was written from the heart. It was written as something that I think was very positive for the world and for us, and we don't want to hurt countries that don't need to be hurt, and they all want to negotiate,” he added.
In an exchange with CNN's Alayna Treene, however, Trump declined to say whether the state of stock markets was ultimately what prompted his reversal on tariffs.
The president made his announcement, via a post on Truth Social, at around 1:18 p.m. ET.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said that he's still working toward a “final consensus” on the Senate budget resolution, but that his “intention is to have a vote by this evening.”
“Very, very positive, productive discussions. Everybody's moving forward and I'm really pleased with the dialogue,” he told reporters today.
Pressed on if he has the votes, Johnson declined to say how many were for or against the bill, but said he's “optimistic, as I always am” and that leadership was “working toward that final consensus.”
Asked by CNN's Manu Raju if the Senate needs to detail spending cuts before the House votes, Johnson said, “I don't think so.”
“There's a lot of good faith dialogue and discussion going on between leaders in both chambers, and that's been very productive. It's a one-team approach, and I think we're going to continue that for the next couple of hours, and we'll see where we land tonight,” he said.
What some holdouts said today:
CNN's Alison Main and Casey Riddle contributed reporting to this post.
The Trump administration is preparing to send more immigrants with criminal records to El Salvador's notorious mega prison on the heels of a Supreme Court order that for now allows sweeping wartime authority for deportations, according to two US officials.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the US would continue using the Alien Enemies Act to deport people.
“It's one of the reasons I went to El Salvador last week was a visit with the president. Asked him to continue to take terrorists from the United States of America that no longer belong here,” she said, referring to El Salvador President Nayib Bukele.
Read more details here about the administration's plans
President Donald Trump took aim today at former federal officials who criticized him during his first term, signing executive orders targeting former Department of Homeland Security official Miles Taylor and former Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Chris Krebs.
Taylor rose to prominence after he wrote a 2018 New York Times op-ed and a subsequent book critical of Trump while serving as chief of staff to then-DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, and has drawn Trump's ire, who's insisted he did not remember Taylor during his time in the administration.
Krebs was fired by Trump weeks after the 2020 election after he rejected Trump's claims of widespread voter fraud.
Today's executive orders strip Taylor and Krebs of any existing security clearance they may still hold since leaving office and orders the Justice Department to investigate both former officials in what marks the latest example of Trump targeting political rivals using the force of federal government.
“I think what he did, and he wrote a book, ‘Anonymous, ‘said all sorts of lies, bad things – and I think it's, I think it's like a traitor, like, it's like spying,” Trump said of Taylor. “I think it's a very important case, and I think he's guilty of treason, if you want to know the truth, but we'll find out.”
And he blasted Krebs for his comments on the 2020 election.
“I think he said this is the safest election we've ever had, and yet, every day you read in the papers about more and more fraud that's discovered,” Trump said. “He's the fraud. He's a disgrace. So, we'll find out whether or not it was a safe election, and if it wasn't, he's got a big price to pay, and he's a bad guy.”
CNN has reached out to Taylor and Krebs for comment.
President Donald Trump is willing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping as trade tensions escalate between the two countries.
“Oh sure, he's a friend of mine. I like him,” Trump said this afternoon when asked by a reporter if he would consider talking or meeting with the Chinese leader.“Sure, I'd meet with him,” he said.
Trump announced earlier he was raising tariff rates on China to 125% after Beijing imposed additional retaliatory tariffs on US goods. The US president said during another White House event today that he believed “China wants to make a deal.”
Trump, who was taking questions after signing some executive orders, said Japan, South Korea and other countries “are here and we're trying to see them,” but he didn't elaborate on if he meant officials from those countries are in Washington or if there are meetings being scheduled. Trump did say in recent days that Japan and South Korea were sending people to the US to talk about a deal.
“Everybody wants to make a deal, actually. We want to do what's right for our country, we also want to do what's right for the world,” Trump said.
Some background: Trump was speaking after the close of US markets, which soared after he posted on social media that he authorized a 90-day pause on the “reciprocal” tariffs, with the exception of China.
The day started with President Donald Trump telling everyone to “BE COOL!” Just hours later, the president announced on Truth Social that he is pausing new reciprocal tariffs for 90 days, except on China.
In fact, Trump said tariffs will be increased to 125% from 104% after Beijing announced additional retaliatory tariffs earlier in the day. All other countries that were subjected to reciprocal tariff rates will see rates go back down to the universal 10% rate, he said.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the pause would allow time to negotiate new trade agreements and insisted it was the president's strategy all along.
The about-turn triggered a massive rally on Wall Street. The Dow skyrocketed 2,963 points, or 7.87%. The S&P 500 shot up 9.51%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq soared 12.16%.
Here's what to know to get up to speed:
CNN's Elise Hammond, Aditi Sangal, Betsy Klein, Kevin Liptak, David Goldman, Anna Cooban, Alicia Wallace, John Towfighi, Donald Judd, Morgan Rimmer, Allison Morrow, Matt Egan and Lauren Fox contributed reporting to this post.
CNN's @Omar Jimenez reports on President Donald Trump's decision to take a 90-day pause on all the “reciprocal” tariffs that went into effect at midnight, with the exception of China, which will see tariffs increased to 125%.
President Donald Trump's decision to pause most country-specific tariffs is a near-term positive yet does not remove the cloud of uncertainty hanging over the economy and markets, according Raymond James analyst Ed Mills.
This move is “both unbelievable but also entirely predictable,” Mills wrote in a note to clients Wednesday.
Mills argued the decision by Trump is “an implicit recognition that the current strategy was not fully vetted and unsustainable.”
Although financial markets loudly cheered the decision to pause most country-specific tariffs, risks remain.
Mills said the continued 10% universal tariff, the 125% China tariff, looming sector-specific tariffs and the “elevated uncertainty generated by the reversal will ultimately compound existing uncertainty” for corporations.
The White House is appealing a federal judge's ruling restoring the Associated Press' access to some of President Donald Trump's events, the Oval Office and Air Force One, the Justice Department said in a court filing today.
The preliminary injunction issued yesterday by US District Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee, said that the president had violated the news organization's First Amendment rights by punishing it for using the phrase “Gulf of Mexico” after he renamed the body of water the “Gulf of America.”
But McFadden delayed his ruling for several days to give the government time to seek an appeal. It's likely that attorneys for the Justice Department will ask the appeals court to put the ruling on hold while the intermediate court reviews McFadden's injunction.
President Donald Trump touted market reaction to the announcement he'd paused most new tariffs for 90 days in a hot-mic moment at the White House today captured by CNN pool.
Trump was greeting lawmakers at a NASCAR event on the White House South Lawn when Republican Sen. John Barrasso approached president, telling him, “You got the markets seeing your brilliance.”
“Yeah, that's up almost 7 (percentage) points, 2,500 points, nobody's ever heard of it. It's gonna be a record,” Trump said in reply.
President Donald Trump said he was watching volatility in the bond market in recent days and appeared to indicate that it was among the factors that led to his decision to institute a 90-day pause on some tariffs.
“I was watching the bond market. The bond market is very tricky. I was watching it. But if you look at it now, it's beautiful. The bond market right now is beautiful. But yeah, I saw last night where people were getting a little queasy,” he said.
CNN reported prior to the president's decision that US Treasury yields had risen in recent days as investors sold off bonds. The benchmark 10-year yield Wednesday morning was 4.4% – up from 3.9% before Trump unveiled his tariffs.
Trump also said he watched JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon on Fox Business Network this morning.
The CEO “made the statement to the effect that something had to be done with the tariffs and trade. … He understood it,” Trump said. “It wasn't sustainable what was happening. Somebody had to pull the trigger. I was willing to pull the trigger.”
During that appearance, Dimon warned that a recession was a “likely outcome” of the escalating trade war resulting from Trump's tariff policies.
“No one's wishing for (a recession) but hopefully if there is one it'll be short,” he said. “I do think fixing these tariff issues and trade issues would be a good thing to do.”
President Donald Trump told CNN's Jeff Zeleny that he decided to institute a 90-day pause on new reciprocal tariffs because he thought “people were jumping a little bit out of line. They were getting yippy,” following last week's tariffs announcement.
“What was happening to us on trade, not only with, you know, if you look at it, not only with China, but China was by far the biggest abuser in history, and others also – but somebody had to do it. They had to stop because it was not sustainable,” Trump said on the White House South Lawn.
He touted outreach from other countries hit by tariffs. “They all want to make a deal – somebody had to do what we did, and I did a 90-day pause for the people that didn't retaliate, because they told them, ‘If you retaliate, we double it,'” he said. “And that's what I did with China, because they did retaliate, so we'll see how it all works out. I think it's going to work out amazing.”
Pressed on his about-face on a pause on tariffs, however, Trump told CNN, “You have to have flexibility,” acknowledging his team was monitoring the markets for reaction.
Some context: US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had earlier sought to cast Trump's decision as part of a longstanding master plan to encourage nations to negotiate, and not a haphazard application that shook the global economy.
“This was driven by the president's strategy. He and I had a long talk on Sunday, and this was his strategy all along,” he said. “You might even say he goaded China into a bad position. They responded. They have shown themselves to the world to be bad actors.”
President Donald Trump said he intends to make “fair deals for everybody” after he announced a complete three-month pause on all the “reciprocal” tariffs, with the exception of China.
Earlier today, the US treasury secretary said Trump's decision to pause the tariffs will allow time to negotiate new trade agreements.
“A deal is going to be made with China. That deal is going to be made with every one of them, and they'll be fair deals. I just want fair. They will be fair deals for everybody. But they weren't fair to the United States,” he told reporters outside the White House.
Trump announced he is raising tariff rates on China to 125% after Beijing announced additional retaliatory tariffs against the US earlier today.
Trump claimed “people took advantage of our country” and “ripped us off” for decades, though didn't specify what countries he was talking about.
The US is seeing “tremendous amount of spirit from other countries, including China,” President Donald Trump said this afternoon after announcing a 90-day pause on all the “reciprocal” tariffs, with the exception of China, which will see tariffs increased to 125%.
“China wants to make a deal. They just don't know how quite to go about it. You know, it's one of those things they don't know quite – They're proud people,” he told reporters during an event at the White House.“And President Xi's 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 it out, but they want to make a deal.”
He said that he granted the 90-day pause to countries that didn't retaliate with tariffs.
“I told them, if you retaliate, we're going to double it,” he said. “And that's what I did with China, because they did retaliate. So we'll see how it all works out. I think it's going to work out amazing.”
This post was updated with more of Trump's remarks this afternoon.
The US economy still faces a significant risk of a recession even after President Donald Trump's 90-day pause on country-specific tariffs, Goldman Sachs warns.
In a note to clients this afternoon, Goldman Sachs economists projected the US economy will grow at a very slow pace of just 0.5% in 2025. The Wall Street bank now sees a 45% chance of a recession over the next 12 months.
Before Trump's decision to pause most tariffs, Goldman Sachs warned that a recession was the most likely outcome due to all the new tariffs that kicked in.
In other words, Goldman Sachs is signaling the US economy is not out of the woods, not yet at least.
Hours before issuing his stunning reversal of his reciprocal tariffs, President Donald Trump urged investors to buy, posting on Truth Social, “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!”
He concluded the post with “DJT.” Although those are the president's initials, it was also potentially a nod to Trump Media & Technology Group Corp, which trades under the ticker “DJT.”
At the time, the parent of Truth Social, DJT shares were down nearly 13% this month. After the announcement, shares were up over 20% for Wednesday alone.
President Donald Trump has, at least for now, narrowed his trade war to isolate China, the world's second largest economy after the US.
Trump appears to be ratcheting up pressure in the hopes that President Xi Jinping will blink first. He may be waiting a while, according to Wendong Zhang, an assistant professor of applied economics and policy at Cornell University.
“China has vowed to ‘fight to the end,' and there are risks of even more escalations,” Zhang said in an email. “China has already reduced its reliance on US products, such as soybeans and other agricultural products, since the 2018-19 trade war. But this time around, Chinese leaders have the backing of a more supportive general public to stand up to the US and pivot to domestic consumption.”
Stocks turned sharply higher today in response to President Donald Trump's abrupt shift in tariff policy that had brought global investors to their knees.
But US markets remain far below where they were at the start of Trump's term.
Since January 17, the last trading day before his inauguration, US stocks have shed $10.6 trillion, according to data from S&P Global.
Some $6 trillion of that loss came in just the past week, as investors sold stocks in response to Trump's tariff agenda, which promised to upend global trade and potentially plunge the US and other economies into a recession.
The S&P 500 remains down 5.5% from April 2, the day Trump announced his reciprocal tariffs. However, the market is up 10.8% from its nadir reached on Monday.
GOP senators said there was cheering and clapping and “a lot of smiles” when the 90-day pause on tariffs was announced during their lunch Wednesday, and defended the president's decision to pause the tariffs, despite publicly doubling down on them for days.
Sen. Mike Rounds told reporters, “I think it really lightened up the lunch discussion.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters that tariff policy is a “work in progress, but it sounds like they are getting good results.”
Sen. John Cornyn said he thinks the pause allows people some sense of relief. When asked about the mood in the room when the news was revealed, and whether there was relief, Cornyn replied, “Jubilation was too strong a word but it was positive.”
Sen. Ron Johnson, who has expressed concern about how tariffs will affect his constituents in Wisconsin, said senators in the lunch were “happy” to see markets start going up, and that he felt relieved.
Sen. John Kennedy added that, “Most people were pleased.”
Sen. Kevin Cramer said the news didn't surprise him. “It's on par with how Donald Trump responds to stimulus,” he said. “He doesn't tip his hand unless he wants to.”
Sen. Eric Schmitt, who had forcefully defended the tariffs in previous days, argued that the pause shows that the administration's strategy is working – and is not a sign that they are caving to market pressure. “I think this is a sign that there's an acknowledgement worldwide that America doesn't want to be taken advantage of anymore,” he said.
Separately, Sen. Kevin Cramer separately told CNN that the pause has led to “optimism.”
“There's all kinds of opportunity now that we weren't sure was going to exist 12 hours ago,” he said.
CNN's Annie Grayer and Alison Main contributed reporting to this post.
President Donald Trump's trade adviser Peter Navarro — a longtime advocate of tariffs — insisted the president's move today to pause new reciprocal levies was not a repudiation of his economic vision but rather validation of the negotiating power of tariff threats.
“I'm the default strategy, in a way — if they don't want to cooperate, then they get tariffs, OK, if they cooperate, we talk to them. I mean, it's a beautiful thing,” Navarro told Fox Business in an interview. “If you went behind the scenes and actually sat in on some of these meetings, we got really smart people, each has their own comparative advantage. We all get along. We all have great ideas.”
He said that those concerned about Trump's tariffs are underestimating his ability to make deals with other countries: “All the nervous Nellies on Wall Street who try to undermine us consistently underestimate the power of the president to negotiate.”
He said the goal in upcoming negotiations and discussions with various countries is to “dramatically reduce our trade deficit” and “level the playing field.”
Trump announced a 90-day pause on initial reciprocal tariffs for all countries except for China. For countries wanting to negotiate, Trump said a 10% tariff will be in place across the board.
Navarro previously defended Trump's economic policies and stood behind the president's widespread tariffs.
This post has been updated with more comments from Navarro.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that President Donald Trump's announcement raising tariffs on China to 125% is “about bad actors,” saying the president chose to increase tariffs on Beijing “due to their insistence on escalation.”
“As I've repeatedly said, and President Trump has been saying it for years, China is the most imbalanced economy in the history of the modern world, and they are the biggest source of the US trade problems. And indeed, they are problems for the rest of the world, because what we've seen is that, as the US announced the tariff wall last week, many of those goods have already started flooding into Europe,” Bessent said.
Still, the Treasury secretary insisted the US is not engaged in a “trade war,” despite spiraling uncertainty as China and the US have imposed increasingly steep tariffs on each other.
“I'm not calling it a trade war, but I'm saying that China has escalated, and President Trump responded very courageously to that, and we are going to work on a solution with our trading partners,” Bessent said.
He pointed to ongoing negations with other nations in the region, including Vietnam, Japan, South Korea and India.
And he called the escalating tariffs “an own goal” by China.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent sought to cast President Donald Trump's decision to pause new tariffs as part of a longstanding master plan to encourage nations to negotiate, and not a haphazard application that shook the global economy.
“This was driven by the president's strategy. He and I had a long talk on Sunday, and this was his strategy all along,” he said this afternoon. “You might even say he goaded China into a bad position. They responded. They have shown themselves to the world to be bad actors.”
CNN previously reported that Bessent traveled to Mar-a-Lago on Sunday to discuss the tariffs with Trump, encouraging him to focus on an endgame of reaching new deals with a variety of countries.
Bessent said Trump would be “personally involved” in all the discussions as he seeks out concessions.
“No one creates leverage for himself like President Trump,” Bessent said.
President Donald Trump's sudden shift in his tariff regime may have been welcome news to investors, but they might not stave off a recession, according to Joe Brusuelas, the chief economist of consulting firm RSM US.
“My sense here is that the (US) economy is still likely to fall into recession, given the level of simultaneous shocks that its absorbed,” Brusuelas told CNN. “All this does is postpone temporarily what will likely be a series of punitive import taxes put on US trade allies.”
Earlier on Wednesday, RSM US raised its recession odds to 55% from 20%. Brusuelas said the recession is likely to occur this quarter. The increasingly steep tariffs on Chinese imports likely will have repercussions domestically as well, he said.
“Based on anecdotal discussions I've had with clients is that many of them are going to choose just to leave the products at the docks — they don't have the cash reserves to pay the tax,” he said. “So, we're going to see dislocation across the economy driven by an adverse supply shock.”
In addition to the 90-day pause, Trump indicated that the 10% across-the-board tariff would remain in place. Businesses aren't waiting to take action, Brusuelas said, but “are moving to raise price(s) forthrightly.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent sought to position President Donald Trump's 90-day pause on some tariffs as a victory and signal of Trump's negotiation prowess, saying the move was the result of overwhelming response from US allies. He dismissed the suggestion that the decision was a reversal.
“No. President Trump created maximum negotiating leverage for himself,” he told reporters Wednesday. “We have just been overwhelmed, overwhelmed by the response from mostly our allies who want to come and negotiate in good faith.”
“We are expecting them to come with their best deal,” he added.
Pressed once more on what led to the pause and whether major market volatility played into the move, Bessent suggested that it was a direct result of the more than 75 countries that have come to the White House to negotiate and a function of the time it will take to cut each deal.
“It is just a processing problem. Each one of these solutions is going to be bespoke. It is going to take some time. And President Trump wants to be personally involved, so that's why we're getting the 90-day pause,” he said.
Bessent praised his boss, saying he personally decided to hold his fire until Wednesday.
“It was the president's decision to wait until today. … No one creates leverage for himself like President Trump,” he said.
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said he wasn't aware of President Donald Trump's 90-day tariff pause until after it was announced.
Trump's announcement in a post on his Truth Social platform came as Greer was testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee on Trump's aggressive trade agenda.
Throughout the hearing he said the overall US trade is an “emergency” that warrants the massive tariffs the president announced last week, yet Trump himself pressed pause.
Asked by Democratic Rep. Steven Horsford of Nevada if he was clued in on Trump's latest move, Greer said he was “a few minutes ago.”
“It looks like your boss just pulled out the rug from under you and paused the tariffs,” Horsford said.
Greer then said he was aware the policy change was a possibility this morning, but when asked directly if he knew the policy was going into effect, he replied that the administration discusses “all kinds of policies.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed concerns about President Donald Trump's decision to impose widespread tariffs in the first place, telling reporters it is a negotiation tactic, as markets react now to a 90-day pause.
“Many of you in the media clearly missed the art of the deal. You clearly failed to see what President Trump is doing here,” she said outside the White House alongside Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
The “art of the deal” refers to Trump's book, “Trump: The Art of the Deal,” about his career in business.
Leavitt also criticized worries that the tariffs on allies would push countries closer to China.
“In fact, we've seen the opposite effect. The entire world is calling the United States of America, not China, because they need our markets, they need our consumers, and they need this president in the Oval Office to talk to them,” she said.
The press secretary claimed that more than 75 countries called the US to negotiate. The retaliatory tariffs went into effect just after midnight today.
President Donald Trump's decision to back off worldwide tariffs on every nation except China rewarded countries that chose not to retaliate amid a brewing trade war, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said.
He said the pause would allow time to negotiate new trade agreements.
“It took great courage, great courage for him to stay the course until this moment,” Bessent told reporters at the White House moments after Trump announced a 90-day pause on the new reciprocal tariffs.
Bessent said the rate for countries looking to negotiate with the US would come down to 10%, including on Canada and Mexico.
“Every country in the world who wants to come and negotiate, we are willing to hear you,” he said.
He said the administration expected countries to come to the president with their best deal as they look to realign global trade.
US stocks were volatile and skyrocketed higher today after President Donald Trump posted on social media that he authorized a 90-day pause on all the reciprocal tariffs that went into effect at midnight, with the exception of China.
US stocks had a mixed start to the day after China announced significant retaliation and the European Union announced countermeasures against Trump's enormous “reciprocal” tariffs that had gone into effect earlier in the day, upending global trade.
Yet US stocks surged in the afternoon after Trump posted on Truth Social that he authorized the 90-day pause on most reciprocal tariffs.
Here's a snapshot: The Dow skyrocketed more than 2,300 points, or 6.2%. The S&P 500 shot up 7%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq soared 8.5%.
Tech stocks like Apple (AAPL), Nvidia (NVDA), Tesla (TSLA) all surged more than 6%, signaling investors might be bargain shopping while stocks are relatively cheap.
Remember: The S&P 500 had been on the precipice of bear market territory, coming close to a stunningly rapid drop of 20% from the all-time high it hit just seven weeks ago on February 19.
President Donald Trump was joined by his top economic advisers — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick — to write his message announcing he was backing off his tariffs for 90 days.
“Scott Bessent and I sat with the President while he wrote one of the most extraordinary Truth posts of his Presidency. The world is ready to work with President Trump to fix global trade, and China has chosen the opposite direction,” Lutnick wrote on social media.
President Donald Trump said he is applying a 90-day pause on new tariffs as his trade war shakes the world economy.
At the same time, he announced he was raising tariff rates on China to 125%, ratcheting up his tit-for-tat with Beijing.
Trump said he has “authorized a 90 day PAUSE, and a substantially lowered Reciprocal Tariff during this period, of 10%, also effective immediately.”
It was not immediately clear which countries the pause will apply to. CNN is reaching out to the White House for further clarification.
In the same message, Trump said he was raising US tariffs on China as he works to bring Beijing to the negotiating table.
“Based on the lack of respect that China has shown to the World's Markets, I am hereby raising the Tariff charged to China by the United States of America to 125%, effective immediately. At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realize that the days of ripping off the U.S.A., and other Countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable,” he wrote.
Barstool founder Dave Portnoy, who voted for President Donald Trump, said he is willing to give the president time for his tariff plan to play out. The media empire owner made comments recently that went viral about his net worth dropping by millions because of stock market volatility since Trump's tariffs were announced.
“I think he believes in what he's doing and trying to basically strong arm China and get better deals for the US. I'm willing to still give him time,” Portnoy told CNN. He said Trump is “doing what he ran on.”
He said he believes the economy remains the top issue for Americans and if there is not improvement in the market by the midterm elections in 2026, voters will make their voices heard.
Still, Portnoy said that right now, Trump “can't show weakness in these negotiations, so you can't just run now that the market is bad because then all of this would have been for nothing. So I'm hoping his art of the deal comes to fruition,” he said.
Portnoy said it's not realistic to try to separate “Main Street” from Wall Street, as some in Trump's Cabinet are trying to argue. The Barstool founder said they are “far more intentangled” because it is easier for more Americans to invest in the stock market.
Still, while he thinks his audience of young men who listen and watch Barstool content is interested in what the market is doing, “I don't think people are bailing ship now. It's way too early now.”
As President Donald Trump's “reciprocal” tariffs on countries took effect today, some Republicans say they're concerned about the impact tariffs will have on their constituents. But, they continue to stand behind the president.
Here's what some are saying today:
• Sen. Shelley Moore Capito from West Virginia said she's concerned about the impact to consumer prices and job losses, but that she's willing to have faith in the president's approach.
“I support the president,” the West Virginia Republican said, adding that she'll “have faith that, in the end, that things are going to be better, and better for the American worker.”
• Sen. John Curtis of Utah said he's worried about anything that increases prices for his constituents as he told CNN that he's learning more about the actual impact in “hearing from a lot of people.”
“You know, the complexity of, of tariffs on prices is deep. We all know that. There's conflicting opinions. We'll see. I'm worried about anything that increases prices,” he said. “Obviously everybody's very sensitive to that right now.”
• Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt is supportive of the president's tariffs policy, arguing that the US is “responding to being treated unfairly.” Asked if he's concerned about the potential rise in costs for Missouri farmers from the US' tariffs placed on China, Schmitt said, “No, what I'm concerned about is that we haven't had a president willing to stand up against China in decades.”
House Republicans on Wednesday moved to kill a Democratic-led effort to force a vote overturning President Donald Trump's sweeping reciprocal tariffs.
Democratic Rep. Gregory Meeks had planned to force a vote as soon as today to end Trump's latest round of tariffs, just hours after they went into effect. But GOP leaders tucked language into an unrelated measure that nixed the powers that Meeks would have used to force that vote.
The full House is expected to approve that language — as part of the separate rule vote on the budget resolution — later today.
Some background: Republicans have previously taken steps to prevent Democrats, namely Meeks, from forcing a vote to end Trump's tariffs by tucking language into a prior spending bill. Democrats thought they found a loophole that would allow them to force a vote, since that language only specified Trump's tariffs from earlier this year.
But the GOP's new language turns off any vote related to the April 2 tariffs. Notably, the language only runs through September 30 of this year — meaning Democrats can attempt to force a vote after that.
Republican senator pushes back: Sen. Rand Paul railed on House Republican efforts, saying, “The House is currently, I think, illegally blocking a law with a rule.”
“I think that is insulting, but it's also, you got to wonder whether or not it's actually lawful for a rule to overturn a law,” continued Paul, arguing that the House is displaying “audacity and arrogance” in blocking votes to roll back tariffs.
CNN's Morgan Rimmer contributed to this report.
The Trump administration imposed sanctions targeting Iran's nuclear program Wednesday, just days before talks between Washington and Tehran are set to begin in Oman.
The latest round of sanctions targets five entities and one individual in Iran accused of supporting its nuclear program.
“The Iranian regime's reckless pursuit of nuclear weapons remains a grave threat to the United States and a menace to regional stability and global security,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement. “Treasury will continue to leverage our tools and authorities to disrupt any attempt by Iran to advance its nuclear program and its broader destabilizing agenda.”
Even as President Donald Trump has sought dialogue with Iran, his administration has continued its maximum pressure campaign of sanctions that was started under his first term.
In an opinion piece in the Washington Post, Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi said the administration's “insistence on resuming the ‘maximum pressure' policy prior to any diplomatic interaction” has increased Iran's mistrust and doubts about the US' “sincerity of intentions.”
US immigration officials will begin screening the social media accounts of immigrants for antisemitism before determining their status, the Department of Homeland Security announced today.
Under the new guidance, US Citizenship and Immigration Services officials will consider content indicating an immigrant “endorsing, espousing, promoting, or supporting antisemitic terrorism, antisemitic terrorist organizations, or other antisemitic activity as a negative factor” while determining their status or whether to grant them a visa.
“This will immediately affect aliens applying for lawful permanent resident status, foreign students and aliens affiliated with educational institutions linked to antisemitic activity,” the agency said in a notice announcing their move.
More context: CNN previously reported the State Department sent a memo ordering all US embassies and consulates to screen the social media activity of certain student visa applicants for evidence of support for terrorist organizations. The expansive directive, which was signed by Rubio, tasks “Fraud Prevention Units” at the State Department with taking screenshots of any social media activity that is relevant to the ineligibility of a visa applicant, and to preserve those records in case the applicant deletes the information.
The announcement comes as the Trump administration has moved to withhold federal funding to colleges and universities that the administration say have insufficiently confronted antisemitism on their campuses.
It also comes as the administration has revoked visas and detained multiple international students attending colleges in the US who have participated in pro-Palestinian protests – including Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil - alleging that they supported terrorist organizations — allegations which several of their lawyers have denied.
CNN's Gloria Pazmino contributed to this alert.
The wife of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported on March 15 to El Salvador, says she wants her husband back home.
“We're very hurt. My kids ask daily, ‘When is dad coming home?'” his wife Jennifer told CNN.
Asked about the accusations by the Trump administration that Abrego Garcia is a known gang member, Jennifer responded, “They're wrong because my husband is not a gang member. He's actually an amazing father. An amazing husband. That's who he truly is.”
She said the last time she spoke to her husband was March 15, when he was about to board the plane to El Salvador.
She said in her last conversation with her husband before he was deported, he told her to “take care of the kids and be strong.”
Jennifer said she has not heard from the Trump administration and that they haven't provided her with updates. Her message to the White House is: “I want him, them to bring him back. I want to know if he's OK. I just want him back with me and the kids. The kids miss him. I miss him.”
Jennifer and Abrego Garcia are parents to three children age 5, 9 and 10.
Despite the Supreme Court temporarily pausing a court-imposed deadline to return Abrego Garcia back to the US, Jennifer says she still trusts the system.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent expressed his vision of negotiating trade deals with US allies, which would pave the way for a unified strategy to address what he called China's unbalanced trade practices during a summit on Wednesday.
“We can probably reach a deal with our allies,” Bessent said during a Q&A session after speaking at the American Bankers Association in Washington.
“They've been strong military allies, though not always perfect economic ones. And then, we can approach China as a group,” Bessent added.
The secretary went on to warn countries choosing to align with China on trade, saying that would be harming themselves.
“But in terms of escalation, unfortunately, the biggest defender in the global trading system is China, and they're the only country who's escalated,” Bessent said, warning that aligning with China “would be cutting your own throat.”
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called on the European Union to review its relationship with China amid the global turmoil sparked by the US tariffs on most countries, according to reports.
The US Agency for International Development (USAID) today informed all its foreign workforce that they will be laid off by mid-August, according to an internal email seen by CNN.
The move comes as the Trump administration moves to fully abolish the independent humanitarian agency and transfer some of its work to the State Department.
Foreign service nationals — non-US citizen employees who work in the US diplomatic missions for USAID — make up more than 40% of the USAID workforce. They are critical to the work, officials say, as they speak the local language, have contacts in the local community, and provide continuity. Unlike diplomats, who transfer to a new country after a few years, foreign service nationals serve at the posts long-term, and some have been employed by the US for decades.
One source noted that the sudden layoffs could violate local labor laws in the countries, so it may trigger more lawsuits or costs.
Some have expressed concern that the layoffs could put foreign service nationals at risk in places where it is dangerous to be affiliated with the US government.
“It's such a waste of talent,” a USAID official said. “And especially insulting for those in dangerous places who stuck it out working with us and are left with nothing, not even a SIV.” An SIV, or special immigrant visa, allows resettlement to the US for people who worked for the US government
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent gave an optimistic update on President Donald Trump's spending bill today during a speech to the American Bankers Association.
“It's going better, better than expected,” Bessent said.
“I understand why some of these congressmen, some of these senators, they are rabid and like ‘We got to do it now,' but we can't do it all at once, or that will cause a recession,” the secretary added.
Bessent claimed key measures to prevent economic downturn in passing Trump's “big” bill of tax breaks and spending reductions.
“What will keep us from having a recession is making sure that the tax bill doesn't expire, adding back 100% depreciation and then adding some President Trump's agenda.”
Trump took to social media today to encourage the passage of his bill, telling Republicans, “It is more important now, than ever,” to pass the “one big beautiful bill.”
GOP hardliners have yet to fall in line on a critical House vote this week that will allow Congress to finally move ahead on Trump's first big legislative package, as reported by CNN.
Brian Bethune, an economics professor at Boston College, told CNN that, as a result of President Donald Trump's tariffs, the probability of stagflation in the US is “100%.”
While others have stressed this scenario could be averted, it would only happen if Trump abandons his signature trade policy.
The origins of “stagflation”: In 1965, when the British economy was slumping while inflation was simultaneously rising, a Conservative politician declared that the country had “the worst of both worlds.”
Britain had “not just inflation on the one side or stagnation on the other, but both of them together. We have a sort of ‘stagflation,'” Ian Macleod told Parliament.
His portmanteau described the doomsday scenario for central bankers globally — and one that has reared its head in the United States once more following the introduction of Trump's tariffs.
Usually, inflation rises when an economy runs hot and employment is high. Conversely, inflation slows when an economy stagnates or contracts. But when inflation rises even while an economy is weak, you get “stagflation” — the worst of both worlds.
What this means now: Stagflation puts central bankers in a bind: Trying to fix one problem makes the other worse.
If they raise interest rates to tame inflation, this will dampen demand and weaken the economy further. If they cut rates to stimulate demand and economic growth, inflation will risk spiraling.
These are the choices the Federal Reserve may have to make in the weeks and months ahead.
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said a recession is “a likely outcome” of an escalating trade war resulting from President Donald Trump's tariff policies.
“Markets aren't always right, but sometimes they are right,” Dimon told Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo in an interview Wednesday.
“I think this time they are right because they're just pricing uncertainty at the macro level, and uncertainty at the micro level, at the actual company level. … If companies start cutting back, then consumer sentiment changes … I think you've already seen business sentiment change a little bit.”
Dimon ultimately struck a note of calm, saying the current situation is “nothing like '08,” referring to the financial crisis, but it is “serious.”
“No one's wishing for [a recession] but hopefully if there is one it'll be short,” he said. “I do think fixing these tariff issues and trade issues would be a good thing to do.”
President Donald Trump imposed the highest tariffs in over a century at midnight ET, threatening a global recession and significantly higher inflation.
But he instructed everyone this morning to “BE COOL!”
“Everything is going to work out well. The USA will be bigger and better than ever before!” he said in a Truth Social post.
The stock market has been completely rocked by Trump's tariffs, which include a 104% increase across all Chinese goods. That prompted steep retaliatory tariffs from several nations on US goods that were announced Wednesday morning.
Meanwhile, in a separate post Wednesday morning, Trump said, “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!”
Vietnam's Deputy Prime Minister Ho Duc Phoc is expected to meet with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, as the Trump administration continues negotiations with several countries regarding the president's tariffs, a person familiar with the meeting told CNN.
Bessent has also been in talks with representatives of Japan and South Korea, in addition to multiple other countries.
Vietnam is among the nations hit with the highest “reciprocal” tariff rates of 46%, which took effect today, according to the new tariff regime the Trump administration unveiled last week.
The tariffs that went into place Saturday and today came with several notable exclusions: Steel, aluminum and autos (three areas already subjected to their tariffs); copper and lumber; plus pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, and critical minerals.
Those could be next, President Donald Trump has warned.
• Copper and critical minerals: Copper is a critical cog in the ongoing electrification of America and industries such as defense.
The US imports about 50% of the copper it uses, and demand is only expected to grow, especially as energy-consuming industries such as artificial intelligence and blockchain boom.
• Lumber: Softwood lumber is a critical and preferred ingredient to homebuilding, and 30% of it is imported by the US. Homebuilders warn that tariffs and other charges (including the potential doubling of existing duties on Canadian lumber) on softwood lumber and other materials could further exacerbate the housing affordability crisis.
Higher costs of lumber imports could also affect other products, such as furniture and even toilet paper.
• Pharmaceuticals: Trump said last night that “we're going to be announcing very shortly a major tariff on pharmaceuticals.” Tariffs on drugs could drive up health care costs and hamper the affordability of medication, especially for people without insurance.
Under a 25% tariff, commonly prescribed drugs could increase from 82 cents per pill to 94 cents a pill, or roughly $42 more per year, Diederik Stadig, health care sector economist for ING, wrote in a post last week. More complex prescriptions, such as those for cancer treatment, could jump even higher, he wrote, estimating that a 24-week prescription could see additional costs in the $8,000 to $10,000 range.
Semiconductors: Medical devices, Wi-Fi routers, laptops, smartphones, cars, household appliances and LED lightbulbs are just a few examples of where semiconductor chips are found. And these products often don't just require one or two. For instance, new cars contain thousands of them.
The US exported $143.5 billion worth of goods to China last year, according to the US trade representative.
The top exports, per the United States International Trade Commission were:
With China now slapping an 84% tariff on US goods in retaliation for US President Donald Trump's tariffs, these US exports will be affected starting tomorrow. Some – like soybeans – were already subject to tariffs, albeit at a much lower level.
When China introduced tariffs on soybeans in the past, that hurt American farmers. US exports of soybeans declined sharply immediately after China put tariffs in place in 2018.
CNN's Katie Lobosco contributed reporting to this post.
The European Union has backed its first countermeasures against tariffs imposed by the United States, after member states today approved a proposal made in response to the 25% tariff the US placed on the EU's steel and aluminum exports.
“The EU considers US tariffs unjustified and damaging, causing economic harm to both sides, as well as the global economy. The EU has stated its clear preference to find negotiated outcomes with the US, which would be balanced and mutually beneficial,” the European Commission said in a statement.
It said it would start to collect duties from April 15, stressing that “these countermeasures can be suspended at any time, should the US agree to a fair and balanced negotiated outcome.”
The commission did not immediately provide details about the tariff rate it would impose on certain goods imported from the US.
MrBeast has weighed in on US President Donald Trump's tariff policy: it's bad for his business.
The YouTube and TikTok star, who sells a range of chocolate bars, said in a Tuesday post on X that “ironically because of all the new tariffs it is now way cheaper to make our chocolate bars (that) we sell globally NOT in America.”
He added in a separate post that tariffs could be a “nail in the coffin” for small businesses.
As President Donald Trump's new tariffs take effect, several countries are now opening talks with his representatives on deals they hope could see the duties eased.
Here is a non-comprehensive list of countries that have begun discussions — or have said they are looking to meet soon to start talks:
The US dollar fell Wednesday to its lowest level in six months after US President Donald Trump's punishing new tariffs came into effect.
At 8:50 a.m. ET, the ICE US dollar index, which measures the greenback's strength against a basket of major currencies, was down nearly 0.9% — hitting a fresh six-month low, below the nadir reached last week.
Some context: A weaker dollar is not usually how markets respond to US tariffs, Neil Shearing, group chief economist at consultancy Capital Economics, wrote in a note Wednesday.
Normally, he said, higher US tariffs would boost the dollar by lowering American demand for foreign goods and, so, weakening other currencies.
Factors behind US dollar decline: A possible explanation for the weakness in the dollar is that “tariffs of this size and scope are a clear and present danger to the health of the US economy.”
Another theory in the dollar is that the scale and manner of implementation of the tariffs have “shaken investor faith in the credibility of US policymaking and its institutions,” he said.
“If so, then the dollar is now behaving more like an emerging market currency,” Shearing wrote.
The US economy is experiencing so many shocks at the same time that it will likely plunge into recession this quarter, consulting firm RSM warned today.
The firm raised its 12-month recession odds to 55%, up sharply from 20% previously.
“There are too many simultaneous shocks cascading through this economy: A trade shock, a financial shock and the price shock is coming. This does not look good right now,” RSM chief economist Joe Brusuelas told CNN.
Brusuelas has also said that the freefall in the financial markets over the past several days indicates there's a crisis of confidence brewing in the US dollar.
Additionally, oil prices have plunged as investors fear a global recession could sap demand for travel, transportation and shipping — all of which require fuel.
Read what else economic experts are saying:
• “No one is coming to save the global economy”: The world is entering economic territory it hasn't seen in a century and there are “no good economic models” for guidance, said Josh Lipsky, senior director of the Atlantic Council's GeoEconomics Center.
“No one is coming to save the global economy, it's made by a decision right now by the White House and only a reversal of that decision is what could deescalate things at the moment,” he added.
• “Wrongheaded economics”: The “reciprocal” tariffs that went into effect today are anything but that. The additional levies, some of which shot north of 45%, were calculated by essentially dividing bilateral goods trade deficits by goods trade exports. But trade deficits, by their very nature, aren't necessarily all bad.
“It's very wrongheaded economics; it's quite natural that you will have deficits with some countries and surpluses with others,” economist Marcus Noland, executive vice president and director of studies with the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told CNN. “So, trying to implement a policy to generate balanced trade with all countries just flies in the face of any kind of comparative advantage or specialization.”
• “Investors being extremely skittish”: The CBOE volatility index, also known as the “VIX” and Wall Street's “fear gauge,” surged to a level it has only surpassed twice before: During the early stages of the Covid pandemic and the 2008-2009 financial crisis.
“The US and China are now locked into a trade war without either likely to back down at the moment,” Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown told CNN. “What you're seeing in investors being extremely skittish which is why (there are) big fluctuations.”
Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said it is unfortunate that China does not “want to come and negotiate” a tariff deal, calling China the “worst offenders in the international trading system.”
After President Donald Trump's sweeping increase on tariffs on China to 104%, China slapped an 84% tariff on US goods. Bessent shrugged off China's retaliatory move Wednesday morning on Fox Business.
“They have the most imbalanced economy in the history of the modern world, and I can tell you that this escalation is a loser for them… They're the surplus country,” Bessent said. China's “exports to the US are five times our exports to China. So, they can raise their tariffs. But so what?”
Maintaining that Trump and President Xi Jinping continue to have a “very good personal relationship,” Bessent said that China and the US “can move together” so long as the US tries to “rebalance toward more manufacturing” and China rebalances toward “more consumption.”
Bessent later said that it is now “Main Streets turn” to grow as Wall Street did for decades.
“Wall Street has grown wealthier than ever before, and it can continue to grow and do well. But for the next four years, the Trump agenda is focused on Main Street. It's Main Street's turn,” Bessent said during a speech to the American Bankers Association.
He also said the tariffs that took effect “are a ceiling” and added that he would take a leading role negotiating with other countries.
“I think what a lot of people are missing here is that the levels that were put out last Wednesday are a ceiling,” the treasury secretary told the crowd of bankers, “but if you don't retaliate, that is the ceiling,” he added.
This post has been updated with additional comments from Bessent.
As he moves ahead with his global tariffs plan, President Donald Trump took to social media today to encourage the passage of his bill of tax breaks and spending reductions.
“Republicans, it is more important now, than ever, that we pass THE ONE, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL. The USA will Soar like never before!!!” Trump's wrote on Truth Social.
Trump urged House Republican members to “stop grandstanding” and unite to pass the Senate-passed budget resolution while speaking at at the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) President's Dinner in Washington, DC.
Where things stand on Capitol Hill: Speaker Mike Johnson and his leadership team made a frantic push yesterday to convince GOP hardliners to fall in line on a critical House vote this week that will allow Congress to finally move ahead on Trump's first big legislative package, as reported by CNN.
CNN had reported that the House Rules Committee has been told it could meet early on Wednesday to tee up the budget resolution, according to two sources familiar with the plans.
Hardliner Rep. Andy Biggs, a Republican from Arizona, made clear this morning that Johnson faces a steep climb to having enough GOP votes to approve the Senate blueprint.
Asked by CNN's Manu Raju how he plans to vote on the blueprint approved last week in the Senate if Johnson puts it on the House floor today, Biggs answered, “Well I haven't even whipped so I'm not going to tell you.”
He called the Senate plan “unserious,” taking aim at the level of spending cuts.
Pressed on if he could get to a yes, Biggs answered: “We continue to talk, continue to work, see what we can find out.”
CNN's Alison Main, Manu Raju and Casey Riddle contributed reporting to this post. This post has been updated with reactions from GOP lawmakers.
China lashed out against President Donald Trump's tariffs, imposing a massive 84% tariff on US goods and saying it wouldn't back down from a trade war.
“The US escalation of tariffs on China is a mistake upon mistake, severely infringing upon China's legitimate rights and interests, and seriously damaging the multilateral trading system based on rules,” China's State Council Tariff Commission said in a statement announcing the fresh levy.
In addition to the tit-for-tat tariffs, China's Commerce Ministry also retaliated against Trump's tariffs by imposing export controls on 12 American companies and added six more US firms to its “unreliable entity list.” Companies on that list are banned from trading or investing in China.
Meanwhile, China also filed a complaint to the World Trade Organization over the latest US tariffs, according to the Commerce Ministry.
President Donald Trump said yesterday the US would announce new tariffs on pharmaceutical imports, without specifying when.
“I think pharmaceuticals are gonna be there,” Trump said while addressing the National Republican Congressional Committee dinner last night.
The president complained about the high costs Americans pay for the same pharmaceuticals that are cheaper in other countries: “It's sometimes 10 times more,” he said.
Trump said: “We're going to do something that we have to do — we're going to tariff our pharmaceuticals, and once we do that, they're going to come rushing back into our country.”
“We're going to be announcing very shortly a major tariff on pharmaceuticals,” he added.
US stock futures tumbled Wednesday after China announced significant retaliation against President Donald Trump's enormous “reciprocal” tariffs that went into effect Wednesday, upending global trade.
Where things stand: China's new tariffs on US goods stand at 84%, matching the additional tariff the Trump administration placed on the world's second-biggest economy. Trump's reciprocal tariffs, America's largest in a century, place massive across-the-board import taxes, some as high as 50%, on dozens of nations. China, an extreme outlier, now faces a US tariff of at least 104%, compounding the new tariffs with ones already in place.
US stock futures tumbled, set to open lower for the fifth straight session. Dow futures fell 500 points, or 1.4%. The S&P 500 was down 1.2%. Meanwhile, Nasdaq futures were trading 1% lower.
China announced retaliatory tariffs of 84% on imports of US goods on Wednesday, further inflaming a trade war between the world's two biggest economies.
China increased its intended levy on US imports by another 50 percentage points from the initial amount that is set to take effect tomorrow, matching the additional charge that US President Donald Trump has already imposed on Chinese goods.
Earlier in the day, China promised to take “resolute and effective measures” to safeguard its rights and interests after Trump's 104% tariffs on Chinese imports took effect on Wednesday.
This post has been updated with more information about China's tariffs.
US stock futures were falling and stocks in Europe and Asia were mostly lower Wednesday after President Donald Trump's enormous “reciprocal” tariffs went into effect, upending global trade.
US futures: Dow futures fell 400 points, or 1%. The S&P 500 was down 0.7%. Meanwhile, Nasdaq futures were trading 0.3% lower.
The S&P 500 is on the precipice of bear market territory, coming close to a stunningly rapid drop of 20% from the all-time high it hit just seven weeks ago on February 19.
Fear has gripped investors across the world as the tariffs threaten to plunge the global and US economies into a recession this year.
More on global markets: Japan's Nikkei index closed 4% down, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng finished marginally higher. On Monday, the Hang Seng tanked in a 13% rout – the biggest daily decline for the index since the 1997 Asian financial crisis.
South Korea's benchmark Kospi index headed into bear market territory on Wednesday, a decline of 20% from a recent peak, after the country announced $1.3 billion in emergency support measures for its auto industry as it seeks to mitigate the blow of the Trump administration's tariffs. The index closed 1.7%, falling about 20% from a peak reached in July 2024.
Markets in Taiwan also fell sharply. But the Shanghai stock market closed more than 1% higher, an outlier in a sea of red Wednesday.
In Europe, the region's benchmark STOXX 600 index was down 3% at 5.57 a.m. ET. France's CAC index was down 2.6% and Germany's DAX 2.8% lower. London's FTSE 100 index was also trading 2.4% lower by the same time.
The massive tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump are just one part of a “breakdown of the major monetary, political, and geopolitical orders,” according to Ray Dalio, the billionaire founder of the world's largest hedge fund.
“This sort of breakdown only occurs about once in a lifetime, but they have happened many times in history when similar unsustainable conditions were in place,” Dalio wrote in an essay posted earlier this week on X.
While Trump's tariffs are “justifiably” receiving lots of attention, “very little attention is being paid to the circumstances that caused them and the biggest disruptions that are likely ahead,” he said.
What are those circumstances? Dalio listed five:
Dalio said the interrelationships between these factors are “critically important,” and Trump's tariffs are likely to affect all of them.
The investor said the history of previous crises suggested how policymakers could respond, pointing to “suspending debt service payments to ‘enemy' countries,” introducing capital controls to stop money leaving the country and “imposing special taxes.”
The European Union is expected today to pass the bloc's first countermeasures against US President Donald Trump's tariffs, which seem set to spark a global trade war.
The 27-member bloc has been hit by three sets of US tariffs:
EU retaliation plans: After weeks of consulting with industry, the EU will decide on step one of its retaliation – to the steel and aluminum tariffs announced in March – in a vote Wednesday afternoon local time.
The European Commission – which coordinates trade EU policy – is continuing talks with key business sectors and EU member states to formulate their response to Trump's tariffs on cars and car parts, as well as to the so-called “reciprocal tariffs” announced last week.
Some industries are concerned that the EU's eventual response could backfire. Winemakers in France, Italy and Spain have voiced concern after Trump threatened to slap a 200% tariff on EU wines and spirits if the EU put a 50% tariff on US bourbon.
Ursula von der Leyen, the commission's president, said Monday that the EU is “ready to negotiate” with Trump – and had offered in February to go “zero-for-zero” on tariffs on industrial goods and cars, which the US rejected. But von der Leyen stressed the bloc was also ready to play hardball.
Whereas Trump's tariffs have so far only targeted goods, some in Europe have suggested the bloc could hit US services, which would hurt tech giants like Google.
President Donald Trump just ignited a direct showdown with the one nation that might be able to beat the United States in a trade war.
Trump's escalation against China — which is about to face tariffs of at least 104% on goods entering the US — is the most serious pivot yet in his global tariff onslaught and has the most potential to inflict severe blowback on American citizens in soaring prices.
The confrontation follows years of US attempts to address perceived trade abuses by China. It's also the culmination of a decade or more of worsening relations prompted by an aggressive and nationalistic shift by a Pacific competitor turned hostile superpower that now seems itching to challenge US might.
And it's a dark landmark in a diplomatic relationship that will help define the 21st century and a breakdown for a long US project to prevent tensions erupting into a full-on trade war — or potentially much worse — between two giants.
The US has been trying to manage China's emergence for more than 50 years — since President Richard Nixon's pioneering visit to Chairman Mao Zedong to “open” an isolated and impoverished nation and to drive a wedge between its leaders and their communist brethren in the Soviet Union. It's been nearly a quarter-century since another milestone: when the US ushered China into the World Trade Organization in hopes of promoting democratic change and locking it into a rules-based, Western-oriented economic system.
The ultimate failure of those well-intentioned efforts is being laid bare in Trump's second term.
Read Collinson's full analysis of Trump's tariff war here.
Stocks in Europe and Asia were mostly lower on Wednesday after President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs went into effect, upending global trade.
Fear has gripped investors across the world as the tariffs threaten to plunge the global and US economies into a recession.
This is how major US stock indexes have looked since Trump took office with a pledge to enact the tariffs:
Keep across the latest market updates in our story here.
Supermarkets sell imported items in every section of the store: from fresh and packaged foods to household basics. In the next few weeks, coffee, seafood and fruit will become more expensive with President Donald Trump's tariffs, supermarket executives and food industry experts say.
Trump instituted 10% tariffs across all countries last Saturday and slapped higher reciprocal tariffs on 60 countries and trading blocs today. US businesses shipping goods from overseas will pay for those tariffs, and they will pass some of the higher costs down to consumers.
Shoppers can expect to see prices rise on seafood, coffee, fruit, cheese, nuts, candy bars and other imported foods, according to experts.
Items that contain ingredients and packaging such as plastic and aluminum from other countries will also be hit. Perishable food prices will rise first, followed by shelf-stable goods. Customers may also see smaller-sized products, known as shrinkflation, and find that certain versions of items have been eliminated as companies try to offset their cost hikes from tariffs.
Customers can expect grocery prices to increase “in the next couple of weeks,” said John Ross, the CEO of IGA, a chain of independent grocery stores.
“Shoppers will start seeing it at scale across the store in the next 90 days.”
The US Federal Reserve has an impossible choice on interest rates, says Neil Shearing, group chief economist at Capital Economics: cut them to try and stimulate demand, or keep them high to try and curb inflation caused by high tariffs.
“They're stuck between a rock and a hard place – the rock being President (Donald) Trump and the hard place being inflation,” Shearing told CNN's Rahel Solomon.
Some context: Before his sweeping tariff announcement, Trump had been calling on the Fed to cut interest rates, putting political pressure on the body that is meant to be independent of government. In its last decision in March, the Fed kept rates unchanged in the 4.25% to 4.5% range.
On Monday, as global markets tanked following Trump's tariff announcement last week, Trump called again on the “slow moving Fed” to cut rates. But Shearing stressed that the Fed is not likely to heed his demand.
“Unless the US economy experiences a really substantial downturn – a recession – the Fed's going to be really loath to cut interest rates, because it's worried about the second round effects of inflation through wages, the labor market and then pushing up other prices in the economy,” Shearing said.
The present moment was setting up to be “a good time to cut interest rates,” before Trump “imposed the biggest increase in tariffs this side of the Great Depression… which is going to push up inflation in the US,” he added.
The massive tariffs that President Donald Trump announced for dozens of trading partners last week were pitched as “reciprocal,” aiming to match the tariffs other countries charge the US.
But the methodology behind Trump's attempt to rebalance trade has nothing to do with the tariff rate that foreign countries impose on the US.
The Trump administration instead used a grossly oversimplified calculation that it said factored in a broad set of issues such as Chinese investment, alleged currency manipulation and other countries' regulations. The administration's calculation divided a country's trade deficit with the US by its exports into the country, then divided this percentage by half, in a gesture of “kindness.” That's it.
The president is essentially taking a sledgehammer to address a litany of grievances, using the trade deficit that other countries have with the US as a scapegoat. And the vague calculation could have broad implications for countries the US depends on for goods — and the foreign companies that supply them.
“There does not appear to have been any tariffs used in the calculation of the rate,” said Mike O'Rourke, chief marketing strategist at Jones Trading, in a note to investors Wednesday. “The Trump administration is specifically targeting nations with large trade surpluses with the United States relative to their exports to the United States.”
Read more about Trump's tariff math.
Everyone loses in a trade war — and US consumers are set to be the biggest losers from President Donald Trump's huge tariffs that took effect overnight, according to Neil Shearing, group chief economist at Capital Economics.
“There's no winners from a tariff war in aggregate. Everyone's worse off if we start taxing consumption,” which is what tariffs do in effect, Shearing told CNN.
Asked which groups of people are set to suffer the most from Trump's tariffs, Shearing said US consumers, because they will have to pay more for imports, and Chinese producers, “because it looks like tariffs on China are going to settle at a higher rate than those on other countries.”
Chinese imports to the US now face a 104% tariff, more than doubling the cost of all imported products.
Shearing said he was concerned about the interaction between financial markets, stocks and bonds, and the real economy – the flow of goods and services.
“If global bond markets sell off and equity markets fall, then that tightens what are called financial conditions. Interest rates in the real economy go up, the amount people have to pay on their mortgages go up,” Shearing said.
A collapsing stock market also destroys people's wealth, and the uncertainty will “make businesses think twice about investment,” he added.
Despite rattled financial markets, threats of retaliation, and some of Donald Trump's biggest supporters encouraging him to back off his signature economic policy, the president didn't give in. His administration piled on tariffs at midnight on dozens of allies and adversaries alike, aiming to — as he claims — restore fairness and boost American manufacturing.
Goods from China, by far the biggest target, are now subject to at least a 104% tariff. Tariffs also went into effect on about 60 other countries. Trump has instructed his trade team to make “tailor-made” deals with leaders who want to negotiate.
Here's what you should know:
China has promised to take “resolute and effective measures” to safeguard its rights and interests after US President Donald Trump's 104% tariffs on Chinese imports took effect on Wednesday.
“The United States is still imposing arbitrary tariffs on China and relentlessly applying extreme pressure. China firmly opposes and will never accept such domineering and bullying behavior,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said.
“If the US disregards the interests of both countries and the international community and insists on waging a tariff war and trade war, China will fight to the end.”
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian
US levies on Chinese imports had been set to increase by 34% on Wednesday as part of Trump's “reciprocal” tariffs package. But the president tacked on another 50% after Beijing didn't back down on its promise to impose 34% retaliatory tariffs on US goods by noon Tuesday. Prior to the latest round of escalation, Trump had already imposed 20% levies on China since his return to the White House.
“The legitimate right to development of the Chinese people cannot be deprived, and China's sovereignty, security, and development interests cannot be infringed upon,” Lin said.
Beijing has not announced immediate retaliatory measures against Trump's latest round of levies. But so far, the message from the Chinese government, state media and opinion leaders alike has been one of defiance – and determination to strike back.
US President Donald Trump has boasted “jobs and factories will come roaring back” as he unleashed unprecedented tariffs around the world last week.
With his sweeping global tariffs now in effect, steep price hikes on products ranging from clothing to electronics could largely be borne by American consumers. A prominent tech analyst has warned that the price of an Apple iPhone could soar to around $3,500 if they were made in the US.
The president and his economic officials have promised that, as a result of the tariffs, numerous manufacturing jobs will eventually be “reshored” to US, employing millions of Americans.
But Dan Ives, global head of technology research at financial services firm Wedbush Securities, told CNN's Erin Burnett that the idea is a “fictional tale.”
US-made iPhones could cost more than three times their current price of around $1,000, he added, because it would be necessary to replicate the highly complex production ecosystem that currently exists in Asia.
“You build that (supply chain) in the US with a fab in West Virginia and New Jersey. They'll be $3,500 iPhones,” he said, referring to fabrication plants, or high-tech manufacturing facilities where computer chips that power electronic devices are normally made.
And even then, it would cost Apple about $30 billion and three years to move just 10% of their supply chain to the US to begin with, Ives told Burnett on Monday.
Some background: The making and assembly of smartphone parts shifted to Asia decades ago, as American companies largely focused on software development and product design, which generate much higher profit margins. That move has helped make Apple one of the world's most valuable companies and cement itself as a dominant smartphone maker.
South Korea has announced $1.3 billion in emergency support measures for its auto industry as it seeks to mitigate the blow of the Trump administration's tariffs.
Unveiling the package on Wednesday, the government cited concerns over “serious threats” that the US tariffs pose to its automotive industry, alluding particularly to small-and-medium firms that manufacture auto parts.
The Trump administration previously announced 25% tariffs on all imported cars and auto parts, including those from its allies, dealing a blow to South Korea's major carmaker Hyundai and its affiliate Kia.
Most South Korean auto parts manufacturers lack the capacity to absorb the shock, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said. It warned against a “chain reaction” involving reduced exports to the US, increased tariff burdens and blows to production and jobs.
The government also announced that an electric vehicle subsidy program will continue through the end of this year, and that government subsidies will be significantly expanded. It would consider further financial aid to the wider industry, the trade ministry said.
Some context: Last year, South Korea exported $34.7 billion worth of automobiles to the US, which accounted for 49% of its total auto exports. During the same period, the country also exported $8.2 billion of auto parts to the US, according to its trade ministry.
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The U.S. Embassy in the Bahamas on Wednesday issued a sexual assault warning to women renting jet skis in Nassau.
Nassau jet ski operators have allegedly raped and sexually assaulted multiple American women, according to the alert posted on the embassy's website.
The attacks include two U.S. women who reported rapes over the last month. There were also a total of three rapes reported related to jet ski rentals last year.
The embassy said sexual assaults against women have also occurred in jet ski-related incidents.
BAHAMAS OFFICIALS REVEAL AMERICAN MAN'S CAUSE OF DEATH AFTER BODY FOUND ON BEACH
The U.S. Embassy in the Bahamas has issued a warning to American women renting jet skis. (iStock)
"Women victims reported that male jet ski operators picked them up from downtown Nassau and Paradise Island beaches. This includes the area from Junkanoo Beach to Saunders Beach and Cabbage Beach," the U.S. Embassy said. "The victims said they were raped and assaulted on isolated islands near New Providence."
Since August of last year, four Americans "were hospitalized with injuries from jet ski accidents," two of whom "needed emergency evacuations to the United States due to their injuries."
AMERICAN MAN ON BAHAMAS FAMILY VACATION FOUND DEAD AFTER LEAVING DINNER TO GET JACKET: REPROT
Nassau jet ski operators have allegedly raped and sexually assaulted multiple American women, the alert states. (iStock)
"Due to security risks, U.S. government employees working in The Bahamas are prohibited from renting and using jet skis on New Providence and Paradise islands," the Embassy stated.
Embassy officials also recommend avoiding jet ski rentals in the Bahamas, being aware of one's surroundings, staying alert in public restrooms and near Nassau beaches, and following local weather and Marine alerts.
TRAVEL WARNING FOR POPULAR VACATION DESTINATION OVER CRIME CONCERNS, SHARKS
Embassy officials also recommend avoiding jet ski rentals in the Bahamas, being aware of one's surroundings, staying alert in public restrooms and near Nassau beaches, and following local weather and Marine alerts. (iStock)
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The State Department has issued a Level 2 Travel Advisory for the Bahamas, as well as Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Netherlands Antilles and Turks and Caicos.
The Level 2 Travel Advisory warns tourists to "be aware of heightened risks to safety and security."
The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism and Aviation did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
Audrey Conklin is a digital reporter for Fox News Digital and FOX Business. Email tips to audrey.conklin@fox.com or on Twitter at @audpants.
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Former first lady Michelle Obama discussed stepping back and making time for herself on a podcast released Tuesday, addressing her recent absences from political events and rumors of marital troubles.
Speaking of her life eight years out of the White House with two adult children, Obama said on the “Work in Progress” podcast with actress Sophia Bush that she now has the opportunity to control her own calendar and can now make “a choice for myself.”
“I could have made a lot of these decisions years ago, but I didn't give myself that freedom,” Obama said, “Maybe even as much as I let my kids live their own lives, I use their lives as an excuse for why I couldn't do something.”
She continued: “And now that's gone. And so now I have to look at my — I get to look at my calendar, which I did this year, was a real big example of me, myself looking at something that I was supposed to do — you know, without naming names — and I chose to do what was best for me, not what I had to do, not what I thought other people wanted me to do.”
The former First Lady notably skipped President Donald Trump's second inauguration, as well as the state funeral of former President Jimmy Carter in January.
She went on to discuss the guilt of saying no and how her recent choices to step away from certain responsibilities raised rumors of a possible divorce from her husband, former President Barack Obama.
“I still find time to you know, give speeches, to be out there in the world, to work on projects. I still care about girls' education. We, you know, the library is opening in a year from now. Certain things I am and am not doing with the library,” Obama said.
She continued: “That's the thing that we as women, I think we struggle with like disappointing people. I mean so much so that this year people were, you know — they couldn't even fathom that I was making a choice for myself that they had to assume that my husband and I are divorcing.”
The Obamas have been together for 32 years, according to a post from the former president on X in October.
The former first lady has been open about how Barack Obama's political ambitions and time in the Oval Office was tough on their marriage, writing in her book “Becoming” that it resulted in loneliness and exhaustion.
Since leaving the White House, Obama has spoken out against Trump and campaigned for Vice President Kamala Harris last year.
During one campaign stop in Michigan just days before the 2024 election, Obama said: “Please, please do not hand our fates over to the likes of Trump, who knows nothing about us, who has shown deep contempt for us.”
She added: “Because a vote for him is a vote against us, against our health, against our worth.”
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Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., talks to reporters about his push for a House-Senate compromise budget resolution to advance President Donald Trump's agenda, even with opposition from hard-line conservative Republicans, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, April 8, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House passed legislation Wednesday mostly along party lines that limits the authority of federal district judges to issue nationwide orders, as Republicans react to several court rulings against the Trump administration.
In many cases, the courts are questioning whether the firings of federal workers, freezing of federal funds and shuttering of long-running federal offices are unlawful actions by the executive branch and Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency.
The pace of nationwide injunctions has certainly increased during Donald Trump's presidency. Republicans are arguing that the increase is the result of “activist liberal judges.” Democrats counter that the courts are simply striking down illegal executive orders and actions from the Trump administration. They also note that some of the judges issuing the injunctions were nominated by Republican presidents.
The bill passed by a vote of 219-213. It limits the scope of injunctive relief ordered by a district judge to those parties before the court, rather than applying the relief nationally. But the bill is unlikely to advance through the Senate, where at least some Democratic support would be needed.
The Congressional Research Service said it's difficult to get an exact count on the number of nationwide injunctions. It's not a legal term with a precise definition, so counts vary based on methodology. But it identified 86 nationwide injunctions issued during the first Trump administration and 28 cases during Joe Biden's presidency. It found 17 nationwide injunctions as of March 27 in Trump's second term.
Republicans have rallied around the view that federal courts are overstepping and treating Trump's actions differently than those of previous presidents. Rep. Mark Harris, R-N.C., said that a single district court judge can hold the “America First agenda hostage indefinitely” and “this must end.”
“We are experiencing a constitutional crisis, a judicial coup d'etat,” added Rep. Bob Onder, R-Mo.
Democrats said that Trump's reliance on executive orders to enact his agenda and purposefully sidestep Congress are part of why the courts have weighed in more frequently against Trump.
“If you don't like the injunctions, don't do illegal, unconstitutional stuff. That is simple,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash.
And they questioned why Republicans didn't voice similar concerns during the Biden presidency.
“Where were my colleagues when 14 federal judges appointed by Republican presidents issued injunctions against policies that the Biden administration was pursuing over the course of the last four years? Where were they? Nowhere to be found,” said Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Colo. “Spare me the feigned indignation.”
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who sponsored the bill, said it will deter forum shopping by groups that seek out a sympathetic district court judge most likely to block a president's actions. He also said that limiting the authority of district judges is not a partisan issue. Then-Rep. Mondaire Jones, D-N.Y., sponsored a similar bill in the last Congress.
“It may be a timely issue for this president, but that does not make it partisan,” Issa said. “To do the right thing at this time is critical.”
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., has sponsored a comparable bill, but there's little chance it could overcome a Democratic filibuster. Lawmakers are also pursuing other actions targeting the courts. Rep. Jim Jordan, the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, wrote a letter to colleagues who set spending levels and asked them to include language in upcoming funding bills that prohibits the use of taxpayer dollars to enforce “overbroad injunctions” beyond the specific parties in a case.
Jordan is also calling on them to block federal dollars from being used to compel compliance with nationwide injunctions, such as imposing fines or conducting contempt proceedings.
“These steps would reinforce the proper limits of judicial power and ensure that taxpayer resources support a judiciary that respects its constitutional role,” Jordan said.
Such restrictions would also be unlikely to clear the 60-vote threshold necessary to advance spending legislation in the Senate, though it's possible Republicans would try to attach it to a must-spend bill to keep the government open or prevent a government default.
___
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
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Americans are growing increasingly uneasy about the state of the U.S. economy and their own personal financial situation in the face of stubborn inflation and tariff wars.
To that point, 73% of respondents said they are "financially stressed," with 66% of that group pointing to the tariff wars as a main source, according to a new CNBC/Survey Monkey online poll.
The survey of 4,200 U.S. adults was conducted April 3 to 7.
CNBC/Survey Monkey polls from 2023, 2024, and this year have found that, on average, more than 70% of Americans said that they are stressed about their personal finances. This year's survey found that 38% of respondents overall said they are "very stressed," and 29% of high-earners with incomes of $100,000 or more also shared that sentiment.
Consumers are, of course, increasingly stressed by rising prices for essentials like food, energy, and shelter. This is due to a number of factors, including rising inflation, supply chain disruptions and geopolitical events.
In the new CNBC survey, 86% of Americans cite inflation as the top reason for their financial stress, while 75% pointed to interest rates and 66% cited tariffs.
While inflation peaked at 8% in 2022, a 40-year high, it has since cooled significantly, reaching 2.4% in March. Despite this decline, the increased prices during 2022 have led to a loss of purchasing power for Americans, meaning they can buy less with the same amount of money than before.
Here's a look at more stories on how to manage, grow and protect your money for the years ahead.
It would take nearly $114 today to buy what would have cost $100 in January of 2022, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
And while Inflation has eased, experts do say the fallout from President Trump's trade war threatens to put upward pressure on prices in the months to come.
Tariffs are generally considered to be inflationary, economists say. This is because tariffs increase the cost of imported goods, which can then be passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices. This can lead to a temporary increase in the overall inflation rate.
"We know that tariffs are inflationary," said David McWilliams, an economist, podcaster and author. "We know that's hitting on people's expectations of how much money they're going to have in their pocket in a couple of months time."
So, when it comes to financial stress caused by tariffs, 59% of those surveyed by CNBC oppose President Trump's tariff policy, with 72% concerned about the impact on their personal financial situation.
As a result, 32% said they have delayed or avoided making retail purchases, and 15% said they have "stocked up."
What's more, 34% of those surveyed said they have made changes to their investments due to recent stock market volatility from tariffs.
Many investors are concerned about their retirement savings, but financial experts say it's important for those with a long-term perspective to understand that short-term market volatility is a distraction that's better off ignored.
"The biggest thing is that it's unknown, and when we don't know things, and we can't control things, that's when our anxiety and our worry can spike, and it's contagious," said licensed therapist and executive coach George James, CNBC Global Financial Wellness Advisory Board member, a licensed therapist and executive coach.
While the market could be in for a bumpy ride over the next few months, experts say it's best to stay the course and avoid making major portfolio changes based on the latest news.
To manage investments during the latest tariff volatility, for example, financial advisors urge investors to maintain a long-term perspective, review and potentially adjust their asset allocation, and consider diversification to mitigate risk. It's also smart to bolster emergency funds, review your risk tolerance, and explore opportunities for tax-loss harvesting.
Financial experts also urge investors to focus on their risk appetite -- and their goals.
"This is the time to evaluate short-, mid-, and long-term financial needs, concerns, and goals. Evaluation before action or inaction is essential," said Michael Liersch, head of advice and planning at Wells Fargo, said in an e-mail to CNBC. "Getting specific on exact dollar targets, timelines around these targets, and their level of importance [priority] can create clarity around what should be done, if anything."
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Every weekday, the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer releases the Homestretch — an actionable afternoon update, just in time for the last hour of trading on Wall Street.
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The "vibecession" isn't just lingering — it's deepening. Even before the global tariffs threats from the Trump administration sent shockwaves through the stock market and economy, the feeling of financial security was slipping further out of reach for Americans across all income levels, according to a CNBC|SurveyMonkey Your Money poll.
Nearly half (48%) of Americans say they are more stressed now than one year ago, with only one in three (32%) citing an improvement in their financial anxiety, and one in five (19%) citing no change.
Inflation was cited as a top financial stressor, while high interest rates, tariffs, and looming layoffs all contribute to the mounting pressure. The cost of essentials like groceries, housing, and health care are reshaping household budgets and leaving even six-figure earners feeling like they're barely keeping up.
Financial anxiety is the new normal, and unsurprisingly, it is highest among lower-income Americans (less than $50,000 in annual income). But across income levels, Americans are feeling the squeeze. Seven in ten (71%) Americans feel stressed about their finances today, with lower-income Americans experiencing higher levels of stress (81% for those making $50,000 or less annually) than those with higher annual household incomes (74% and 60% for $50,000-$99,000 and $100,000 or more, respectively).
Financial hardship, specifically, is gripping more of the country. Almost half (46%) of Americans making $50,000 or less say they are struggling to keep afloat or falling behind, and only 12% are feeling comfortable. Those making between $50,000 and $100,000 are mostly just managing (47%), with 22% thriving and 29% struggling or falling behind. Those making six figures or more are mostly thriving or comfortable (52%), with 12% saying they're struggling or falling behind.
If there's a silver lining in the data, it's that there are many Americans who remain optimistic about their financial situation, with 45% expecting it to improve in the next year. However, a similar percentage are worried about the effects of a future decline in the economy (47%).
The latest CNBC|SurveyMonkey Your Money poll was conducted March 24, 2025 to March 27, 2025 among nearly 2,700 Americans.
A follow up survey conducted April 3-April 7 shows a significant level of concern about tariffs, specifically, and the impact on spending. More than half of the public (59%) are against the president's proposed or enforced tariffs. Nearly three in four (72%) expressed concern over the impact of Trump's tariffs, with over half (56%) believing the trade taxes will negatively impact their personal financial situation. Thirty-two percent of Americans say they have delayed or avoided any purchases because of the tariffs, while 15% have stocked up or made purchases.
Our spending reflects our sentiment. One place you can see this attitude in action is how Americans are spending. Discretionary spending is on the decline, but not because Americans are spending less overall. Instead, there is less left over because they're paying more just to cover the basics, which constitute a growing share of household budgets.
While net spending seems relatively stable based on these findings, four in five (78%) have cut back on purchases in at least one category, including 75% who cut back on non-essential categories and 45% who cut back on essential spending. Of the non-essentials being sacrificed, eating out (59%), entertainment (51%), and clothing and personal items (50%) are the most common cuts.
This isn't just about tightening budgets, it's about a deeper feeling that no matter how much someone earns, it never seems to stretch as far as it should.
Not long ago, earning six figures was a hallmark of financial success. Today, for many Americans, it's the baseline for financial stability. When asked how much they would have to make annually to feel financially comfortable, half of Americans (54%) cited at least $100K annually or more. One in three (31%) only need between $50 and $99K, and one in ten (11%) are fine with less than $50K a year. The reality is that fewer households reach that $100K threshold, and even those that do aren't necessarily claiming they are wealthy or thriving, they are just comfortable.
The psychological shift is clear: stability isn't just about income but whether that income is enough to withstand unexpected costs, plan for the future, and maintain a basic standard of living. For many earners, regardless of their tax bracket, the answer is no.
If financial stability is about a feeling, then that feeling is in short supply. Inflation, high interest rates, and economic uncertainty have created a reality where hardly anyone — from young professionals to retirees — feels truly secure. Many are cutting back on non-essentials, redirecting every available dollar toward necessities, yet the gap between what people have and what they feel they need to be financially comfortable keeps widening.
The "vibecession" may have started as a perception problem, but for many, it's now a lived reality. And until Americans start feeling financially secure — regardless of how much they earn — that uncertainty isn't going anywhere.
—By Eric Johnson, CEO, SurveyMonkey
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This is CNBC's live coverage of how U.S. trade partners, industries and employers are responding to President Donald Trump's rapidly evolving tariff regime.
What you need to know
CNBC's reporters are covering the tariffs and their effects, live on air and online from our bureaus in Washington; London; Singapore; San Francisco; and Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
Trump says while discussing his tariff policies that he expects "there'll be a transition cost and transition problems," even while insisting, "we think we're in very good shape."
The president also claims that the U.S. is raking in billions of dollars each day as a result of his protectionist policies, saying, "that makes us a very strong country."
Critics have repeatedly noted that tariffs are taxes on imported goods that are paid by the importers, not the country from which the goods are sent.
Trump made the comments at the start of a Cabinet meeting, as major stock indexes gave up much of their gains from yesterday's historic rebound rally.
— Kevin Breuninger
Former Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is speaking out against Trump's chaotic tariff efforts, panning the protectionist push as "the worst self-inflicted wound that I have ever seen ... imposed on a well-functioning economy."
Yellen, who served under former President Joe Biden, tells CNN that even though it's a "relief" that Trump paused his so-called reciprocal tariffs, "the U.S. and global economies have suffered a huge protectionist shock."
Even if the reciprocal tariffs are abandoned, the U.S. now has "the highest average tariff rate since 1934," Yellen says in her first interview since the start of the second Trump administration.
Yellen, a professor emeritus University of California, Berkeley, is also asked what grade she would give the administration so far.
"I'm afraid I could not give it a passing grade," she says.
— Kevin Breuninger
Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer called Trump's purported tariff strategy 'the art of stupidity.'
Gotteheimer, during an interview with MSNBC's Ana Cabrera, scoffed at a claim by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that Trump's decision Wednesday to pause stiffer tariffs on many countries above a 10% baseline was part of a plan, despite days of denying there would be such a pause.
"I don't really understand their strategy because every day is a new day of chaos," said Gottheimer, D-N.Y. "I think it's the art of stupidity."
Trump authored a book called "The Art of the Deal," and that phrase is routinely invoked by his supporters to suggest that various moves he makes are part of a well-thought-out plan to get a "deal" done.
Gottheimer is the co-sponsor of bill with Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb. to restrict a president's ability to impose unilateral tariffs as Trump has done.
— Dan Mangan
The U.S. stock market fell to its lows of the session in midday trading, giving up more of Wednesday's historic rally.
The S&P 500 is now down more than 4%, and the Nasdaq Composite is off by more than 5%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has lose about 1,640 points, or 4%.
— Jesse Pound
Trump's latest executive order hiking tariffs on Chinese imports also raises a separate U.S. duty on low-value packages imported from China — for the third time in eight days.
Until this year, the so called de minimis tariff exemption had provided the China-based online retailers Shein and Temu with a major advantage over many of their competitors.
Starting May 2, U.S.-bound packages from China valued at $800 or less will face a 120% tariff rate, according to the order.
This is an increase of 30 percentage points over a previous executive action signed Tuesday, which tripled de minimis tariffs to 90%.
The order signed Wednesday also increases the "per postal item" cost for those low-value shipments to $100 starting May 2, rising to $200 on June 1.
The order allows transportation carriers delivering the shipments to choose whether to pay the percentage rate or the flat rate — but they are locked into that choice and can only change it once a month.
— Kevin Breuninger
Technology stocks declined, giving back gains from the previous session.
The Nasdaq Composite is coming off its best day since 2001 and its second-best day ever.
Apple, which rallied more than 15% Wednesday for its biggest one-day gain since 1998, fell more than 4%. Tesla and Nvidia dropped about 7% and 5%, respectively.
— Samantha Subin
The U.S. tariff rate on Chinese imports now effectively totals 145%, a White House official confirmed to CNBC.
Trump's latest executive order hikes tariffs on Beijing to 125% from 84%.
But that comes on top of a 20% fentanyl-related tariff that Trump previously imposed on China.
— Megan Cassella and Kevin Breuninger
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told CNBC that the company's third-party sellers could end up passing the cost of tariffs onto consumers.
"I mean, depending on which country you're in, you don't have 50% extra margin that you can play with," Jassy said in an interview with CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin. "I think they'll try and pass the cost on."
Amazon is doing "everything we can" to keep prices as low as possible, he added.
The online retail giant has seen some evidence of consumers stocking up on items in anticipation of price hikes, "but it's hard to know if it's just an anomaly in the data because it's just a few days, or how long it's going to last," Jassy said.
— Annie Palmer
Vice President JD Vance is accusing some of Trump's China tariff critics of being "insane."
"There is a category of DC insider who wants to fight an actual war with China but also wants China to manufacture much of our critical supply," Vance writes in a post on social media platform X.
"This is insane," the vice president says.
"President Trump wants peace, but also wants fair trade and more self-reliance for the American economy."
— Kevin Breuninger
Trump privately acknowledged that his plan for tariffs could push the U.S. economy into a recession but he wanted to avoid a depression, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing people familiar with his conversations.
Trump had lunch Wednesday with legendary investor and brokerage founder Charles Schwab on Wednesday, the Journal reports.
While many economists were starting to predict a recession from Trump's original plan for sweeping global tariffs, none of them were saying it would lead to a depression.
Read The Wall Street Journal's report here.
— Alex Harring
Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said he will demand that the White House tell him "who knew in advance" that Trump "was going to once again flip-flop on tariffs."
"Are people cashing in? There is just all too much opportunity for people in the White House and the administration to be insider trading, and you can't put it past them for a minute. So we're going to try to find out," Schiff told reporters Wednesday afternoon.
Hours before Trump announced he was temporarily lowering his "reciprocal" tariff rates to a baseline 10% for all affected countries except China, he declared, "THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT."
Schiff said he believes that "someone is knowing about these events in advance."
"They may have an hour to know, or they may have a day, but someone knows," he said. "And the question is, are they trading on that information? Are they profiting while people's retirement savings are on fire? Are people in the administration making money out of it?"
— Kevin Breuninger
National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett says that "we've already got offers on the table for more than 15 countries" for trade deals.
The administration is looking at those offers and "deciding whether they're good enough to present to the president," he said on Fox News.
Earlier on CNBC, Hassett said that the number of countries actively beginning negotiations with the U.S. is "closing in on 20."
Hassett drew a distinction between those talks and the total number of countries who have reached out. Trump on Wednesday said more than 75 countries have contacted U.S. officials seeking to discuss their new tariff rates.
— Kevin Breuninger
Trump in a late-night Truth Social post basked in the afterglow of a massive stock market rebound that was prompted by his decision to pause his steep "reciprocal" tariffs on dozens of countries.
"What a day, but more great days coming!!!" Trump wrote in the post, published at 12:45 a.m. ET.
— Kevin Breuninger
Hassett says the 10% universal baseline tariff rate is likely to stay in place for most countries as part of any negotiated trade deals.
"It is going to take some kind of extraordinary deal for the president to go below" that rate, he said.
Hassett also said "closing in on 20" countries have offered the U.S. a trade deal. The 90-day timeline for hammering out these deals under the universal baselines is "very doable," he added.
"We had two deals almost closed as of last week," he said. "Almost closed. Getting them closed requires the lawyers to work forever and so on, and so getting them closed by yesterday was not quite going to happen."
— Jesse Pound
Hassett said on "Squawk Box" that the volatility in the bond market was not a direct reason for the Trump tariff pause but likely added "a little more urgency" to the decision.
"Everything was moving forward in an orderly fashion," Hassett said. "There's no doubt that the Treasury market yesterday made it so that the decision that, you know, it is about time to move was made with, I think, perhaps a little more urgency. But it was going to happen."
The 10-year Treasury yield rose above 4.5% and the 30-year rate spiked above 5% overnight on Wednesday ahead of the pause, with bond prices tumbling.
Traders said Japan and China may be dumping U.S. government bonds and that the developments could be concerning to the White House, according to Reuters.
Long-term Treasury yields have moved lower since the tariff pause was announced, with the 10-year yield trading around 4.308% on Thursday morning.
— Jesse Pound
China is not looking to fight a trade war, but will not flinch if tariff hostilities escalate to that point, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lin Jian told reporters on Thursday, according to Chinese news outlet Xinhua.
His comments came in response to Trump's threat to impose further levies on imports from China.
Beijing and Washington have been engaging in the imposition of tariffs and retaliatory measures since the U.S. kicked off its protectionist trade regime under Trump's second administration, triggering global fears of a trade war between the world's two largest economies. China has also filed official complaints accusing the U.S. of breaching the rules of the World Trade Organization.
— Ruxandra Iordache
The European Union will pause the adoption of its retaliatory trade countermeasures against a spate of U.S. goods for 90 days, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said following the White House reprieve on most of its own tariffs.
EU members had on Wednesday voted in favor of a package of retaliatory steps in response to U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum.
"We want to give negotiations a chance," von der Leyen said on social media. "If negotiations are not satisfactory, our countermeasures will kick in. Preparatory work on further countermeasures continues. As I have said before, all options remain on the table."
The EU, a historically close transatlantic ally of the U.S., was further hit with 20% tariffs when Washington issued reciprocal duties on trade partners on April 2. The levy has been reduced to just 10% for 90 days following Trump's Wednesday announcement.
— Ruxandra Iordache
U.S. tariffs on China imports could potentially knock off 0.5 percentage points off China's GDP growth, Fred Neumann, chief Asia economist at HSBC, told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe."
Neumann said China's 5% GDP target is "certainly under pressure now," assuming that U.S. tariffs on China imports remain in force. Lower GDP would require "quite a significant increase" in stimulus to offset that weaker expansion, he said, adding that China does have tools at its disposal to offset those risks.
The U.S. and China are "putting on a brave face at the moment and saying they're not going to budge, but it is clear that for both sides, there's plenty of disruption to come if these tariffs stay in place, and therefore one cannot rule out some negotiations behind the scenes," Neumann said.
— April Roach
U.S. tariffs on aluminum, steel and vehicle imports could reduce the gross domestic product growth of export-reliant Germany by 0.1 percentage points in each of 2025 and 2026, German economic institutes warned on Thursday.
They added that this impact could double as a result of the additional White House duties announced on April 2, while disclaiming that "specific effects are difficult to quantify," given the sharp hike in rates.
The institutes forecast Germany's GDP will pick up by 0.1% and by 1.3% year-on-year in 2025 and 2026, respectively. Europe's largest economy has come under pressure since the announcement of U.S. tariffs, particularly in its languishing auto sector.
— Ruxandra Iordache
Planned U.S. tariffs could deliver a blow of 0.3 to 0.5 percentage points to Indonesia's gross domestic product, Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said, according to Reuters.
The International Monetary Fund projects that the economy of the country, which was hit with U.S. tariffs of 32%, will grow 5.1% this year.
Indonesia is considering higher U.S. imports, trimming taxes and easing import processes amid Washington's levies, Sri Mulyani said.
— Ruxandra Iordache
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has been engaging on trade relations with officials in partner countries, including the European Union, Ireland, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines, according to multiple social media updates.
"Free trade works. It lifts incomes. It creates jobs. It builds partnerships. And it secures peace. I think that's worth fighting for — and I'm up for that fight," Luxon said in a post on the X platform.
New Zealand was struck with the White House's baseline 10% tariff under Trump's April 2 announcement.
— Ruxandra Iordache
Polish Finance Minister Andrzej Domanski welcomed the U.S. temporary suspension of most reciprocal tariffs.
"The first right step towards de-escalation. Less emotion, more focus on economic growth," he said in a Google-translated social media post.
Poland has historically been a stalwart U.S. ally in Europe, especially in matters of regional security. As a member of the European Union, Poland was struck with 20% reciprocal tariffs under the White House's April 2 announcement.
— Ruxandra Iordache
European stocks soared at the Thursday market open, with the Stoxx 600 index up by 7.25% by 8:21 a.m. London time.
All sectors were in the green at the start of the session, with banks, autos and health care logging some of the highest hikes, higher by 9.95%, 7.43% and 7.41%, respectively.
— Ruxandra Iordache
The 10-member ASEAN group pledged not to impose any retaliatory measures in response to White House tariffs and to "engage in a frank and constructive dialogue" with Washington on trade relations.
"We regard the U.S. as a longstanding and valued economic partner of ASEAN," the group said in a statement, adding, "We remain committed to safeguarding ASEAN's economic interests as well as maintaining strong and mutually beneficial trade relations with the U.S."
The ASEAN group comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
— Ruxandra Iordache
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen welcomed Trump's decision to pause "reciprocal" tariffs against several nations, adding the bloc "remains committed to constructive negotiations" with the White House.
"It's an important step towards stabilizing the global economy. Clear, predictable conditions are essential for trade and supply chains to function," she said in a social media post.
"Tariffs are taxes that only hurt businesses and consumers. That's why I've consistently advocated for a zero-for-zero tariff agreement between the European Union and the United States."
At the same time, the EU, which on Wednesday voted to approve its first set of retaliatory steps to counter U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum, is focusing on diversifying its trade partnerships, von der Leyen said.
— Ruxandra Iordache
In a note to clients on Wednesday evening, Deutsche Bank Research's George Saravelos noted that U.S. President Donald Trump had mentioned the bond market during his press conference at the White House that day.
"The administration is finally signalling responsiveness to the very extreme market conditions we highlighted in the morning. At the margin, this should reduce the probability that such an extreme policy mix returns," Saravelos said.
Stocks on Wall Street surged on Wednesday after Trump announced a 90-day pause on country-specific tariffs, with the exception of new duties on China.
Despite the market response, Saravelos warned that "the damage has been done" by Trump's reciprocal tariffs policy.
"Even if the tariffs are permanently suspended, damage has been done to the economy via a permanent sense of unpredictability in policy," Saravelos explained. "The events of the last few weeks will resonate amongst global economic partners during the upcoming negotiations on trade and indeed for many years to come. The desire to build greater strategic independence from the US across all fronts will be here to stay."
— Chloe Taylor
China has been "isolated as a bad actor" as a result of mounting trade tensions and tariff impositions with the U.S., billionaire investor Bill Ackman said Thursday in a social media post.
"Every American company is immediately moving their supply chains out of China back to the U.S. or to trading partners of the U.S. who are likely to make favorable tariff deals with the U.S. Time is not China's friend," he noted.
"As more time goes by, more companies find other and better alternative suppliers outside of China. So China is incentivized to come to the table soon and to be reasonable in their negotiations."
Washington has doubled down on trade levies with Beijing, which has in turn resorted to countermeasures and complaints to the World Trade Organization. While granting most other nations a tariff reprieve on Wednesday, Trump raised duties against imports from the world's second largest economy to 125%. China had earlier in the day raised its own tariffs on U.S. goods to 84% in response to White House policies.
— Ruxandra Iordache
South Korea will press ahead with efforts to lower tariffs rates in talks with Washington, after acting President Han Duck-soo's phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump, according to South Korean outlet Yonhap.
South Korea, which exported roughly $127.8 billion to the U.S. in 2024, had been slapped with a 25% tariff rate under the White House announcements of April 2, prior to Trump's temporary reversal of Wednesday.
"As high-level talks have taken place, we will now prepare concrete proposals and begin negotiations on individual issues with relevant trade authorities," an official from the South Korean Prime Minister's Office told reporters on Wednesday. "Our foremost goal is to adjust (U.S.) tariff rates."
— Ruxandra Iordache
Higher tariffs from China on U.S. imports have kicked in at 12.01 p.m. Beijing time, raising the tariff rate from 34% to 84%.
On Wednesday, China's ministry of finance announced the 84% tariff rate after U.S. President Donald Trump had increased tariffs on Chinese imports to the U.S. to a net total tariff of 104%.
Trump later raised the tariff on China again, to 125% at about 1.18 a.m. Thursday, saying it would take effect "immediately".
— Lim Hui Jie
This is CNBC's live blog covering U.S. trade tariff policy developments of April 10. Head here for the previous day's blog.
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The Trump administration recently announced it would begin a process of overhauling the country's $1.6 trillion federal student loan system.
The potential changes could impact how millions of borrowers repay their debt, and who qualifies for loan forgiveness.
"Not only will this rulemaking serve as an opportunity to identify and cut unnecessary red tape, but it will allow key stakeholders to offer suggestions to streamline and improve federal student aid programs," said acting Undersecretary of Education James Bergeron in a statement on April 3.
Around 42 million Americans hold federal student loans.
Here are three changes likely to come out of the reforms, experts say.
Former President Joe Biden rolled out the SAVE plan in the summer of 2023, describing it as "the most affordable student loan plan ever." Around 8 million borrowers signed up for the new income-driven repayment, or IDR, plan, the Biden administration said in 2024.
The plan has been in limbo since last year, and in February a U.S. appeals court blocked SAVE. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the seven Republican-led states that filed a lawsuit against SAVE, arguing that Biden was trying to find a roundabout way to forgive student debt after the Supreme Court struck down his sweeping loan cancellation plan in June 2023.
SAVE came with two key provisions that the legal challenges targeted: It had lower monthly payments than any other federal student loan repayment plan, and it led to quicker debt erasure for those with small balances.
More from Personal Finance:Why the stock market hates tariffs and trade warsWhy Fed chair wears purple ties — 'we are nonpolitical'Don't miss these tax strategies during the tariff sell-off
The Trump administration is unlikely to continue to defend the plan in court, or to revise it in its regulations, experts say.
"It's difficult to see any scenario where SAVE will survive," said Scott Buchanan, executive director of the Student Loan Servicing Alliance, a trade group for federal student loan servicers.
For now, many borrowers who signed up for SAVE remain in an interest-free forbearance. That reprieve will likely end soon, forcing people to switch into another plan.
The Trump administration recently revised some of the U.S. Department of Education's other income-driven repayment plans for federal student loan borrowers, saying that the changes were necessary to comply with the recent court order over SAVE.
Historically, at least, IDR plans limit borrowers' monthly payments to a share of their discretionary income and cancel any remaining debt after a certain period, typically 20 years or 25 years.
The IDR plans now open are: Income-Based Repayment, Pay As You Earn and Income-Contingent Repayment, according a recent Education Department press release.
As a result of the Trump administration's revisions, two of those plans — PAYE and ICR — no longer conclude in automatic loan forgiveness after 20 or 25 years, Buchanan said, noting that the courts have questioned the legality of that relief along with SAVE.
The Trump administration, through its changes to the student loan system, is likely to make at least some of those temporary changes permanent, said higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz.
Still, if a borrower enrolled in ICR or PAYE switches to IBR, their previous payments made under the other plans will count toward loan forgiveness under IBR, as long as they meet the plan's other requirements, Kantrowitz said. Some borrowers may opt to take that strategy if they have a lower monthly bill under ICR or PAYE than they would on IBR.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order in March that aims to limit eligibility for the popular Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.
PSLF, which President George W. Bush signed into law in 2007, allows many not-for-profit and government employees to have their federal student loans canceled after 10 years of payments.
According to Trump's executive order, borrowers employed by organizations that do work involving "illegal immigration, human smuggling, child trafficking, pervasive damage to public property and disruption of the public order" will "not be eligible for public service loan forgiveness."
For now, the language in the president's order was fairly vague. Nor were many details given in the latest announcement about reforming the student loan system, which said the Trump administration is looking for ways to "improve" PSLF.
As a result, it remains unclear exactly which organizations will no longer be considered a qualifying employer under PSLF, experts said.
However, in his first few months in office, Trump's executive orders have targeted immigrants, transgender and nonbinary people, and those who work to increase diversity across the private and public sector. Many nonprofits work in these spaces, providing legal support or doing advocacy and education work.
Changes to PSLF can't be retroactive, consumer advocates say. That means that if you are currently working for or previously worked for an organization that the Trump administration later excludes from the program, you'll still get credit for that time, at least up until when the changes go into effect.
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The Trump administration has acknowledged the tariffs might have short-term negative effects, but says they will ultimately benefit the US economy by forcing companies to relocate manufacturing in the US.
When President Donald Trump said last week that he was using tariffs to remake American trade policy and bolster domestic manufacturing, entrepreneur Evita Chu started calling around to see if she could source some of the yarn she buys from China and Europe in the US instead.
She stumbled upon a yarn mill in Wisconsin. “Oh wow, there are these mills and we'd never heard of them,” Chu said. “That's the positive side.”
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American business owners are struggling to keep up with fast-changing tariff policies, and some are already responding by raising their prices.
Dame, a sexual wellness brand, is putting what it calls a "Trump tariff surcharge" of $5 on all of its vibrators, which it imports from China.
The fee won't cover the increased cost of manufacturing, Dame CEO Alexandra Fine told CNBC Make It. But it will signal to consumers that businesses like Dame are being affected, she says.
"So we've made the tough call to adjust prices to be able to keep bringing you the quality, body-safe products you love," Dame captioned an Instagram post about the surcharge. "We're adding $5 for now—which doesn't cover the full cost as we hate to put the brunt of this on you—while we figure out what to do next."
"I want people to understand how it impacts us," Fine says. "We are renegotiating again with our manufacturers. We are adjusting our logistics. We are changing our inventory."
Tariffs are paid by importing companies, which can increase costs for businesses.
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump announced he was raising the U.S. tariff rate on Chinese imports from 104% to 125% "effective immediately." That comes on top of a 20% fentanyl-related tariff that the Trump administration previously imposed on China, bringing the total effective rate to a whopping 145%, a White House official confirmed to CNBC.
China earlier Wednesday said it would increase its tariff rate for imports from the U.S. to 84%.
Due to the rapid changes in tariff rates on China, Fine says Dame has had to go back to its manufacturer a few times to settle on pricing.
Other companies are warning shoppers that price hikes are imminent.
Clothing brand Miista sent an email on Wednesday saying the then-additional 20% tariff on European goods would raise the company's costs and likely affect shoppers starting in May. The company said it would try its best to increase consumer prices as little as possible.
Brooklyn-based handbag retailer Hyer Goods announced on April 3 that its Italian-made products would cost 20% more starting April 15. "Raising prices is never something we want to do, but with these new tariffs, it has become unavoidable," a statement said.
The EU was hit with 20% tariffs when Washington issued what it called "reciprocal" duties on trade partners on April 2. The levy has been reduced to 10% for 90 days following Trump's Wednesday announcement.
Changing tariff rates have made it hard for Dame to "commit to a price," Fine says. And retailers like Target and Walmart, which carry Dame vibrators, ask for 60 to 90 days notice of a price change, she says.
The amount of labor that goes into renegotiating prices for each store is also costly, Fine explains, since a price that makes sense today might not make sense tomorrow.
"Ideally, I try not to do work that might not be relevant in two weeks, but it's not possible right now so we are just trying to stay agile and ahead of it and make decisions," she says. "It is so much paperwork."
For now, shoppers purchasing Dame vibrators can expect to pay an extra $5, a price increase of 3% to 5% depending on the product, but Fine says she doesn't know how changing tariffs will affect her business.
"One thing all entrepreneurs know is the stability of the future is always an illusion," Fine says. "You plan based on the knowledge you have."
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President Donald Trump promised to make Americans' grocery bills more affordable. But his sweeping tariffs on imports of everyday staples like fresh fruit, coffee, and seafood are expected to raise prices, food industry analysts and retailers said.
Most of the fresh fruit, coffee, and fish Americans consume are shipped from overseas including Peru, Chile, and Indonesia, federal data shows. Meanwhile, France and Italy are among the top suppliers of wine to the US market. Vanilla, a key ingredient in pastries and other sweets, mainly comes from Madagascar.
On April 2, Trump, on what he called "Liberation Day," announced a 10% baseline tariff on imports from nearly all countries. Some countries were hit harder than others, including a threatened 20% tariff on the European Union and a 46% tariff on Vietnam.
The stock market plummeted, and Trump on April 9 announced a 90-day pause on those steeper tariffs — except on China, which faces an even higher 145% rate — but kept a 10% tariff intact on most other countries.
"A 10% tariff is still likely to pose inflationary pressures on food prices, but with much less intensity and speed than the much higher rates included in the country-specific tariff list," Andrew Harig, vice president of tax, trade, sustainability, and policy development at the Food Marketing Institute, a trade group representing grocery chains and food manufacturers, told Business Insider.
Harig added that while the 90-day pause is a good thing for retailers and consumers, the ongoing uncertainty over US trade policy will be challenging for them to navigate.
"For a company to change where they source product, they really need to know what the market is going to look like on a broader time horizon than three months," Harig said.
White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement that "Chicken Little 'expert' predictions" didn't pan out during Trump's first term and will not during his second term when the president "again restores American Greatness from Main Street to Wall Street."
Before Trump's trade battles, grocery staples like eggs, coffee, and olive oil had already become more expensive over the last five years due to a combination of a bird flu outbreak, supply chain disruptions from COVID-19, weather disasters in some countries, and broader inflation.
Fresh fruits like bananas, pineapples, and avocados could see price hikes quickly because they don't have a long shelf life. Suppliers can't build up large inventories of produce and try to sell them later if prices rise due to tariffs.
For packaged foods, it could be months before costs go up. How much depends on whether importers, manufacturers, and retailers spread out the additional cost hikes, Harig added.
He said one silver lining is that agricultural and other goods from Canada and Mexico that comply with those countries' free trade agreements with the US are exempt from higher tariffs. Most of America's fruit and vegetable imports come from them, and Canada is also a top supplier of fish.
Here are five grocery items that likely will be more expensive:
The US relies on Brazil, Colombia, and several other Central American countries for much of its coffee supply. These countries, as well as Kenya and Ethiopia, are now facing 10% tariffs.
"Coffee is seasonal, so at this time of year, coffees from Ethiopia and Kenya are in some stage of transport," Noah Namowicz, chief operating officer and partner at Cafe Imports, a Minneapolis-based company that sources coffee from 24 countries, told BI. "They will be subject to these tariffs, in addition to most Central American coffees."
Coffee growers in Peru and Brazil typically start shipments in August and September.
Namowicz said the coffee industry was already experiencing unprecedented cost increases this year due to drought in Brazil and a typhoon in Vietnam that shrunk production. Adding tariffs to the equation exacerbates the costs.
"Ultimately, the average cup of coffee or a bag in stores in cafés is going to increase," Namowicz said.
He added that the US produces some coffee in Hawaii and California, but the climate is not ideal for growing coffee elsewhere in the country.
Mexico and Canada are the top suppliers of US fruit and vegetable imports overall, and most agricultural goods are exempt from Trump's new tariffs.
However, federal data shows that Guatemala, Ecuador, and Costa Rica are leading exporters of bananas. Guatemala is also the third-largest exporter of fresh and chilled broccoli and cauliflower to the US.
Bananas are the most popular fruit in the US, but the majority are imported. While broccoli and cauliflower are grown in California year-round, it isn't enough to meet all of the US demand.
Wines and all other products imported from France and Italy — the two largest suppliers to the US — will be hit with 10% tariffs. Wines from Argentina, Chile, and New Zealand will likely be more expensive, as well.
"Previously, when the cost of those wines went up, consumers switched to California wine," Harig said. "But then sometimes you see those costs go up, too, because there's more demand. So it creates a little bit of a counterintuitive result."
Harig said wine has a many-step distribution process, including shippers, receivers, brokers, and distributors. Each player may absorb some of the tariff increases to limit the impact on consumers.
The US relies on other countries to feed Americans' growing appetite for seafood. About 80% of US seafood comes from abroad.
India, Ecuador, Indonesia, and Vietnam are the top suppliers of shrimp — the most popular seafood in the US — while Chile and Norway export a lot of farmed salmon.
Do you have a story to share about how the tariffs are affecting your finances or business? Email this reporter at cboudreau@businessinsider.com.
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House Republicans on Thursday voted to pass a GOP-budget plan that could lead to massive cuts to Medicaid after President Donald Trump leaned on a handful of conservative holdouts.
The final vote was 216 to 214. The budget resolution, which requires Senate committees to identify spending cuts totaling a low floor of $4 billion, includes controversial language that calls for the House Energy and Commerce Committee to cut $880 billion in programs it oversees over the next decade. Speaking alongside Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Speaker Mike Johnson said Republicans want to find at least $1.5 trillion in cuts. Johnson pulled a vote on the legislation Wednesday evening amid uncertainty that it would pass.
Before Thursday's vote, Johnson held a joint news conference with Thune. The pair sought to reassure House conservatives that the GOP will cut significant spending in addition to tax cuts.
The budget plan is the next step in unlocking the special fast-track power, known as reconciliation, that Republicans are using to ram Trump's "big, beautiful bill" through Congress. GOP lawmakers will now have to fill in the details of their sweeping proposal, including whether they will cut Medicaid and if so by how much.
Johnson and GOP leaders have repeatedly stressed that their bill does not explicitly cut Medicaid, a healthcare program for millions of disabled and low-income Americans. However, Medicaid will likely get cut by or near $880 billion over a decade, as Medicaid and Medicare, which Trump has pledged not to cut, comprise most of the committee's budget. The federal government picks up the bulk of the tab for Medicaid spending. As of 2023, the federal share was about 72%.
Three Senate Republicans, Sens. Josh Hawley, Lisa Murkowski, and Susan Collins, joined Democrats in an unsuccessful effort to strip that language out of the plan before it passed their chamber.
Republicans will likely have no choice but to slash the program to reach the $880 billion in required cuts, much of which could hit Medicaid expansion. Failing to meet the spending target would risk the sweeping policy bill losing its special procedure power. If that were to happen, Republicans wouldn't be able to ram their bill through the narrowly controlled Senate where Democrats can use the filibuster to stop most other legislation.
Some Republicans have expressed uneasiness about potential Medicaid cuts. Hawley, a Trump ally, represents Missouri, where 20.3% of residents are Medicaid recipients. He previously told reporters that it was "a big concern" if the legislation would slash the healthcare program. Hawley said Trump shared his views. The president previously said he would "love and cherish" Medicaid.
About 23.3% of all Americans, or over 79 million, receive either Medicaid or the related Children's Health Insurance Program, a Business Insider analysis showed using July 2024 population estimates and October 2024 Medicaid enrollment data. States including New Mexico, California, and New York have over a third of residents on Medicaid, the analysis found. Nearly all states have at least 10% of residents on Medicaid or CHIP.
Missouri, Oklahoma, and South Dakota all mandate in their state constitutions that they participate in Medicaid expansion.
If Medicaid does get cut, some Republican leaders have suggested adopting per-capita Medicaid caps to limit how much federal funding an enrollee could receive, which could save as much as $900 billion.
Some have mulled adding Medicaid work requirements, while others have proposed cutting Federal Medical Assistance Percentages, the federal government's Medicaid spending share per state. Some critics have further argued that recipients can secure insurance from elsewhere, including from work.
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Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said Thursday the company is still digesting the impact of President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs, but that its vast network of third-party sellers may "pass that cost on" to consumers.
"I understand why, I mean, depending on which country you're in, you don't have 50% extra margin that you can play with," Jassy said in an interview with CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin. "I think they'll try and pass the cost on."
Amazon's third-party marketplace is made up of millions of sellers, many of which are based in China or source their products from the region. Third-party sellers now account for about 60% of all products sold on Amazon's website.
Jassy, who released his annual shareholder letter earlier in the morning, said the company has done some "strategic forward inventory buys" and looked to renegotiate terms on some purchase orders in an effort to keep prices low.
Amazon began to cancel some direct import orders for products sourced by vendors in China this week following Trump's tariffs announcement, consultants told CNBC. Some vendors of home goods and kitchen accessory items had products ready for pickup by Amazon at shipping ports, only to receive a notification via an internal system, called Vendor Central, that their orders were canceled.
Amazon has seen some evidence of consumers stocking up on items in anticipation of price hikes, but it's too early to tell how widespread that behavior is, he said.
"People have not stopped buying and in certain categories, we do see people buying ahead, but it's hard to know if it's just an anomaly in the data because it's just a few days, or how long it's going to last," Jassy said.
Trump last week signed an executive order imposing a far-reaching tariff plan. Within days, he reversed course and dropped country-specific tariffs down to a universal 10% rate for all trade partners except China.
The tariffs could potentially raise costs for businesses building infrastructure to meet the surging demand for artificial intelligence, such as data centers. Amazon's cloud computing business has been a big beneficiary of that demand, and the company has pledged to spend up to $100 billion this year on AI technologies.
Jassy said Amazon Web Services started the process of diversifying its supply chain roughly five years ago, allowing it to source components from a number of markets, "not just one country." The company has no plans to slow down the buildout of new data centers, he added.
"We're going to keep building," Jassy said.
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In the week following President Donald Trump's announcement of sweeping tariffs, the S&P 500 briefly flirted with bear territory — defined as a 20% decline from recent highs — as worries swirled that the levies would reignite inflation and set off a trade war that could slow the global economy.
But on Wednesday, the President announced a 90-day pause on tariffs exceeding 10% for some countries, while raising duties on Chinese products to 125%. The S&P 500 climbed more than 9% on the day.
Even if they don't typically come this rapidly, large swings in stock prices are part and parcel of being an investor. Take it from the late Charlie Munger, the longtime vice-chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and right-hand man to Warren Buffett.
"I think it's in the nature of long-term shareholding that the normal vicissitudes in markets means that the long-term holder has the quoted value of his stocks go down by, say, 50%," Munger told a BBC interviewer in 2009.
If you're not willing to keep your chin up during the occasional rout, he continued, "you're not fit to be a common shareholder, and you deserve the mediocre result you're going to get compared to the people who can be more philosophical about these market fluctuations."
Munger was speaking from experience. In 2009, shares in Berkshire Hathaway, which made up a sizeable portion of his portfolio, had declined by more than 50%. When asked if he had any worries about the state of the company and its stock, Munger cut off the interviewer.
"Zero," he said. "This is the third time that Warren and I have seen our holdings in Berkshire Hathaway go down, top tick to bottom tick, by 50%."
Each time, Berkshire Hathaway continued to invest in the stock market, with Munger and Buffett following the latter's famous maxim: "Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful."
That meant consistently buying stocks the pair saw as undervalued and having faith that U.S. businesses would return to boosting profits. Berkshire's portfolio, just like the broad U.S. stock market, found new highs after each major drawdown.
Times of uncertainty and volatility in the stock market can be scary. But if you're around for long enough, you'll likely live through a few of them, Munger said.
"I think you can count on more booms and busts over your remaining lifetime. How big and with what cyclicality, I can't tell you," Munger told students at the University of Michigan in 2011 — another tumultuous year for stocks. "I can tell you the best way of coping, which is to just put your head down and behave creditably every day."
In general, financial experts advise long-term investors to continue buying stocks through downturns. Historically, the long-term upward trajectory of the stock market has made such periods look like times to buy stocks on sale. In essence, if you already invest regularly, say, through a 401(k), you can leave things on autopilot.
Munger advised the crowd in Michigan that major drawdowns were rare opportunities to build wealth, recalling the advice of his great grandfather.
"Real opportunities that come to you are few," he said, adding that almost no one is "bathed" in good fortune. "Most people just get a few times when they can make a huge difference by seizing a huge activity."
For investors, when you have the opportunity to buy assets at a huge discount, it's important to seize the moment to the best of your ability, and not leave your money sitting on the sidelines while you wait for things to get better, Munger said.
"When you get a lollapalooza, for God's sakes, don't hang by like a timid little rabbit," Munger said. "Don't hang back."
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The Audi Q5 is the German brand's top-selling vehicle in the US. It's also a prime example of how Donald Trump's drastic reordering of global trade is wreaking havoc on automakers.
The president's tariffs are hitting the $45,400 model thrice, rendering the sport utility vehicle unsellable, according to people familiar with the carmaker's thinking, who declined to comment on the record.
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Crude oil futures fell more than 4% on Thursday, as President Donald Trump's steep tariffs on China overshadowed his 90-day pause on higher rates for most other countries.
U.S. crude oil fell $2.66, or 4.27%, to $56.69 per barrel, while global benchmark Brent was down $2.64, or 4.03%, to $62.84 per barrel.
Crude prices rallied Wednesday after Trump announced a lower, temporary tariff rate of 10% on most U.S. trade partners. Trump said he was open to negotiating deals with countries that don't retaliate. West Texas Intermediate swung 13% from the session low to close at $62.35 per barrel.
But Trump's decision to increase tariffs on China, the world's second-largest economy and biggest crude importer, to an eye-watering 125% weighed on the market Thursday.
"The tariffs on China are now higher — that's still pretty significant," said Jim Burkhard, head of oil market research at S&P Global Commodity Insights. "These negotiations with all these different countries — can the U.S negotiate with 70 countries all at once? I don't think the chaos is over."
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The dynasty that owns the retail chain is shedding its traditional secrecy to attract more outside investors as it seeks to double assets under management.
The boom in e-commerce and online shopping disrupted C&A's growth.
The Brenninkmeijers have epitomized Europe's reclusive old money elite for more than a century: There's the secretive accounts of flagship clothing retailer C&A AG, a wariness of publicity and opaque corporate structure — all overseen from an anonymous office park in Switzerland's wealth hub of Zug.
Then came the growing realization that one of the world's biggest dynastic fortunes needed a radical rethink as C&A struggled with online competition. A new generation of leaders is increasingly taking over the Brenninkmeijer business empire, accelerating a push to diversify assets and break away from a long-held tradition of just managing family wealth. There's a drive to attract more institutional money, selectively hire more external talent — and take riskier bets.
The first golf major of the year is here, and we've compiled everything you need to know about how to watch the Masters, from the First Round to the Green Jacket Ceremony.
Tens of thousands of people have descended on Augusta, Georgia, for golf's most iconic tournament. The Masters Tournament, which is held annually at the August National Golf Club, has brought together the world's best male golfers since 1934. World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler returns to defend his 2024 title, joined by No. 2 Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau, Max Homa, Xander Schauffele, Hideki Matsuyama, Ludvig Åberg, and other top-rated players. The tournament is the year's first major championship and could help set the tone for the rest of the 2025 field.
Whether you watch the tournament every year or want to tune in for the first time, we've got you covered. The First Round officially kicks off on Thursday and lasts until Sunday evening, when the winner receives a green jacket.
US: ESPN & CBS
Notable Round 1 tee times (approx.):
There are a few different options to explore when it comes to watching the 2025 Masters Tournament. The cheapest way to watch is through the Masters website, which offers a live stream of select coverage throughout the tournament. The Masters website offers general coverage, featured groups, the Amen Corner, and Holes 4, 5, 6, 15, and 16. This free option is a good bet if you're looking to catch the early tee times since the official TV broadcasts (which we break down below) typically start in the afternoon.
The Masters will also be nationally broadcast on ESPN and CBS. ESPN holds the broadcast rights on Thursday and Friday for the First and Second Rounds, and CBS will take over on Saturday and Sunday for the Third and Fourth/Final Rounds. SportsCenter and pre-coverage begins on Thursday at 10 a.m. ET on ESPN before First Round coverage officially kicks off at 3 p.m. The broadcast will last until 7:30 p.m., and then tape-delayed First Round coverage will repeat at 8 p.m. Friday will follow a similar schedule for the Second Round on ESPN, with pre-coverage beginning in the morning and official coverage picking up at 3 p.m.
On Saturday, the CBS pre-coverage will begin at 12 p.m. ET. Official Third Round coverage kicks off at 2 p.m. and lasts until 7 p.m. Sunday's Final Round coverage will follow an identical schedule on CBS, with early coverage starting at 12 p.m. before official Final Round broadcasts kick off at 2 p.m. and last until 7 p.m.
If you want to live stream ESPN and CBS coverage, you can do so through ESPN Plus and Paramount Plus. ESPN Plus will offer comprehensive ESPN Masters coverage. Subscriptions start at $12/month and include access to select sporting events, including tennis, football, UFC, and college sports.
ESPN Plus is designed for sports, giving subscribers access to live MLB, NHL, NFL, soccer, golf, and UFC fights. You can pay $12 monthly or go for an annual deal, which saves you about $20 a year. There's also a bundle with Hulu and Disney Plus, which offers an even better discount.
Paramount Plus is the cheapest place to live stream CBS. To unlock CBS live streaming, viewers must subscribe to the Paramount Plus with Showtime tier. This tier, which costs $13/month, also offers ad-free on-demand access to CBS, Paramount, and Showtime programs. New users get a one-week free trial.
Paramount Plus offers a huge library of on-demand content from Paramount, CBS, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, BET, and MTV. The Premium Plan also includes Showtime and live CBS streaming. It costs $12.99 a month or $120 a year. More importantly, it removes ads from the on-demand streaming library.
If you don't want to download two apps and would rather watch ESPN and CBS coverage in one place, then a live TV streaming package can help you out. DirecTV Stream and Fubo are two of our favorites. These month-to-month packages offer anywhere from 90 to 200+ live channels. DirecTV Stream Entertainment subscriptions start at $87/month and come with a five-day free trial, and Fubo Pro subscriptions start at $85/month and include a seven-day free trial. New Fubo users can also get $30 off their first month of service.
Previously known as AT&T TV, DirecTV Stream offers streaming access to a large selection of live channels, including most key networks typically found in traditional cable packages.
Fubo is the streaming service for sports fans. Its huge library of channels includes regional and international sports leagues, setting it apart from the competition. You can also tack on additional programming to your plan, but it'll cost you extra.
If you're not in the US right now, you can still keep up with the free streaming option with the help of a VPN (virtual private network). VPNs are easy-to-use cybersecurity tools that enable people to change their device's virtual location. They're extra popular options among those looking to access their usual websites while traveling or upgrade their cybersecurity. Our go-to VPN rec is ExpressVPN, a tried and true option with a 30-day money-back guarantee. You can explore more in our ExpressVPN review, and keep reading to learn how to use a VPN.
With its consistent performance, reliable security, and expansive global streaming features, ExpressVPN is the best VPN out there, excelling in every spec and offering many advanced features that make it exceptional. Better yet, you can save more than 60% right now and get up to four months free.
Note: The use of VPNs is illegal in certain countries, and using VPNs to access region-locked streaming content might constitute a breach of the terms of use for certain services. Business Insider does not endorse or condone the illegal use of VPNs.
You can purchase logo and accolade licensing to this story here.Disclosure: Written and researched by the Insider Reviews team. We highlight products and services you might find interesting. If you buy them, we may get a small share of the revenue from the sale from our partners. We may receive products free of charge from manufacturers to test. This does not drive our decision as to whether or not a product is featured or recommended. We operate independently from our advertising team. We welcome your feedback. Email us at reviews@businessinsider.com.
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This report is from this week's CNBC's "Inside India" newsletter which brings you timely, insightful news and market commentary on the emerging powerhouse and the big businesses behind its meteoric rise. Like what you see? You can subscribe here.
A 10% levy on all Indian goods entering the U.S. is markedly better than a 26% import tax. Sure.
But the threat of the higher figure being reimposed on India hasn't disappeared.
U.S. President Donald Trump first tore apart the established international trading system by announcing worldwide "reciprocal" tariffs earlier this month and then reversed course on Wednesday by falling back to a 10% import tax rate on nearly all nations.
While that may come as a short-term relief, a free trade agreement-like deal with the U.S. is still up for grabs for India.
But unlike other emerging Asian economies that are overtly reliant on exports, India's consumer-led economy gives it a stronger hand in any trade talks with the U.S, experts say.
Exports of goods, (and services that are not subject to tariffs), accounted for about a fifth of India's economy in 2023, according to World Bank data. Meanwhile, exports were 65% and 87% of GDP for emerging market competitors like Thailand and Vietnam, respectively.
While the U.S. will impose tariffs on imports of goods, which account for 56.1% of India's total exports, services have so far not been targeted. Some of India's largest companies, such as TCS and Infosys, are unlikely to be directly impacted by the tariffs, and may only be exposed to the issue indirectly if a global economic slowdown were to occur given most of their clients are based overseas.
India's export destinations for merchandise are also significantly diversified, with the U.S. accounting for only 18% of shipments in 2023-2024, according to India's Ministry of Commerce & Industry.
"The structure of trade from India to the United States is very different than, let's say China as an example, because of the services component," James Sullivan, head of Asia Pacific equity research at JPMorgan, told CNBC's Squawk Box Asia. "The U.S. administration is almost entirely focused on trade in goods, not trade in services, where the U.S. actually has a surplus."
"If that narrative starts to shift, we have to recognise that the large majority of Indian exports to the United States are I.T. services," Sullivan added. "Those stocks have taken a significant hit due to the risk of a recession in the United States, and the lack of corporate expenditure that would then hit the I.T. services topline."
While India does have some strengths, the task facing Indian negotiators is likely to be made more challenging by competitors staring at a much worse scenario.
China now faces a total tariff rate of 125% (at the time of this keystroke), while Vietnam risks being reimposed with 46% 'reciprocal' import duties—among the highest rates the U.S. has imposed.
Their economic vulnerability, as exports to the U.S. are a large part of GDP, has led to diverging responses. While China has decided to respond with countermeasures, Vietnam has offered to wipe out all tariffs, potentially paving the path to a free trade agreement with the U.S.
"Just had a very productive call with To Lam, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, who told me that Vietnam wants to cut their Tariffs down to ZERO if they are able to make an agreement with the U.S.", Trump posted on social media websites Truth Social and X soon after unveiling his tariff program.
On Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who is leading the trade negotiations, revealed that he was meeting with Vietnam's trade negotiators that day.
Vietnam had preemptively offered to slash tariffs on agriculture and energy imports from the U.S. Once the tariffs were unveiled, it went further by promising to buy aerospace, defense, and security products from the U.S.
The point is, that Vietnam is throwing the kitchen sink at the issue of tariffs and is eager for free trade. However, the move could also spur other nations to compete by offering the U.S. even more favorable terms of trade.
In the short term, while Apple is reportedly planning to ship more made-in-India iPhones to the U.S. to offset the steep tariffs on China, Cupertino executives might also wonder whether zero tariffs in Vietnam—if there is a deal—might be a better bet than India.
It would be natural for companies to think that while 26% tariffs on India are better than the 125% tariffs on China, 0% tariffs on Vietnam would be even better. And that school of thought isn't going to be limited to California either.
Japanese electronics maker Sourcenext Corp this week announced plans to set up a new factory in Vietnam after its existing facility in China became impractical for exports to the U.S.
At first glance, all of this may appear to jeopardize India's current relatively favorable position with the U.S.
"Although India wants to have their own solution to manufacturing industries it [U.S.-Vietnam deal] will surely have some impact on its [negotiations] with the U.S," Mark Martyrossian, a director at Aubrey Capital, told CNBC's Inside India. "And remember the bully is always more forgiving of those who succumb earlier to his charm. Those who hang out longer have him licking his chops."
Aubrey's global emerging markets fund has a 32% allocation to China and a 30% allocation to India.
Far from a race to the bottom to lower tariffs, though, Martyrossian believes India has leverage while negotiating with the U.S., pointing to the fact that exports in merchandise are a tiny proportion of India's overall economy. Meaning, that Indian trade negotiators dealing with the U.S. are unlikely to have the mandate to make widespread concessions similar to Vietnam.
Others agree.
"The situation on tariffs is still evolving, but India is relatively well-placed due to its low merchandise export dependence and therefore may have some flexibility in working out its eventual position," said Abhiram Eleswarapu, head of India equities at BNP Paribas. "Most sectors in India derive less than 10% of their revenue from exports to the U.S. with the exception of IT services and Pharmaceuticals."
"India will not compromise on certain areas like agriculture, and is therefore in a better bargaining position," said Gaurav Narain, principal advisor at the London-listed India Capital Growth Fund.
"My own sense is that India will try and offset the negative trade balance … by committing to higher imports in areas like oil / defence etc. However, it could lower tariffs to 0% in many areas like pharmaceuticals and autos, where India already has a very well developed, low-cost manufacturing base, and imports would only be of premium products."
Narain added that, even in the short term, India will see "limited impact" from the tariffs, as supply chains cannot be easily changed, as the case with Apple highlights.
"I think companies will take a long-term, structural approach to de-risking their supply chains. India has the advantage of not being perceived as simply a reroute from China, which works in its favour," Narain added.
For investors in Indian stocks, the market has been less forgiving. Aside from the tariff turbulence rocking markets, stocks in India are still considered too expensive due to their lofty valuations.
"Earnings estimates still need a reset lower," said Aditya Suresh, head of India equity research, at Macquarie Capital. "We believe the worst is behind and we could see inflows in the coming months."
Suresh also suggested that investors could hide from the current turbulence by investing in stocks that derive much of their revenues locally, instead of large-cap exporters. The Macquarie analyst said he favors telecom firm Bharti Airtel, oil and gas firm GAIL, and UltraTech Cement until the dust settles.
The Reserve Bank of India lowers rates. On Wednesday, India's central bank cut its policy rate by 25 basis points to 6%, marking its lowest level since September 2022 as growth concerns mount in the world's fifth-largest economy. The rate cut was in line with expectations from analysts polled by Reuters. The RBI also cut its growth expectations for the financial year 2025-26 to 6.5% from 6.7%.
'Optimistic' forecast by RBI. Mridul Saggar, professor of economics at Indian business school IIM Kozhikode and a former RBI executive director, said the country's growth could be around 6% this year and called the RBI's projection "optimistic."
The Indian government expects to meet growth target. Despite disruptions caused by Trump's tariffs, India is likely to hit its projected gross domestic product expansion of 6.3%-6.8% — a figure from the Indian government's Economic Survey in January — for financial year 2025-26, an Indian finance ministry official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Monday.
Tariffs on European Union cars might be slashed. According to a Reuters report quoting sources, India Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government is considering reducing its tariffs on EU car imports to 10% from 100% in stages. However, domestic automakers want tariffs at 30% minimally and for electric vehicle duties to be left unchanged at 110%.
Indian stocks fell on Thursday, bucking the trend in Asian equities. The Nifty 50 index closed lower by 0.6%, heading for a 2.2% loss this week. The index has fallen by 5.3% this year.
The benchmark 10-year Indian government bond yield has ticked lower slightly to 6.43%, down by 3 basis points from last week.
On CNBC TV this week, Pranjul Bhandari, HSBC's chief India economist, estimated that Trump's 26% tariffs on India could shave off 0.5 percentage points from the country's economic growth. If global trade patterns shift, such as China exporting more goods to India, that could also hurt India's domestic manufacturing sector. "Direct or indirect, our sense is that growth will need help" in the next few quarters, Bhandari added.
Meanwhile, Sonal Varma, Nomura chief economist for India and Asia ex-Japan, said that there are two factors making portfolio and direct investments in India attractive. First, the difference in degree of tariffs between India and China is in favor of India, which would "make sense" for multinational companies to divert their production to India. Second, India is a strategic ally of the U.S., and is working with the world's biggest economy on long-term trade plans.
China's economic growth for the first quarter, out Wednesday, will be the main economic event to look out for in the upcoming week. Consumer price index reports for India, Japan and U.K. will give a picture on the state of inflation in those economies.
April 11: India consumer price index for March, industrial and manufacturing production for February, China imports and exports for March, U.S. producer price index for March, U.K. gross domestic product for February
April 14: India wholesale price index for March
April 16: China gross domestic product for first quarter, U.S. retail sales for March, euro zone consumer price index, final, for March, U.K. consumer price index for March
April 16: European Central Bank press conference
April 18: Japan consumer price index for March
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In this article
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy on Thursday released his annual shareholder letter where he predicted that rapid advancements around artificial intelligence, along with a more competitive chip market, will eventually bring down costs around the technology.
"AI does not have to be as expensive as it is today, and it won't be in the future," Jassy wrote.
Jassy said more price-performant chips, along with improvements in "model distillation, prompt catching, computing infrastructure, and model architectures" will over time reduce the "cost per unit in AI," which will "unleash AI being used as expansively as customers desire."
He likened it to the company's cloud juggernaut, which brought down the cost of compute and storage, leading to "more invention, better customer experiences, and more absolute infrastructure spend."
Amazon has earmarked up to $100 billion this year on capital expenditures, with the lion's share going to AI-related projects. The company has been rushing to invest in data centers, networking gear and hardware to meet vast demand for generative AI, which has exploded in popularity since OpenAI released its ChatGPT assistant in late 2022. Amazon has introduced a flurry of AI products, including its own set of Nova models, Trainium chips, a shopping chatbot, and a marketplace for third-party models called Bedrock. It also overhauled its decade-old Alexa digital assistant with generative AI features.
Jassy, who became CEO in 2021 when founder Jeff Bezos stepped down, has sought to streamline the company's vast business footprint and bring costs in check, at the same time that he's deepened investments in some areas.
The company laid off more than 27,000 employees in 2022 and 2023. It had smaller rounds of job cuts in 2024 that are stretching into this year. The company has also continued to wind down some of its more experimental or unprofitable initiatives, such as a "Try Before You Buy" clothing service, a TikTok-like video feed and a speedy brick-and-mortar delivery program.
Jassy said Amazon must continue to operate like the "world's largest startup" that moves quickly without bureaucracy, is "scrappy" and is willing to take risks.
Last September, as part of a broader return-to-work mandate, Jassy said Amazon would simplify its corporate structure. He set a goal to increase the ratio of individual contributors to managers by 15% by the end of this year's first quarter.
As part of that, Jassy also created a "bureaucracy mailbox." He said on Thursday that he's received almost 1,000 emails from employees describing bureaucracy examples, and the company has made more than 375 changes based on that feedback.
"Builders hate bureaucracy," Jassy wrote. "It slows them down, frustrates them, and keeps them from doing what they came here to do. As leaders, we don't always see the red tape buried deep in our organizations, but we can sure as heck eliminate it when we do. We've already made over 375 changes based on this feedback."
Here's the full text of Jassy's letter:
Dear Shareholders:
2024 was a strong year for Amazon.
Our total revenue grew 11% year-over-year ("YoY") from $575B to $638B. By segment, North America revenue increased 10% YoY from $353B to $387B, International revenue grew 9% YoY from $131B to $143B, and AWS revenue increased 19% YoY, from $91B to $108B. For perspective, just 10 years ago, AWS revenue was $4.6B; and in that same year, Amazon's total revenue was $89B.
Amazon's operating income in 2024 improved 86% YoY, from $36.9B (an operating margin of 6.4%) to $68.6B (an operating margin of 10.8%). Free Cash Flow, adjusted for equipment finance leases improved from $35.5B in 2023 to $36.2B.
Apart from the financial results, we made our customers' lives meaningfully better and easier. In our Stores business, we substantially expanded selection, continued lowering prices (independent research firm, Profitero, found Amazon the lowest-priced online U.S. Retailer for the eighth year in a row), and for the second year in a row, we shipped at record speed to our Prime members. AWS launched a slew of new infrastructure and AI services that make it even easier to build remarkable customer experiences, including our latest custom AI silicon (Trainium2), a new set of frontier foundation models in Amazon Nova, and significant expansion of available models and features in our leading Generative AI ("GenAI") services Amazon SageMaker and Amazon Bedrock. Prime Video continued to offer compelling original shows, including new seasons for Fallout, Reacher, The Boys, and The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power, movies like Road House, The Idea of You, and Red One, live sports like Thursday Night Football and UEFA Champions League in Europe (with the NBA and NASCAR coming in 2025), and new selection, highlighted by Apple TV+ joining Prime Video Channels. We launched a series of new Kindle devices that included a new color version, a larger Scribe option, and our fastest Paperwhites ever (the collection of which drove the highest Kindle unit sales for a single quarter in over a decade). And, we continued to add more selection, price transparency, and same day shipping for Amazon Pharmacy.
These accomplishments are a subset of what the team launched in 2024, but represent a lot of invention, hard work, and thoughtful execution across Amazon. I'm thankful for my teammates and their delivery this past year (some of which you can see in our 2024 results, others of which won't be visible for the next few years).
A Why CultureEvery year in my annual letter, I try to share insight into what makes Amazon tick. At the highest level, we're aiming to be Earth's most customer-centric company, making customers' lives better and easier every day. This is not easy to do in general, let alone year after year. In fact, it's actually quite hard, especially with the rapid rate of change in technology, customer habits, and new products from large and small companies alike. If we want to have a chance at succeeding in our mission, we have to constantly question everything around us.
We've had this long-held philosophy at Amazon about two-way and one-way door decisions. A two-way door decision is one where if you get the decision wrong, you can walk back through that door, revert to where you were, and there are few (if any) ramifications. You can make these decisions quickly and locally. A one-way door decision is one where it's quite difficult (if not impossible) to walk back through that door if you get the decision wrong, so these decisions are made more methodically. But, both of these constructs assume the door is unlocked. A lot of invention is about trying to open doors that have historically seemed bolted shut. And, over the past 30 years, we've found one of the most important keys to unlock these doors has been a simple question: "Why?"
"Why does this customer experience have to be this way?" "Why can't it be better?" "What are the constraints—why must we accept them?" "Why can't we invent around that?" "Why will it take so long to get to customers?" Why?
My Dad has told me that I was the kind of kid who kept asking why, perhaps to an annoying extent. He's also reminded me how shortly after I joined Amazon in 1997, he tried to persuade me to work somewhere more traditional (and on the east coast closer to family)—only to realize that I'd already found the perfect fit.
That's because Amazon is a Why company. We ask why, and why not, constantly. It helps us deconstruct problems, get to root causes, understand blockers, and unlock doors that might have previously seemed impenetrable. Amazon has an unusually high quotient of this WhyQ (let's call it "YQ"), and it frames the way we think about everything that we do.
Starting in 1995, we asked why can't we offer customers every in-print book?
Then, we asked, why limit ourselves to in-print—why can't we also offer every out-of-print book?
Why not offer every book, ever written, in any language—all available within 60 seconds on a device that's light and fits in the palm of your hand (Kindle)?
When we offer reviews, why must they all come from professional "experts?" Customers are great resources and will be brutally honest. Why not include customer reviews even if they sometimes dissuade a purchase?
Why not offer more than Books? What about Music, Video, Electronics, Tools, Kitchen, Apparel, Home Furnishings?
Why not practically everything?
Why should we be the only sellers of these items? Millions of third-party merchants and small sellers offer similar or unique items. Why not let customers choose the selection, price, and delivery speed they prefer from among these millions of sellers?
After struggling for a couple years to create awareness for sellers' selection, we asked ourselves why not show their selection on the same product detail pages as our first-party selection (where all the traffic was)?
Why not allow our sellers to also store items in our fulfillment network, enable those items to have fast, Prime delivery, and fulfill those items for sellers (a program called Fulfillment by Amazon)?
Why not experiment with relevant advertisements in our store to expose customers to new sellers and items (versus only what our algorithms might surface based on past purchases)?
Why does every company need their own capital-intensive datacenters and infrastructure? Why should every development team keep reinventing services like compute, storage, database, and analytics? Why should builders spend 80% of their time on the undifferentiated heavy lifting vs. their unique customer experience? Why not build a set of services (AWS) to solve that for internal and external builders?
Why do I have to buy a physical video to watch a movie? Why do I need cable or linear TV to watch amazing TV shows (Prime Video)?
Why can't I get my Prime shipping benefits on other websites than just Amazon (Buy with Prime)?
I can go on. But, you get the idea. Every one of these Whys have led to significant invention, and every one of them have made customers' lives better and easier. Some of these seem obvious now. But at the time, these were provocative questions that required curiosity, risk-taking, experimentation, and persistence to make these into success stories.
Enabling a Why CultureIf you believe having high YQ is critical to inventing for customers, how do you enable it? In my opinion, it's not solved with one mechanism. It needs to be built deeply into your culture and leadership team, and has to be fiercely protected over time if you're lucky enough to be successful. Here are a few of the strategies we employ.
Create leadership principles that set the tone. We have 16 Leadership Principles that guide our behavior. They're all integral underpinnings to our YQ, but I'll touch on three in particular:
Are Right a Lot"Leaders are right a lot. They have strong judgment and good instincts. They seek diverse perspectives and work to disconfirm their beliefs."
When we first instituted this leadership principle, some people incorrectly assumed it meant that the best leaders were the ones whose ideas were chosen (i.e. they were right, a lot). It led to some people overly digging in and fighting for their ideas. There's nothing wrong with pushing for what you believe. But, in my experience, the best leaders want to hear others' views. They don't wilt or bristle when challenged; they're intrigued. Effective leaders change their minds when presented with new compelling information (which makes it ironic how people dismiss politicians as "flip-floppers" when they change their position). Ultimately, leaders are responsible for getting to the best answer for customers, regardless of whose original idea is chosen.
Learn and be Curious"Leaders are never done learning and always seek to improve themselves. They are curious about new possibilities and act to explore them."
In the nearly 28 years I've been at Amazon, the biggest difference in the relative growth of companies and individuals has been their aptitude to learn. At a certain point, some leaders seem to lose their thirst to learn. It's hard to know the reason in each case, but it's as if some people find it too exhausting, too time-consuming, or too threatening to not have all the answers. Regardless, the day we stop learning at Amazon is the day we risk undermining what we're capable of building in the future. People with high YQ are always curious how they can get better, become wiser, and incorporate their new knowledge into better customer experiences.
Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit"Leaders are obligated to respectfully challenge decisions when they disagree, even when doing so is uncomfortable or exhausting. Leaders have conviction and are tenacious. They do not compromise for the sake of social cohesion. Once a decision is determined, they commit wholly."
We don't just empower people to challenge one another, we obligate them to do so if they disagree. Questioning, asking the hard questions, forcing the discussion (versus silently thinking a mistake is being made) is necessary to getting to better answers for customers. "I told you so" has no currency at Amazon. It's also important to focus on the second part of this leadership principle: disagree and commit. While constructive debate is useful; at some point, teams need to make a decision and take action. From that point on, everybody—even those who advocated for a different solution than the one chosen—must commit to making that decision a success. That means the team goes all in—no pocket-vetoing nor hedging between other options. That's the only way we can preserve speed and confidence that if an issue is heavily debated, the team will ultimately pull together.
Create norms that support the Why. Similar to how our Leadership Principles guide our behavior, we've built norms over the years that guide how we work. Here are a few examples:
Narratives. We stopped presenting information to each other inside the company via powerpoint in 2004. Given how high level powerpoints are, we found that powerpoint was easy for the presenter to prepare, but harder for the audience to understand the substantive issues. Instead, we moved to writing narratives with a maximum of six pages in the body. Narratives are harder for the presenter (it's hard to write a thoughtful six-page document that highlights the key issues in enough detail to be crisp and clear), but much easier for the audience to engage with and ask the right Why questions.Working backwards documents. When we build services or features, before we start coding, we write Press Release and Frequently Asked Questions ("FAQ") documents. The Press Release is intended to ensure that what we're proposing building is remarkable to customers (so we don't get to launch and ask "wait, why did we think customers would find this interesting?"). And, the FAQ is designed to force ourselves to ask the hard questions about which customers will use this capability, what they'll like most, what they'll be most disappointed with, why are we drawing the launch line where we are, why is it better than current alternatives, how should we think about pricing, what pricing dimensions we recommend, and why have we made the architectural decisions we have. The Press Release and FAQ are how we work backwards from customers, and how we push ourselves to ask questions customers would if they were in these meetings.
Be together whenever possible. There are many paths that can lead to breakthrough innovation. Occasionally, a lone genius comes up with a brilliant idea, and everyone else simply executes it. While that can work, it's not how we typically operate. Amazon invention is deeply collaborative. It starts with a seed of an idea, then a group of smart, mission-driven people refine, challenge, and build on it together. And, we've found that this process is far more effective in person than remote. Of course, you can invent with everybody remote (and some cultures seem to prefer that). However, in my experience, it doesn't compare to being in the same room. The energy, the pace, the spontaneous brainstorming, the willingness for people to jump in, the way ideas evolve in real time, and the post-meeting iteration is much better when in the same room—and yields better outcomes for our customers and teams. With what's happening in AI right now, and the likelihood that every customer experience we've ever known will be reinvented, there has never been a more important time, in my opinion, to optimize to invent well.
Tolerating messy meetings. It's hard to "schedule" innovation. You can't book 60 minutes to invent Amazon Prime, or AWS, or Alexa+, or Fulfillment by Amazon, or Regionalization in our Fulfillment Network, or Project Kuiper. These inventions are borne out of somebody asking why we can't change what's possible for customers, and then they take on a life of their own, often meandering down multiple dead ends before getting to a final destination. This might bother some regimented folks. But, when we're inventing, we accept the process being beautifully imperfect.
Operate like a startup (in our case, the world's largest startup). We strive to operate like the world's largest startup. What does that mean?
First, whatever we're contemplating building has to be focused on solving a real customer problem or meaningfully improving a customer experience. Companies can get off track prioritizing technology because they're excited about the technology. Great startups are on a mission to change what's possible for customers.
Second, we have a disproportionate need for builders. These are inventors. They're people constantly dissecting customer experiences, even ones that seem pretty good today, and asking why they can't be better. They're divinely discontent (maybe annoyingly so for team members proud of what they've previously built), and never feel like the job is done.
Third, we want owners. One of the strengths of Amazon over the first 30 years is that we've hired really smart, motivated, inventive, ambitious people who have been great owners. And, that means that our teammates are constantly asking themselves, "What would I do if this was my own money?" "What would I do if I started this company and I was the majority owner?" "Hey, I know I've only been asked to own a part of this project, but I'm not sure if the other parts are being driven well—should I stick my nose into this and make sure or just trust somebody's got it?" Owners feel accountable. They care deeply about the quality and effectiveness of what they own, and view the company's mission as their mission (we want missionaries, not mercenaries). That's part of what our effort to increase the ratio of individual contributors versus managers is about. We want flatter organizations where our owners doing the work feel like they own the two-way door decisions (which are the vast majority), can move rapidly, and are fully accountable for solving the Whys of their customer experiences.
Fourth, speed disproportionately matters for every business, in every industry, at all times. It's a false binary to argue that you can move fast or deliver high standards. If you want to be fast, you can be fast, and still be high quality. We've done it for many years (though we can still be faster). Speed is a leadership decision. The leadership team has to believe it's a priority, reinforce it constantly, organize and remove structural barriers, and build in modular ways that enable pace. But, speed does not happen unless the entire company and culture embrace it. We have this persistent feeling, throughout the company and in every business in which we operate, that there are closing windows all around us. We operate in fiercely competitive market segments, with highly talented, well-funded, ambitious companies at every turn. Customers are always looking for something better. We spend a lot of time identifying how to unlock these experiences for them as quickly as possible, and know if we don't, somebody else will.
Another way to gain speed is to eliminate bureaucracy. There is a difference between process and bureaucracy. When you're running something at scale, you need mechanisms to deliver the right experience and constant improvement for customers. However, as companies grow and add more managers, unneeded processes get layered on that add little value. Last fall, I asked teammates across the company to send me bureaucracy examples that they were experiencing. I've received almost 1,000 of these emails, and read every single one. Builders hate bureaucracy. It slows them down, frustrates them, and keeps them from doing what they came here to do. As leaders, we don't always see the red tape buried deep in our organizations, but we can sure as heck eliminate it when we do. We've already made over 375 changes based on this feedback. We need to move fast, and we are committed to rooting out bureaucracy that ties up time and dispirits our teammates.
Fifth, you have to be scrappy. As businesses succeed and get larger, they sometimes forget how things got started. We built Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) with 13 people; Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) with 11 people. Managers can confuse themselves that the way to grow and get ahead is to accumulate large teams. Historically, we've had periods where we've allowed this thinking to hold sway. But, it's not the way we fundamentally think about building teams and products, and have adjusted to reflect that again. Our best leaders get the most done with the least number of resources required to do the job. They pride themselves on being lean.
Sixth, you have to be willing to take risks. This sounds easier than it is. You need clever enough people to identify worthwhile bets. And if you have these inventive, ambitious builders with high standards, they're not used to failure. They suspect external (and maybe internal) ridicule awaits them if they try something very different that doesn't work out. So, people often play it safe. But, you can't achieve something extraordinary for customers by playing "not to lose." If your Whys take you down an invention path that delivers an experience that doesn't look like what's been done before, let customer obsession be your compass. You rarely, if ever, change the world by doing the same thing as everybody else.
And finally, you have to care most about delivering compelling results for customers. It's not how charismatic you are. It's not whether you're really good at managing up or sideways. What matters is what we actually get done for customers. That's what we want to reward.
Next generation WhysWhile the team and I feel quite optimistic about the progress and potential of our existing businesses, we have plenty of new Whys we're asking. Below are a few of them and some quick thoughts.
Why is AI so important? Will it really have as much impact as some claim and when?Generative AI is going to reinvent virtually every customer experience we know, and enable altogether new ones about which we've only fantasized. The early AI workloads being deployed focus on productivity and cost avoidance (e.g. customer service, business process orchestration, workflow, translation, etc.). This is saving companies a lot of money. Increasingly, you'll see AI change the norms in coding, search, shopping, personal assistants, primary care, cancer and drug research, biology, robotics, space, financial services, neighborhood networks—everything. Some of these areas are already seeing rapid progress; others are still in their infancy. But, if your customer experiences aren't planning to leverage these intelligent models, their ability to query giant corpuses of data and quickly find your needle in the haystack, their ability to keep getting smarter with more feedback and data, and their future agentic capabilities, you will not be competitive. How soon? It won't all happen in a year or two, but, it won't take ten either. It's moving faster than almost anything technology has ever seen.
OK, I buy AI is big; but why invest this much this quickly?Fundamentally, if your mission is to make customers' lives better and easier every day, and you believe every customer experience will be reinvented by AI, you're going to invest deeply and broadly in AI. That's why there are more than 1,000 GenAI applications being built across Amazon, aiming to meaningfully change customer experiences in shopping, coding, personal assistants, streaming video and music, advertising, healthcare, reading, and home devices, to name a few. It's also why AWS is quickly developing the key primitives (or building blocks) for AI development, such as custom silicon AI chips in Amazon Trainium to provide better price-performance on training and inference, highly flexible model-building and inference services in Amazon SageMaker and Amazon Bedrock, our own frontier models in Amazon Nova to provide lower cost and latency for customers' applications, and agent creation and management capabilities.
There is also substantial capital investment required. In AWS, the faster demand grows, the more datacenters, chips, and hardware we need to procure (and AI chips are much more expensive than CPU chips). We spend this capital upfront, even though these assets are useful for many years (in the case of datacenters, for at least 15-20 years). We only start monetizing this capital investment many months after we spend the capital, and over many years—which leads to attractive long-term FCF and ROIC (as people have seen in AWS over the last several years). But in periods, like now, of unusually high demand (our AI revenue is growing at triple digit YoY percentages and represents a multi-billion-dollar annual revenue run rate), you're deploying a lot of capital. We continue to believe AI is a once-in-a-lifetime reinvention of everything we know, the demand is unlike anything we've seen before, and our customers, shareholders, and business will be well-served by our investing aggressively now.
Why do chips and AI have to be this expensive for customers?AI does not have to be as expensive as it is today, and it won't be in the future. Chips are the biggest culprit. Most AI to date has been built on one chip provider. It's pricey. Trainium should help, as our new Trainium2 chips offer 30-40% better price-performance than the current GPU-powered compute instances generally available today. While model training still accounts for a large amount of the total AI spend, inference (which are the predictions or outputs of the models) will represent the overwhelming majority of future AI cost because customers train their models periodically, but produce inferences constantly in large-scale AI applications. Inference will become another building block service, along with compute, storage, database, and others. We feel strong urgency to make inference less expensive for customers. More price-performant chips will help. But, inference will also get meaningfully more efficient in the next couple of years with improvements in model distillation, prompt caching, computing infrastructure, and model architectures. Reducing the cost per unit in AI will unleash AI being used as expansively as customers desire, and also lead to more overall AI spending. It's like what happened with AWS. Revolutionizing the cost of compute and storage happily led to lower cost per unit, and more invention, better customer experiences, and more absolute infrastructure spend.
Why have personal assistants not yet taken off? How can Alexa help?A great personal assistant can answer virtually any question and get things done on your behalf. There have been no digital solutions that can do both yet. That is, until Alexa+ arrived. Alexa+ is not only comparably intelligent to the leading chatbots, but can take a plethora of real actions for you. She can play music, play video, move media from one of your devices to another, set alarms and timers, control your smart home, order across hundreds of millions of ecommerce items, make reservations for restaurants or Ubers, order concert tickets, alert you when your favorite artist announces a tour, find a plumber to fix your sink, and memorize whatever you've done on Amazon. This is pretty game-changing for consumers, and just the start of what Alexa+ will do. We have over 600 million Alexa devices out there today, and expect Alexa+ to play an even more vital role in the lives of these hundreds of millions of customers in the future.
Why can't we get items to customers even faster? Does it matter?Every year, people ask whether we've reached the law of diminishing returns on speed of delivery. Our data shows this not to be the case. When we promise faster delivery times, customers complete purchases at a meaningfully higher rate and shop with us more frequently. Amazon Prime started with unlimited, free, two-day delivery for a million products; it's now grown to over 300 million items, with tens of millions available in one day (or better). An increasing number of deliveries happen same day. This speed improvement is primarily due to our regionalization redesign of our fulfillment network, our new placement algorithms, and the introduction of our innovative same-day fulfillment centers. Although we've set speed records for two consecutive years, we're still honing these innovations, and have others planned. And, don't forget Prime Air, our drones that will get items to customers inside an hour. We are not done improving speed.
Why can't people in small towns enjoy the same fast delivery speeds as people in cities?As some other companies are abandoning small-town customers due to cost to serve, we're going the other way—we're investing to serve our rural customers even better. We've already expanded Same-Day and Overnight Delivery to dozens of smaller cities and towns across the U.S., with more coming. This expansion will provide even faster Amazon delivery speeds for many millions of customers, particularly in less densely populated areas, enabling us to deliver over a billion packages each year to customers living in 13,000 zip codes spanning 1.2 million square miles.
Related, why can't we help the hundreds of millions of people without broadband connectivity?There are about 400-500 million households around the world, most in small, rural towns that don't have access to broadband connectivity. They can't leverage the Internet to learn, shop, do business, access entertainment, and communicate the same way people take for granted in bigger cities. This digital divide is what Project Kuiper, our low Earth orbit satellite network, aims to solve. We're just launching our first production satellites, and will ultimately have over 3,200 in orbit over the next few years. While capital-intensive to launch, we believe Kuiper will be a meaningful operating income and ROIC business for us.
Why does healthcare have to be so stressful?Healthcare, especially in the U.S., is quite frustrating. It's hard to get fast appointments with primary care physicians, often harder with specialists. There's a lot of waiting around. Physicians spend only a few minutes with patients. Then, patients have to drive somewhere (often not close) to get their medications. And, when they get to the pharmacy, they're often surprised by the pricing, what's covered by their insurance, and what you can easily access that's not behind a locked shelf. Customers deserve better. It's why you see such positive customer sentiment and growth for Amazon Pharmacy and Amazon One Medical, and we continue to iterate quickly on selection and transparency for Amazon Pharmacy, and physical clinic capacity for One Medical.
These are some of the Why questions we're asking ourselves right now, and I'm excited about the future inventions to come. We're not going to be bored any time soon.
When I first started working, I thought it was unfathomable that my Dad worked at the same place for 45 years. How could that be? That's so long. I used to tell my friends that would never be me. Now, with almost 28 years and counting at Amazon, I have to answer those same friends with their own Why question.
After all these years, why are you still at Amazon?
I'm obviously a Superfan, but there are several compelling parts to working at Amazon. First, I'm not sure that any company prioritizes customers as relentlessly as we do. Lots of companies say they will; few follow through. Second, it's challenging to find a company where you can make a bigger impact on the world than you can at Amazon. Third, we make significant long-term investments and bets in both inventions and people. This allows our teams to iterate on ideas, and make the right long-term decisions for customers and the company. And, I've never encountered a more intelligent, creative, ambitious, hungry, hard-working, and missionary group of teammates than we have at Amazon. In my opinion, this is a remarkable set of qualities to have at a company. And, for builders who want to change the world, and who have fire in their belly, there's no better place to be than Amazon.
We operate like the world's largest startup in large part because of our culture of Why. We don't always get everything right, and we learn and iterate like crazy. But, we're constantly choosing to prioritize customers, delivery, invention, ownership, speed, scrappiness, curiosity, and building a company that outlasts us all. It remains Day One.
Sincerely,Andy JassyPresident and Chief Executive OfficerAmazon.com, Inc.
P.S. As we have always done, our original 1997 Shareholder Letter follows. What's written there is as true today as it was in 1997.
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U.S. President Donald Trump offered his trading partners — and financial markets — some reprieve on Wednesday as he walked back parts of his tariff policy.
The latest country-specific tariff rates announced on April 2 were dropped to 10% for 90 days to buy time for negotiations for most of the countries and territories targeted.
Markets breathed a sigh of relief, with a historic rally unfolding on Wall Street on Wednesday and carrying into Asian and European markets on Thursday. But analysts note economic and markets damage might already be done, and it could be difficult to reverse.
"While there has been understandable relief as evidence of a Trump put reemerged following the extreme market conditions that we highlighted yesterday morning, the genie is still out of the bottle on policy unpredictability," a group of Deutsche Bank Research's economists and strategists said in a note Thursday.
The remaining 10% tariff is still the largest hike on such duties in decades and there is little indication on what sort of trade deals the U.S. might accept in negotiations, which means uncertainty is set to continue, they added.
Meanwhile, Preston Caldwell, U.S. economist at Morningstar, suggested markets had reacted too strongly to Trump's announcement, warning of economic fallout unless the U.S. president's tariff policy shifted even further.
"The market is reacting too optimistically today, unless Trump announces further tariff reduction and credibly refrains from future retaliatory increases," Caldwell said in a note Thursday.
"The average tariff rate as of today still stands at around 20%, with the tariff rate on China at around 125% constituting a de facto embargo," he said, saying there would be some tweaks to the economic forecast, but adding that he was still expecting "a major rise in inflation" and an economic slowdown.
The damage inflicted by uncertainty and the chop-and-change feeling that has been created by frequent policy shifts affect everything from the wider U.S. economy and the country's position in the world order to stock markets and the dollar, analysts noted.
In a note, Deutsche Bank Research economists and strategists pointed out that, despite the S&P 500 rallying more than 9% during the Wednesday session, "this still left the S&P 500 -3.77% below its level prior to the reciprocal tariff announcements on April 2."
S&P 500 futures were last down 2.1% at 9:44 a.m. London time.
The U.S. dollar, which saw a sell-off after the country-specific tariffs were first introduced, also rebounded after Trump's announcement on Wednesday. It has since eased again. The dollar index was last at 102.41, sharply lower than the highs of around 110 seen in January of this year.
Chris Turner, global head of markets at ING, said in a note that the greenback index was expected to continue "to trade in a volatile 102.00-103.50 range."
"And it could come lower again over the coming weeks if it looks like the reciprocal tariff shock has done some damage to hard data in the US consumer and business space," he added.
A wider, macro economic impact has also already unfolded, despite Trump's move signaling that the U.S. administration is at least somewhat reactive to pressure from businesses and markets, George Saravelos, global head of FX research at Deutsche Bank, said in a Wednesday note.
"Even if the tariffs are permanently suspended, damage has been done to the economy via a permanent sense of unpredictability in policy," he said.
"More structurally, the events of the last few weeks will resonate amongst global economic partners during the upcoming negotiations on trade and indeed for many years to come. The desire to build greater strategic independence from the US across all fronts will be here to stay."
Others like Jim Caron, chief investment officer of the portfolio solutions group at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, hold that markets will eventually recover.
"We can heal from this," he told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe" on Thursday. "It's going to take a little bit of time and some confidence rebuilding."
Caron said he expected Trump to take a "less heated or more measured approach" to some of his tariff policies over time and to create "wins" through negotiations. Market volatility was previously triggered by the White House not communicating about its plans and what they would mean well enough, he suggested.
"So the damage that's been done is essentially a shock to confidence that has made people demand a bigger discount to buy certain assets, and that could be bonds, and that can also be equities, and that's what we're going through," Caron stressed. "But over time — we've seen shocks in markets before — these things have a way of getting crowded and healing themselves."
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Long hours, hiring freezes, and a souring bonus outlook. This is the life of the Wall Street dealmaker right now as M&A stalls amid continued uncertainty over Trump's tariffs.
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump announced a 90-day pause on most tariffs, with the exception of China, which is now facing tariffs of up to 125%. While the reversal lifted stocks, resulting in the biggest single-day gain for the S&P 500 since 2008, it isn't expected to do much for M&A, which was already on the fritz leading up to Wednesday's announcement. In fact, some are predicting Trump's pause could make things worse.
"We're going to have three more months of paralysis," said Alan Johnson, a finance industry compensation consultant. "Buyers and sellers are going to say, 'I'm going to wait,'" added the Johnson Associates founder.
It's not just investment bankers who are sitting on the sidelines. Private equity deal pipelines are also on hold as investors and target companies try to understand how current and future tariffs could affect business revenues and supply chains.
"If you're an investor, unless you have an amazing conviction that you're insulated from the tariffs, you're sitting on your hands and waiting," said the head of a sector at a major private equity fund.
As one investor at a midmarket private equity firm put it: The news of the 90-day pause was well-received, but nothing to celebrate. "We pop bottles when we have great exits that earn our investors tons of money, not for short-term noise."
What do dealmakers do with their time when there are no deals? The people who spoke to BI said they and their teams aren't going home any earlier. In fact, some are traveling more to stay in touch with skittish clients even as they predict year-end bonus declines. Others are working longer hours to understand what the tariffs will do to their portfolios.
Eric Stetler, the head of mergers and acquisitions at the independent investment bank D.A. Davidson, told BI that far more of his time is being spent keeping clients updated.
During a time like this, Stetler said, "just staying in front of clients" is paramount. "People want to know what's happening."
Stetler said senior bankers tend to devote about "75% of their time" to existing client mandates and the rest to drumming up new business. "At times like this," he said, "that reverses, or close to reverses."'
"That's not to say that our new business development activity is pausing because we're still having a lot of conversations," he said. "We're still pitching new business. We're preparing businesses for sale, and looking at processes with our clients."
The PE sector head said private equity deal teams are spending more time with their portfolio companies or updating their models with the latest tariff numbers.
"The announced tariffs were more severe than what was expected, so we've been having to update Plan B, Plan C, and Plan D to make sure we can mitigate the effects," the executive said before Trump announced the 90-day pause.
Hiring is largely frozen, according to a banker and Wall Street recruiter. "What I'm hearing is that it's kind of like, 'Maybe this is not a good week to push something through. Can we give it a week or two?'," the headhunter said.
Though the firms this recruiter communicates with had yet to invoke full-on hiring freezes — which are rigid postures that tend to presage layoffs — the word "freeze" had been mentioned in some conversations.
"If things don't get better," the recruiter added, "there will be layoffs."
Bonus expectations have also hit the skids as the prospect of closing a deal gets pushed further into the future. As Stetler explained: "It takes roughly four to six months to run the sale process" on a live deal. Even if a buyer decided to pull the trigger on a purchase today, "you are looking at a late Q3, probably, at best," for when such a merger might close.
Trump's tariff pause threatens to further dampen bonuses by pushing the timeline out even more — potentially to 2026, said Johnson, the compensation consultant.
"Would you do a deal now if you're a buyer? In 90 days, maybe he changes his mind again, or 90 days becomes 30 days, or 90 days is tomorrow, or 90 days is 180 days," Johnson said, referring to President Trump. "Maybe things will be a lot better in three months, the sun will start shining. But now we're in what, July? And then by the time the lawyers get involved and you sign an agreement, it's 2026."
Get in touch with these reporters. Reed Alexander covers Wall Street banks; he can be reached via email at ralexander@businessinsider.com, or SMS/the encrypted app Signal at (561) 247-5758. Alex Nicoll can be reached via email at anicoll@businessinsider.com, or Signal at @alexnicoll.01
Jump to
While working as a LinkedIn product manager, Philip Smart saw the opportunity of AI to solve problems in an industry close to his heart: immigration. Smart's father has worked as an immigration attorney for 25 years.
That insight became the legal tech startup Parley, which is wooing and winning over lawyers and paralegals with software that helps them draft and submit visa applications faster.
When developing Parley, Smart pictured his father's desk. "You see these applications that are all printed out, stacks of paper, and you have to diligently put it all together," Smart said. "We felt like that was a great use case and something we could help with."
Parley's platform allows an attorney to upload documents such as a client's resume, college transcript, and job offer letter. It then assembles this evidence to draft an attorney's letter confirming the applicant's eligibility for a work visa.
Smart said its platform has been adopted by a range of law firms, from solo practitioners to large shops with dozens of legal professionals, such as Erickson Immigration Group in Virginia and Murthy Law Firm in Maryland.
Last week, the startup released a product for filing E-2 visas for investors, which means Parley's platform now covers most of the alphabet soup of work visas. It plans to roll out soon a product aimed at "requests for evidence," which the government issues and can cause delays or even lead to visa denials.
To date, Parley has raised a small seed round of funding from Y Combinator, a San Francisco investment firm that gives very young companies some money and a network in exchange for equity.
Tech investors are swooning at the promise of artificial intelligence to shake up the business of law and the profession itself. PitchBook data shows that legal tech startups took in $2.6 billion in equity funding in 2024, up from less than $1 billion the previous year. Immigration has emerged as a hot spot for founders, with its high volume of simple or routine tasks. The startups Casium and Glade Ai are also working on AI for visa filings.
Parley comes to market as the ground shifts beneath high-skilled immigrants and the lawyers who advise them.
Immigration lawyers are used to the long, complicated, and often tedious process of applying for a visa. Now, they're juggling new directives that create fear and increase scrutiny for their clients. The executive orders that have come down have called for stricter "enhanced vetting" of visa applicants and those already in the country.
Additionally, President Donald Trump has directed the Justice Department to seek sanctions against law firms that bring immigration lawsuits and other cases against the government that he deems unethical.
"It's not easy to be an immigration lawyer right now," Smart told Business Insider.
Smart thinks Parley can ease some of the strain. He said lawyers using Parley still work with their clients and teams of associates to craft each applicant's strategy. Parley helps by fleshing out the argument and offering feedback on where it falls short of certain criteria.
The platform also organizes an applicant's documents into a logical sequence and enables the exhibits to be exported as a single PDF, saving an attorney hours in Adobe Acrobat.
Smart lights up sharing customer stories. He said one law firm has been able to take on more clients because of Parley's time savings and even doubled its revenue over the past year. Those lawyers get to spend more time on growing their client base and working on case strategy, Smart said, instead of getting bogged down by paperwork.
There's a debate raging in the legal industry over artificial intelligence's potential to improve productivity and cut billable hours. Smart seems unperturbed. In immigration law, many attorneys, especially for standard services like visa applications, charge a flat fee rather than an hourly rate.
"It's one of the reasons we started with immigration and one of the reasons that we've seen quick adoption," Smart said.
"As an immigration firm, if you're charging a flat fee for a visa application that you're providing if you can do that faster and then be able to do even more of those applications, that's a really exciting premise for your firm."
Have a tip? Contact the reporter via email at mrussell@businessinsider.com or Signal at @MeliaRussell.01. Use a personal email address and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.
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President Donald Trump on Wednesday raised tariffs on China to 125%, but "Shark Tank" star Kevin O'Leary says he should go further.
"The Trump administration just announced a 90-day pause on global tariffs, EXCEPT for China. Their tariff is going up to 125%. That's a start… but it's NOT ENOUGH," O'Leary wrote on X on Wednesday.
"My plan? 400% TARIFFS on Chinese imports. PERIOD," he added.
On Wednesday, Trump said he was pausing the reciprocal tariffs he imposed on 185 countries by 90 days.
Trump announced the tariffs on April 2, or what he called "Liberation Day." A baseline rate of 10% took effect on Saturday, while a higher set of tariff rates that varied by country went into effect on Wednesday. Trump said he was pausing the higher set of tariffs, though the 10% baseline rate would remain.
Trump, however, said the pause would not apply to China. The president imposed a 20% tariff on China last month. Last week, he said he would impose an additional 34% reciprocal tariff before hiking it further by another 50%, taking it to 104%.
But Trump raised those tariffs again on Wednesday, this time to 125%. In a Wednesday Truth Social post, Trump said his decision was "based on the lack of respect that China has shown to the World's Markets."
O'Leary said in his post on Wednesday that while he still wanted to do business in China, he also wanted a "LEVEL PLAYING FIELD, one where American entrepreneurs can COMPETE FAIRLY and get access to their markets the same way they access ours."
"China doesn't play fair, and it's time we stop letting them get away with it," O'Leary wrote on X hours after Trump's announcement.
O'Leary's hawkish views on tariffs set him apart from many business leaders and experts, who have warned that further trade restrictions would hurt rather than help the US economy.
"We are far from being out of the woods. Much credibility has been lost. Be afraid," former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers wrote on X on Wednesday, after Trump's announcement.
Hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman said on Wednesday that China should stop retaliating and start negotiating with the US.
"Advice for China: Pick up the phone and call the President. He is a tough but fair negotiator. The longer China holds out and retaliates, the worse the outcome for China," Ackman wrote on X.
Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Associates, said on Wednesday that it was a good time for countries to "reconsider their approaches" on trade.
"There are better and worse ways of handling our problems with unsustainable debt and imbalances, and President Trump's decision to step back from a worse way and negotiate how to deal with these imbalances is a much better way," Dalio wrote in a post on X.
O'Leary and the White House did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.
Jump to
The future of IRS Direct File looks grim as a DOGE official eyes cuts and the Treasury Department dismissed the free tax-filing system as a failed program.
Sam Corcos, a DOGE official and one of the group's public faces, has expressed skepticism about IRS Direct File, a recently departed federal employee told Business Insider. Corcos has said he thinks it should be shut down, according to two people who were told about his thinking by others close to him.
A senior Treasury official told Business Insider it was a failed and disappointing program used by a small fraction of the nation's taxpayers. No decisions have been made about its future, the official added.
The uncertainty has disappointed people who believe Direct File is emblematic of the very things that DOGE is supposed to be building.
Its purpose is to offer a tech solution to file taxes quickly and directly and to the IRS, bypassing fees to for-profit software companies. A December 2024 IRS report found that taxpayers spent around $160 and eight hours preparing their taxes.
"On the one hand, you have a broader ambition through the DOGE to automate IRS operations and create a more online IRS that would justify the significant reductions in force that are underway," Danny Werfel, who served as IRS commissioner until January, said. "On the other hand, you have a very strong contingency in Congress and an industry who believes that this activity should be the exclusive domain of the private sector."
Critics of the tool say it's too costly and wasn't implemented legally. Representatives for H&R Block and Intuit, which makes the popular tax prep software TurboTax, said that free tax preparation has been available to Americans for years.
It's not clear whether the views of DOGE or Corcos will affect Trump administration policy. Elon Musk, DOGE's de facto face, claimed in February he had "deleted" a government agency that helped build Direct File; that came months after he had reportedly eyed creating an app Americans could use to file their taxes.
The Treasury senior official's characterization of the program appears to diverge from previous statements about its future. During confirmation hearings, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent committed to preserving the program through the 2025 tax season.
The program presents a DOGE dilemma: While it's a potential budget item to be cut, and still getting off the ground, it's also an automated and efficient tech tool. Advocates say that saving or even bolstering the system could exemplify the DOGE way — if it's allowed to stay afloat.
About a fifth of American taxpayers — or 32 million people — are eligible to use Direct File this year, and the program's advocates are eager to get the word out.
Last year's pilot program saw high satisfaction ratings. Just under 141,000 people used Direct File to do their taxes, and 90% of them rated their experience "excellent" or "above average," an IRS report showed. Eighty-six percent said it increased their trust in the IRS. A December survey by the Urban Institute of more than 7,000 adults found that 73% of tax filers are interested in using Direct File — but 68% of filers said they didn't know enough about the program to feel comfortable using it.
One Treasury official pointed to their favorite user feedback quote from someone who used it to complete their return: "I don't cry when I do my taxes using Direct File."
The IRS expected between 920,000 and 3.7 million users this year. The agency hasn't reported the number of users so far and said data on its website traffic can't be compared to last year because of a change in how the data was collected.
Though the concept is popular and early usage signs are encouraging, awareness is a big issue. Many Americans heard about the tool for the first time after Musk's post about the deletion.
Some people took that to mean that the program was being axed, and former government employees said Musk's post undercut the IRS's messaging that the program would be permanent. Google search volume for "direct file" peaked the day after Musk's post.
Some people inside and outside the government said the IRS could do more to help spread the word. While the agency has mentioned Direct File in several press releases, sometimes alongside the Free File program that gives middle- and low-income people free access to private-sector tax-prep tools, it hasn't hosted any calls with the media on Direct File since October. Finding it from the IRS homepage can take multiple clicks.
"If you give a program some time, growth will increase and then something like that can take off," a Treasury official who wasn't authorized to speak to the media said. Referring to the move from paper returns to filing electronically, they added, "Imagine if they had killed e-file in 1989 or 1988 before it really even was able to get going. This is a program where we've seen people really satisfied."
In 2022, Congress committed $15 million to study a way to file taxes directly with the IRS online, without complicated tax forms. Within a year, a prototype was ready. Dozens of tech workers from the IRS and other federal offices teamed up to build Direct File, which went live last year for a limited number of taxpayers.
"We effectively launched a startup in the IRS," said a person who worked on the program.
Republican critics of the program have said the agency overstepped its legal authority when it decided to make Direct File permanent.
"The IRS does not have unlimited resources and should focus on improving information technology systems, data privacy, and long-standing customer service issues," Sens. Mike Crapo and John Barrasso wrote in a July letter to Werfel, the former IRS commissioner. "It should not be focused on unilaterally expanding its own power, without congressional approval, through a permanent government tax preparation scheme that is unnecessary, problematic, costly, and illegitimate."
They have also said the program could cost billions of dollars, although the inspector general who covers the IRS reported last month that it identified $33.4 million in spending related to running the program last year, a number it said "may not capture all the costs."
Despite public confusion, there are signs that interest in the program is growing as tax day approaches: The number of active users on directfile.irs.gov over the week ending on April 7 was about 8% of the total number of people going to the IRS homepage, compared to about 5% 90 days earlier.
"On the one hand, lots of people using and liking Direct File would help protect the program," said Vanessa Williamson, a researcher at the Brookings Institution.
On the other hand, she said, "We're really in uncharted waters in terms of how decisions are being made at a federal level."
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If you let Sam Altman's lawyers tell it, Elon Musk's ongoing battle against OpenAI stems from his personal vendetta against Altman and OpenAI — a company that has seen its business boom since it refused to cede control to Musk in 2018.
In a Wednesday filing related to Musk's August 2024 lawsuit against OpenAI, lawyers for Altman and the company laid out Altman's version of events that led to the breakup between the two tech titans. It has been the most detailed account thus far of Altman's side of what went down in his fight with Musk.
"Musk could not tolerate seeing such success for an enterprise he had abandoned and declared doomed," the filing read. "He made it his project to take down OpenAI, and to build a direct competitor that would seize the technological lead—not for humanity but for Elon Musk."
The filing continued: "The ensuing campaign has been relentless. Through press attacks, malicious campaigns broadcast to Musk's more than 200 million followers on the social media platform he controls, a pretextual demand for corporate records, harassing legal claims, and a sham bid for OpenAI's assets, Musk has tried every tool available to harm OpenAI."
OpenAI's filing on Wednesday came the same day the judge in the case set a March 2026 trial date in this clash of titans lawsuit. The company's lawyers did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
OpenAI said it was counter-suing Musk in a scathing series of X posts published on Wednesday. The ChatGPT maker also pointed to older blog posts it had published on their pivot from a nonprofit approach as well as their email exchanges with Musk.
"Elon's nonstop actions against us are just bad-faith tactics to slow down OpenAI and seize control of the leading AI innovations for his personal benefit," OpenAI wrote on X on Wednesday.
"Elon's never been about the mission. He's always had his own agenda. He tried to seize control of OpenAI and merge it with Tesla as a for-profit — his own emails prove it. When he didn't get his way, he stormed off," the company added.
Representatives for OpenAI referred BI to its recent X posts and the Wednesday filing when contacted for comment.
Musk cofounded OpenAI with Altman in 2015 but left the company's board in 2018. Musk said in 2019 that he left because Tesla was competing for the same talent as OpenAI. Musk said he also "didn't agree with some of what the OpenAI team wanted to do. Musk did not specify what those differences were.
Since then, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO has been a vocal critic of Altman's leadership of OpenAI. Musk had initially filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in February 2024 but withdrew it in June. He later refiled the lawsuit in August.
In his lawsuit, Musk accused OpenAI of violating its nonprofit mission by partnering with Microsoft. Musk's lawyers argued that OpenAI's executives "deceived" him into cofounding the company by playing on his fears about AI's existential risks.
In February, an Elon-Musk-led investor group made a $97.4 billion bid for OpenAI. Altman dismissed Musk's unsolicited takeover bid.
"The company is not for sale, neither is the mission," Altman said of Musk's bid in an interview with Sky News in February.
Musk did not respond to a request for comment from BI.
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President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs came into effect on Wednesday, as chaos continued to plague global financial markets.
While Trump's latest round of levies has seen wild volatility in the stock market, attention Wednesday turned to bonds, with US Treasury yields spiking and prices falling amid retaliatory measures announced by China and the EU.
Here's what Wall Street's top minds have been saying about tariffs and the economy this week.
The US is likely already mired in a downturn — and stocks could plummet another 20% before they find a bottom, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said.
Fink, who spoke at an event at the Economic Club of New York on Monday, added that he was concerned there were more inflationary pressures on the economy than the market was pricing in.
Still, he said the stock sell-off looked like "more of a buying opportunity than a selling opportunity," adding that he didn't believe tariffs were creating systemic risks to the economy.
Economic chaos is likely if Trump doesn't pause or scale back tariffs immediately, the billionaire hedge funder Bill Ackman said Monday in a post on X.
Ackman, who endorsed Trump during the presidential race, urged the commander in chief to call off the tariffs for 90 days to allow the US and other countries to negotiate over trade policy.
"If, on the other hand, on April 9th we launch economic nuclear war on every country in the world, business investment will grind to a halt, consumers will close their wallets and pocketbooks, and we will severely damage our reputation with the rest of the world that will take years and potentially decades to rehabilitate," the Pershing Square founder wrote.
In a separate post, Ackman said his firm wouldn't dump its US stock holdings even if tariff fears sparked a massive price drop.
"We will suffer mark-to-market losses if the market crashes, but we will not be sellers in a declining market," Ackman said, adding: "Over the long term, we are exposed to the health of our country and its economy. This is my only investment 'conflict' if you want to call it that."
The stock sell-off could get even worse, said Boaz Weinstein, a famed hedge funder and the founder of Saba Capital Management. That's because Trump's trade war could rattle the bond market and spark a wave of bankruptcies, he told Bloomberg TV.
"This is not going to get fixed tomorrow. I believe you cannot put the genie back in the bottle," Weinstein told the outlet in an interview published on Monday, pointing to reciprocal tariffs from China and other knock-on effects from Trump's tariff plan.
"The avalanche has really just started," he added. "The hit could be faster and the bankruptcy rate could spike much faster than other crises."
Weinstein said he saw a "real possibility" of the US entering a severe recession, pointing to how the Smoot-Hawley tariffs worsened the economic situation leading into the Great Depression.
"There might be something in between that stops the boulder, but I'm very concerned about a crash," he said.
In his annual letter to shareholders on Monday, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon warned of the impact of tariffs, saying the steep duties on US imports could slow growth and raise inflation.
"The recent tariffs will likely increase inflation and are causing many to consider a greater probability of a recession," the billionaire banker wrote.
Dimon also mentioned stagflation, a scenario where economic growth stagnates while inflation stays high. Economists say such an outcome, which plagued the US economy in the 1970s, would be even harder for policymakers to deal with than a recession, as inflationary pressures would prevent the Federal Reserve from lowering interest rates to stimulate the economy.
"This tug-of-war can go on for some time, but it's good to remember that in the stagflation of the 1970s, recessions did not stop the inexorable trend of rising rates," he added.
Speaking to Fox Business on Wednesday, Dimon said a recession was "a likely outcome."
"Markets aren't always right, but sometimes they are right. And I think this time they are right because they're just pricing in uncertainty at the macro level and uncertainty at the micro level, at the actual company level," he said.
Stanley Druckenmiller reiterated his stance against tariffs in an X post on Monday.
"I do not support tariffs exceeding 10% which I made abundantly clear in the interview you cite," the top investor wrote in response to another post that featured a clip of a previous CNBC interview.
In the interview, Druckenmiller said he saw tariffs within "the 10% range" as the "lesser of two evils," adding that he believed that duties on US imports were "simply a consumption tax" partly paid for by foreign countries.
Trump's tariffs are having "very big impacts on markets and economies," but there should be more focus on what caused them and the even greater disruptions ahead, Ray Dalio said in a LinkedIn post on Monday.
"The far bigger, far more important thing to keep in mind is that we are seeing a classic breakdown of the major monetary, political, and geopolitical orders," he wrote, adding this kind of event only happened about once in a lifetime.
Dalio — the billionaire founder of Bridgewater Associates and the official mentor to the hedge fund's three co-chief investors — said unsustainable debt levels, gaping divides between people, and the end of US global dominance are behind the current disorder.
He also pointed to increasingly disruptive acts of nature and technological innovations such as AI as key drivers of the ongoing changes.
Trump went too far with his tariffs, leaving investors shellshocked and the economy in danger, Brad Gerstner, the founder and CEO of Altimeter Capital, told Fox Business on Monday.
Instead of precisely targeting import taxes at a few countries, the US "took out the bazooka," he said. "These are not reciprocal tariffs — this is a nuclear-style assault on global business and it's gonna land us in a recession."
The veteran tech investor said Trump needs to show Wall Street he wants fair tariffs and isn't "trying to unwind the entire global system of trade which has worked really well for America."
Gerstner added that "credit markets are beginning to crack, and when that happens, we're on the verge of throwing the US into a recession that you can't easily get out of." The US can't "just push a button and magically this all resets."
There are too many "unprecedented unknowns" in Trump's trade war for forecasts and certainty in decisions, wrote Howard Marks, the cofounder of Oaktree Capital Management.
Investors also need to remember that "deciding not to act isn't the opposite of acting; it's an act in itself," Marks wrote in a memo on April 9.
"The decision to not act — to leave a portfolio unchanged — should be scrutinized as critically as a decision to make changes," he wrote.
"The old saws that are the refuge of terrified investors — 'we're not going to try to catch a falling knife' and 'we should wait for the dust to settle and the uncertainty to be resolved' — cannot in themselves be allowed to determine our behavior," wrote Marks.
Negative developments that cause massive price slumps are "terrifying" and discourage buying. "But, when unfavorable developments are raining down, that's often the best time to step up," he wrote.
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The Ethereum price crash to $1,400 has shaken the crypto market, amplifying already volatile conditions. This dramatic price drop comes after a major ETH sell-off by US President Donald Trump's World Liberty Finance, suggesting that the recent dump may have been a primary catalyst behind ETH's price collapse.
Blockchain analytics platform Lookonchain revealed on April 9 via X (formerly Twitter) that the wallet associated with World Liberty Finance, a decentralized finance protocol linked to Trump, recently dumped a significant amount of Ethereum. Interestingly, this sell-off came just before Ethereum's price crash, raising the question of whether it contributed to the unexpected decline.
Donald Trump‘s World Liberty Finance Dumps ETH
Launched in 2024, World Liberty Finance is Trump's controversial digital asset firm designed to rival centralized banking and facilitate the adoption of stablecoins. According to data from Lookonchain, Trump's World Liberty Finance, which was previously accumulating Ethereum at a low price, is now selling off a large chunk of its holding at a steep loss.
Lookonchain flagged the transaction, noting that the wallet linked to World Liberty Finance had offloaded 5,471 ETH tokens worth roughly $8.01 million. The sell-off was executed at a price of $1,465 per ETH, a significant drop from its previous value of over $1,600.
Notably, World Liberty Finance's ETH sell-off move has raised eyebrows across the crypto community. It appears to mark a shift in strategy for a player who was previously known for large-scale ETH accumulation.
According to Lookonchain, the wallet address linked to World Liberty Finance had accumulated a total of 67,498 ETH at an average price of $3,259. This means that the decentralized finance protocol spent a total of $210 million to amass such a large amount of ETH.
At its sell-off price, this leaves the entity sitting on a staggering unrealized loss of around $125 million. The recent sell-off also adds more fuel to the growing uncertainty surrounding Ethereum's future outlook, as the cryptocurrency's recent price crash has sparked even more bearish predictions of continued decline.
Although the reason behind World Liberty Finance's unexpected ETH sell-off remains unclear, some believe that the dump was likely triggered by Ethereum's ongoing price decline, while others suggest it could signal a market bottom.
Ethereum Price Crash To $1,400
Ethereum's price decline to $1,400 came as a shock to the market, making it the first time the cryptocurrency had fallen so low in seven years. Notably, Ethereum was not the only leading cryptocurrency that was affected by the market turmoil, as big players like Bitcoin also suffered losses.
Currently, Ethereum seems to be recovering slightly from its previous low and is now trading at $1,591 after jumping 7.44%. Although this recovery brings hope of a rebound, the cryptocurrency's value has still dropped by 16.63% over the past month. Moreover, technical indicators from CoinCodex highlight that sentiment surrounding the cryptocurrency is still deeply bearish, suggesting that further declines could be on the horizon.
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Amidst growing regulatory scrutiny, the largest marketplace for NFTs, OpenSea, is pushing for a regulatory scheme that treats non-fungible tokens (NFTs) distinctly from cryptocurrencies and traditional financial instruments. The move comes as regulators across the globe, particularly in the United States, debate how to categorize and regulate digital assets, including NFTs.
OpenSea has been vocal on the need for a unique framework that will address the singular nature and uses of NFTs. Compared to fungible assets such as Bitcoin or Ethereum, NFTs represent exclusive ownership of digital or real-world items and are non-interchangeable. Such a fundamental difference, OpenSea argues, needs to be considered in regulating NFT platforms.
The company has said that it's afraid applying securities or crypto-exchange rules over NFTs will stifle innovation, keep creatives at bay, and load NFT marketplaces up with unnecessary regulatory costs.
One of the most significant ways OpenSea has been active is in resisting definition as a securities broker or exchange by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The SEC has increasingly suggested that many crypto platforms would fall into these categories and thus be subject to very strict regulation requirements.
OpenSea contends that NFT platforms are unique and must not be treated as traditional financial intermediaries. The platform has requested the SEC to provide more tailored guidance on NFTs' status, noting that most NFTs are not investment-generating or acting like securities.
OpenSea is accompanied by several industry players and legal experts in its call for tailored regulations. Several industry players and attorneys have opined that the one-size-fits-all approach does not fit the complex digital asset landscape. NFTs have applications in art, music, gaming, property, and identity—spaces that might have little to do with investment or finance.
OpenSea is of the opinion that legislation that is responsive to the specific risks and uses of NFTs would be most effective in protecting consumers and fostering growth and innovation. OpenSea has suggested working with regulatory bodies and lawmakers to develop adaptive and effective regulations.
While regulators across the world keep developing their approach to digital assets, the outcome of OpenSea's lobbying attempt can potentially have far-reaching implications for the NFT market. A definite regulatory framework would potentially go a long way in providing a clearer definition of the roles of NFT platforms, reducing legal uncertainty, and inducing more institutional money into the market.
However, without regulatory clarity, NFT marketplaces would be more and more at risk of legal peril, which would slow the momentum of the industry. For now, OpenSea remains committed to taking a front-line position in policy discussions to ensure regulation serves both innovation and the public interest.
In the next few months, what lawmakers do in response to such entreaties could chart the future of the NFT space—not just in the U.S., but globally.
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The Bitcoin network is especially vulnerable to geopolitical tensions because of its physical hardware requirements, crypto executives said.
Escalating geopolitical tensions threaten to balkanize blockchain networks and restrict users' access, crypto executives told Cointelegraph.
On April 9, US President Donald Trump announced a pause in the rollout of tariffs imposed on certain countries — but the prospect of a global trade war still looms, especially because Trump still wants to charge a 125% levy on Chinese imports.
Industry executives said they fear a litany of potential consequences if tensions worsen, including disruptions to blockchain networks' physical infrastructure, regulatory fragmentation, and censorship.
“Aggressive tariffs and retaliatory trade policies could create obstacles for node operators, validators, and other core participants in blockchain networks,” Nicholas Roberts-Huntley, CEO of Concrete & Glow Finance, told Cointelegraph.
“In moments of global uncertainty, the infrastructure supporting crypto, not just the assets themselves, can become collateral damage.”
According to data from CoinMarketCap, cryptocurrency's total market capitalization dropped approximately 4% on April 10 as traders weighed conflicting messages from the White House on tariffs amid a backdrop of macroeconomic unease.
Crypto's market cap retraced on April 10. Source: CoinMarketCap
Related: Trade tensions to speed institutional crypto adoption — Execs
Bitcoin (BTC) is especially vulnerable to a trade war since the network depends on specialized hardware for Bitcoin mining, such as the ASIC chips used to solve the network's cryptographic proofs.
“Tariffs disrupt established ASIC supply chains,” David Siemer, CEO of Wave Digital Assets, told Cointelegraph. Chinese manufacturers such as Bitmain are key suppliers for miners.
However, “the greater threat is the erosion of blockchain's core value proposition—its global, permissionless infrastructure,” Siemer said. This could be especially problematic for everyday crypto holders.
“If global trade breaks down and capital controls tighten, it may become harder for citizens in restrictive countries to acquire bitcoin,” said Joe Kelly, CEO of Unchained. “Governments could crack down on exchanges and on-ramps, making accumulation and usage more difficult,” Kelly added.
Bitcoin's performance versus stocks. Source: 21Shares
Ironically, these types of fears also underscore the importance of cryptocurrencies and decentralized blockchain networks, the executives said.
Bitcoin has already shown “signs of resilience” amid the market turbulence, highlighting the coin's role in hedging against geopolitical risks.
“While the environment is challenging, it also creates an opening for crypto to prove its long-term value and utility on the global stage,” noted Fireblocks' executive Neil Chopra.
Magazine: Memecoin degeneracy is funding groundbreaking anti-aging research
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Bitcoin posted one of its worst Q1 returns in 2025, Ethereum performed even worse, with over 45% drawdown in its price. Ethereum's price has been in a decline since the Dencun upgrade in March 2024. Ethereum's downfall seems driven by the Layer 2 protocols amassing large transaction volume and passing on the fraction of the revenue to the ETH chain.
Ethereum (ETH) leaned into its role as security infrastructure and the underlying blockchain for Layer 2 protocols, scaling the crypto ecosystem and losing its value throughout 2025. Traders and investors holding the largest altcoin ask the question whether Ethereum will ever accrue value or lose relevance in H1 2025.
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Ethereum started out with the goal of becoming the decentralized computer of the world, and the chain accrued value since the ICO, rallying to its peak of $4,878 in November 2021. Since then ETH erased 71% of its value over four years.
The most notable shift that is considered the catalyst for the decline in Ether price is its Layer-2 centric scaling model. Ethereum shifted from its primary role as the mainnet to the chain that aggregates value and powers Layer 2 scaling. The move fueled by the Dencun upgrade that slashed transaction costs for Layer 2 chains, reshaped Ethereum's ecosystem dynamics.
Using Ethereum as a base chain became significantly cheaper for Layer 2 and Layer 3 projects, powering a large DeFi ecosystem. Base by Coinbase has amassed $94 million in profit and paid a fraction of the cost, $4.9 million to Ethereum.
The profitability of Layer 2 chains has ignited the debate over whether Layer 2s are squeezing value out of Ethereum or nurturing the partnership where they derive security and pass on revenue to the ETH blockchain.
The Dencun upgrade made Layer 2 settlement cheap enough to lower the entry barrier for DeFi protocols. Ethereum has crossed $44 billion in total value of assets locked and a decline in fees collected by the network has disrupted the goal of turning the altcoin “deflationary.”
With lower volume of fees collected by the chain, while Ethereum is not deflationary, the supply is expected to grow less than a percent a year, according to the Ultrasound Money tracker. Crypto experts on X and traders across exchanges have questioned Ethereum's value proposition in light of its changed business model.
Pectra upgrade, the next key update to the Ethereum ecosystem could replenish the chain's value if it stimulates demand.
Ethereum's holders and traders looked at metrics like the total value of assets locked on the chain and the transaction volume, relevance and demand, previously, to determine ETH price. Ethereum is now being increasingly valued at the fees the chain generates, the token burn and the net revenue generated.
With the drop in fees and migration of value and transactions to Layer 2s, a key metric, the transaction count of Ethereum shows a steep decline.
To make matters worse, institutions lost interest in Ether, likely attributed to the pivot in the chain's business model and the Ethereum Foundation has sold ETH consistently over the past few months, raising concerns among traders.
U.S.-based Spot Ethereum ETFs failed to garner interest from institutional investors and inflows have been muted throughout 2025.
The Pectra upgrade will impact validators and stakers in the Ethereum ecosystem. Pectra will introduce Ethereum Improvement Protocols that streamline validator management, reduce congestion on the chain, improve validator deposit efficiency and give higher control to stakers over exit of validators.
While the upgrade is packed with developer relevant technical updates to the blockchain, the changes are expected to drive higher value to Ethereum.
The Pectra upgrade will have a significant impact on Ethereum validators and stakers, introducing EIPs that streamline validator management, reduce network congestion, improve validator deposit efficiency, and empower stakers with more control over validator exits.
Marko Ratkovic, CTO of Graphite Network, an enterprise ready monitoring tool and a Layer 1 blockchain, told Crypto.news,
“Pectra is expected to have a positive impact on the growth of L2 network users, as two of the new EIPs are directly aimed at this: EIP-7691 increases the number of blobs per block, and EIP-7623 raises the cost of call data — both of which incentivize the use of blobs over call data. Since major L2 solutions rely on blobs, this makes L2s even more efficient and attractive.”
Overall, Ratkovic says, Pectra is a big step forward.
The executive explains with the example of EIP-7702:
“Take EIP-7702, for example — it enables sending transactions without needing the native token. This solves a long-standing issue that used to require workarounds like the Gas Station Network, but now it's addressed natively at the protocol level.
At the same time, Ethereum's upgrades remain technical in nature and don't directly tackle the broader gap between TradFi and DeFi. While Ethereum focuses on streamlining onboarding, reducing overhead, and improving throughput, institutional players are more concerned with legal clarity, user verification, and the prevention of illicit flows.”
Chains like Graphite could solve the challenges that institutional investors are faced with, supporting the ecosystem as a whole.
Dr. Sean Dawson, Head of Research at Derive.xyz, a decentralized on-chain options platform, told Crypto.news:
“As volatility continues to surge, we're seeing implied volatility (IV) for ETH jump from 71.5% to 122%, reflecting the market's uncertainty and fears of further chaos.
Looking ahead, the likelihood of ETH falling below $1,400 by May 30 has nearly doubled from 18% to 33% as of April 8, signaling increased bearish sentiment in the market.
In short, we're in for a bumpy ride, and volatility is likely to remain high as both traditional and digital markets continue to react to these macroeconomic shocks. Traders and investors should brace for more uncertainty in the weeks to come as the market navigates these turbulent waters.”
Disclosure: This article does not represent investment advice. The content and materials featured on this page are for educational purposes only.
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Bitcoin Clears Critical Resistance and Liquidates $370M in Shorts
Bitcoin staged one of the most dramatic comebacks in recent memory, crushing short sellers with a swift move above $81,000 and wiping out over $370 million in short positions within 24 hours. Coinglass liquidation data showed that the short liquidation volume was on par with the spikes seen on March 2 and earlier this week, marking the end of what could have been a sharp downturn. The bounce came after narrowly avoiding a breakdown below the critical $73,777 support level, with both Monday and Wednesday's lows successfully defending that line.
Volume on Binance's BTCUSDT pair mirrored Monday's levels, affirming that the market supports this key price level. The surge in On-Balance Volume led to an upward curl in its moving average, a bullish development that reinforces the strength behind this recovery. Daily RSI also printed a reset, adding to the case for upward continuation. However, BTC still faces major resistance around $85,750, and while the TBO Fast line was hit, the price remains below the daily TBO Cloud. Single-day surges like this are often followed by corrections, a pattern that already played out once in early March.
TBO Signals Provide Early Warning and Confirmation
A TBT Bullish Divergence on the 4-hour chart appeared just before this breakout, proving once again the reliability of these signals. In late March, similar bearish divergence signals successfully foreshadowed the crash from $87,000. Bitcoin now has approximately 5% left before reaching the weekly TBO Fast line at $87,000. While a fast move to $94,000 remains in view, broader weekly momentum will need time to confirm a sustained reversal.
Weekly RSI has begun forming a higher low, another key indicator that the consolidation period is nearing its end. But bullish consolidation does not conclude until BTC closes and holds above the weekly TBO Fast line, which is still several weeks away based on current momentum. One positive milestone was the closing of BTC's CME gap around $81,000 during this surge.
Ethereum Disappoints While BTC Dominance Remains Strong
Ethereum remains frustratingly weak in comparison. Its CME gap remains unfilled, and while RSI just managed to push above overhead resistance, the asset has yet to show the type of volume or structure necessary to reclaim bullish momentum. Ethereum is still far from signaling a TBO Close Short on the daily chart, which is the clear confirmation needed to shift sentiment. Bitcoin is far more likely to trigger this reversal first, reinforcing its position as the market leader in the current cycle.
Stablecoin dominance fell nearly 8% yesterday but failed to close inside the daily TBO Cloud. While this is a step in the right direction, stablecoin dominance still appears structurally bullish across both the daily and 4-hour charts. Bitcoin dominance dropped slightly but remains strong and overbought above 70 RSI. Other dominance metrics such as Top 10 Dominance and OTHERS.D experienced mild recoveries, but both remain trapped below the TBO Cloud and continue to reflect a bearish backdrop.
Crypto Market Cap Recovers Sharply, But More Volume Is Needed
The total crypto market cap closed up 8.35%, stopping just short of a long-standing resistance fan line first tested on March 24. On-Balance Volume is starting to shift bullishly, but higher volume and consistent green candles are required to truly shift sentiment. The broader altcoin market, represented by OTHERS, closed up 10% and returned to a key support-resistance level but failed to close above it. The trend still leans bearish despite the day's strength, and more follow-through will be needed in the coming sessions.
BVOL7D is currently sitting in the middle of its Rejection Zone, which may translate into reduced volatility over the next one to two weeks. This cooling period could provide room for altcoins to recover, but the environment remains fragile following such an intense rally.
Altcoins Deliver Explosive Gains, Led by SOL, XRP, and Others
XRP gained over 14%, bouncing strongly without closing below its key level at 1.7711. It still needs to close above historical TBO support at 2.12 to turn its trend around. SOL followed through by closing above overhead resistance and filling its CME gap, but the price must now hold and push into the daily TBO Cloud. Volume on SOL nearly doubled the yellow moving average, but a much higher influx of buyers is required to shift the larger trend.
ADA narrowly avoided a breakdown and closed up 13%, staying just above TBO support. LTC printed another TBT Bullish Divergence and shows early signs of reversal, while HYPE returned to the daily TBO Cloud with a 20% rally. ONDO posted an eye-catching 40% move with a surge in volume, and TAO climbed 18%, confirming prior bullish divergence signals from earlier this month.
KAS printed its second TBT Bullish Divergence on a 13% move but remains just below the daily TBO Cloud. S jumped 23% and hit the daily TBO Fast line, while IP climbed 11%, coming close to that same threshold. FLR surged 67% unexpectedly, BERA pumped 135%, and XCN rose 66%, all driven by liquidations and renewed momentum. PENDLE closed up 23% and touched 4-hour TBO resistance, signaling continuation is possible with volume confirmation.
SPX6900 remains a reliable performer, bouncing repeatedly between 25% and 33% from 4-hour TBO Support. FARTCOIN added another 49%, with volume increasing steadily since April 1. HEX printed a TBT Bullish Divergence on the daily close, potentially marking a local bottom.
Despite this euphoric day of gains, traders should remain cautious. Many assets are still in bearish territory overall, and single-day recoveries rarely signal full reversals on their own. A longer period of accumulation and consistent bullish follow-through will be required to solidify these recoveries.
For a deeper understanding of how to navigate markets like these, start with The Complete Cryptocurrency Investor at Mastering Assets.
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As risk assets including cryptocurrencies struggled on Thursday amid tariff uncertainties, tokenized gold once again emerged as an outperformer in the carnage.
The market capitalization of gold-backed tokens swelled to just under $2 billion on Wednesday, up 5.7% over the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko data. The rise coincided with the yellow metal briefly touching a fresh all-time above $3,170/oz, TradingView shows.
Alongside the price rally, gold tokens experienced a frenzy of activity and demand over the past weeks, fueled by the broader market turmoil. Weekly tokenized gold trading volume surpassed $1 billion, the highest since the U.S. banking turmoil of March 2023, according to a report by digital asset platform CEX.IO.
The two largest tokens, Paxos Gold (PAXG), Tether Gold (XAUT), making up the bulk of the tokenized gold market, saw their weekly trading volumes surging over 900% and 300%, respectively, since January 20, according to the report citing CoinGecko data. PAXG also experienced continuous inflows totalling $63 million during this period, DefiLlama data shows.
The rally tracks the broader gains in physical gold, which posted double-digit increases in 2025 amid geopolitical uncertainty and inflation concerns. However, even gold wasn't spared during the market-wide sell-off triggered by U.S. tariffs, with prices briefly dropping 6% before quickly recovering to record highs.
Since Trump's inauguration, tokenized gold has been one of crypto's top performing sectors, with its market cap up 21%, the report noted. By contrast, stablecoins gained a more modest 8% in market cap, while bitcoin declined 19% and the total crypto market lost 26%.
“Tokenized gold is emerging as one of the key diversification strategies among crypto-native users, alongside bitcoin," wrote Alexandr Kerya, VP of product management at CEX.IO. "It provides a safer and more stable approach to portfolio management, enabling users to stay within the crypto ecosystem while benefiting from the value and stability of the underlying physical asset.”
"At the same time, the broader RWA narrative helps make gold exposure more accessible and intuitive for users who may not have considered it before," Kerya added.
Disclaimer: This article, or parts of it, was generated with assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk's full AI Policy.
Krisztian Sandor is a U.S. markets reporter focusing on stablecoins, tokenization, real-world assets. He graduated from New York University's business and economic reporting program before joining CoinDesk. He holds BTC, SOL and ETH.
“AI Boost” indicates a generative text tool, typically an AI chatbot, contributed to the article. In each and every case, the article was edited, fact-checked and published by a human. Read more about CoinDesk's AI Policy.
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Eric Semler on how a Bitcoin treasury strategy helped Semler Scientific (SMLR) escape the zombie zone and revive shareholder value.
In a recent interview with Bitcoin Magazine, Eric Semler, Chairman of Semler Scientific, shared how the company transformed its trajectory through a Bitcoin treasury strategy.
Semler Scientific (SMLR) is not your typical Bitcoin treasury company. With a strong cash position but years of underwhelming stock performance, the company turned to Bitcoin—not as a gamble, but as a strategic catalyst. What followed was a radical shift in valuation, shareholder engagement, and long-term positioning.
“We were the second U.S. public company to adopt Bitcoin as a primary treasury reserve strategy. Michael Saylor obviously is the quintessential pioneer, but we're in that group.”
Semler joined Semler Scientific's board just two years ago. “I became an activist on the Semler board. I wasn't actually involved in the company until two years ago,” he said. What he found was a business generating cash but not being rewarded for it—“a zombie company,” as he put it.
“We had all this cash. It looked eerily similar to MicroStrategy in August of 2020. We had a very similar profile. A lot of cash. A lot of our market cap was in cash. We weren't really growing.”
Rather than pursue an acquisition, Semler helped steer the company toward Bitcoin. “We needed to figure out a way to jump start our growth and we settled on Bitcoin, which was a great decision.”
Since announcing its Bitcoin treasury strategy, Semler Scientific has experienced a significant shift—not just in valuation, but in momentum and perception.
“Our stock at one point had quadrupled. Now it's basically doubled… it was doing nothing for years, and it was actually going down for years,” said Semler. For a company long seen as stagnant despite consistent profitability, the Bitcoin move catalyzed a market reappraisal and brought renewed visibility to a previously overlooked business.
The internal response has been equally powerful. “Everybody's fully on board,” Semler said. “It's just been great to get this kind of electricity into our stock, into our company.”
What began as an activist-led effort to escape a “zombie” stock profile has become a strategic unlock. For companies with strong fundamentals but no growth narrative, Bitcoin offers more than asset appreciation—it offers signaling power, capital preservation, and a way to re-engage the market on new terms.
For a company that had spent years overlooked by the market, Semler Scientific's pivot to a Bitcoin treasury strategy didn't just shift financial fundamentals—it dramatically raised the company's profile.
“I had strong conviction in Bitcoin, but I had no idea what I was getting into… The entire social media aspect of it was really jolting for me,” said Semler.
A former journalist and seasoned investor, Semler is used to working behind the scenes—asking the questions, not answering them. “I'm more of an introvert. I'm not into kind of exposing myself by social media,” he admitted.
But Bitcoin has a way of changing a company's relationship with visibility. Semler Scientific has attracted a new, vocal shareholder base, and Semler himself has become a reference point for other executives weighing the Bitcoin path. It's not always comfortable, but it's effective.
“At the end of the day, really what matters is that we own a lot of Bitcoin and that Bitcoin appreciates… what matters most is… that we create shareholder value.”
For Semler Scientific, Bitcoin hasn't just altered the balance sheet—it's pulled the company into the spotlight and into the conversation.
While retail investors can access Bitcoin through spot ETFs or self-custody, many large institutional funds remain restricted by mandates that prohibit direct exposure. That dynamic creates a unique opening for publicly traded operating companies with Bitcoin on their balance sheet.
“Most investment funds can't buy ETFs,” Semler explained. “For a large number of the huge funds in this country, we're really their only way to get exposure to Bitcoin in the stock market.”
This limitation—little known outside institutional circles—has turned companies like Semler Scientific into proxy vehicles for Bitcoin exposure. And for fund managers who believe in the long-term thesis but can't touch the underlying asset, firms like SMLR offer a rare bridge.
As more institutions seek asymmetric upside and diversified alternatives to fiat-debasing capital environments, Semler Scientific (SMLR) is increasingly part of that capital conversation—not because of what it sells, but because of what it holds.
When asked what advice he would give to other companies considering Bitcoin, Semler didn't sugarcoat it. “Just be ready for volatility. If you're comfortable with that, know that that's gonna be part of this experience.”
He recalled the company's first major purchase. “We took almost all of our cash and bought Bitcoin in May. As soon as we finished buying, their news came out that Mt. Gox was doing a distribution. And I think Bitcoin just plummeted, like, 25% in a short period of time… it was a, you know, a hit to the stomach, a stomach punch.”
But instead of pulling back, they pushed forward—raising more capital and buying more Bitcoin through both ATM equity and convertible notes. “We did 100 million dollar convertible loan.”
Semler believes the long-term upside goes beyond “hodling.” As infrastructure matures and institutions like JPMorgan step deeper into the space, he sees potential to leverage Bitcoin for yield and financing.
“I could see us being a kind of a Bitcoin financial company.”
For now, the focus is clear: accumulate Bitcoin, manage volatility, and unlock value where others see risk. “We're early in accumulating Bitcoin, and we're gonna continue to do that.”
Disclaimer: This content was written on behalf of Bitcoin For Corporations. This article is intended solely for informational purposes and should not be interpreted as an invitation or solicitation to acquire, purchase, or subscribe for securities.
Established in 2012, Bitcoin Magazine is the oldest and most established source of trustworthy news, information and thought leadership on Bitcoin.
© 2025 BTC INC
The chief financial officer of crypto marker maker Portofino Technologies, Mark Blackborough, has recently left the business.
"We can confirm that our CFO is transitioning out of the business. As we scale and adapt to new opportunities in the market, we're continuously evolving our leadership team to align with our long-term strategic goals," a company spokesperson said in emailed comments.
"Leadership transitions, especially in high-growth environments, are a natural part of building a resilient organization. Our focus remains on execution, delivery, and continued growth,” the spokesperson added.
Blackborough didn't respond to a request for comment by publication time.
The Swiss company's former CFO was based in London, and joined the crypto trading firm last September.
Before joining Portofino Technologies, Blackborough was employed as CFO of Enigma Securities, a digital asset liquidity provider. Prior to this he worked for crypto market maker GSR, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Portofino told CoinDesk last month that it was exploring opening new offices in both New York and Singapore.
The company raised $50 million in equity funding in late 2022, and was founded by two former Citadel Securities leaders Leonard Lancia and Alex Casimo in 2021.
The firm is regulated in the U.K., Switzerland and the British Virgin Islands.
Read more: Crypto Market Maker Portofino Technologies Has Big Plans For 2025
Will Canny is an experienced market reporter with a demonstrated history of working in the financial services industry. He's now covering the crypto beat as a finance reporter at CoinDesk. He owns more than $1,000 of SOL.
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World Liberty Financial (WLFI) on Thursday transferred $775,000 in USDC from its main wallet to a secondary wallet primarily used for purchasing altcoins, according to data tracked by Arkham Intelligence.
ARKHAM ALERT: WORLD LIBERTY FI MOVING FUNDS
World Liberty Fi just moved $775K from their main wallet, to the wallet that they typically use for buying altcoins. pic.twitter.com/f52z5HfXzx
— Arkham (@arkham) April 10, 2025
The transfer comes after the project acquired over 3.54 million Mantle (MNT) on March 23. The week prior, WLFI had added $4 million worth of MNT and AVAX tokens to its portfolio.
In addition to MNT and AVAX, the project holds nine other digital assets including Ethereum (ETH), Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), Tron (TRX), Chainlink (LINK), Aave (AAVE), Ethena (ENA), MOVE (MOVE), Ondo (ONDO), and Sei (SEI).
World Liberty Financial recently established a strategic collaboration with Sui blockchain, aiming to integrate Sui's technology into its ecosystem and explore next-generation blockchain applications focused on decentralized finance.
The project, endorsed by President Trump, plans to add Sui tokens to its “Macro Strategy” reserve as part of the partnership.
WLFI is launching USD1, a stablecoin for institutions and sovereign investors that will be redeemable one-to-one for US dollars. The team also conducted test transfers on its new stablecoin.
The stablecoin, backed by US government treasuries, dollar deposits, and cash equivalents, will launch on Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain, with BitGo providing custody services and third-party accounting firm audits planned.
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Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey is calling on Signal Messenger to adopt Bitcoin for peer-to-peer payments, suggesting the privacy-focused messaging app should abandon its current reliance on altcoins.
“Signal should use Bitcoin for P2P payments,” Dorsey wrote in a reply on X to a post by Bitcoin developer Calle, who proposed Bitcoin as a perfect fit for Signal's encrypted communication model. The suggestion drew support from other tech figures, including former PayPal president and current Lightspark CEO David Marcus, who wrote: “All non-transactional apps should connect to Bitcoin.”
Currently, Signal supports only one in-app payment option: Sentz, the rebranded version of MobileCoin (MTCN), a privacy-focused cryptocurrency built on Ethereum. The coin faced criticism since Signal integrated it in 2021, with questions raised about ties between Signal's leadership and the project, as well as how it was launched and promoted.
Despite the privacy features of Sentz, Bitcoin supporters argue that its decentralized infrastructure and global liquidity make it a better fit for a messaging platform known for strong encryption and privacy-first principles.
As of now, Signal has not commented on the idea of adding Bitcoin. The messenger was founded in 2014 and has consistently promoted itself as an alternative to big tech communication tools.
Dorsey's call also reflects a wider trend in messaging and social platforms favoring altcoins over Bitcoin. Telegram is closely linked to the Toncoin ecosystem, while Meta's now-defunct Libra project once aimed to launch a homegrown token for payments. Even Elon Musk's X was rumored to be exploring a native coin, though he denied those plans last year.
Dorsey, who now focuses on his Bitcoin-focused firm Block, has remained one of the most outspoken voices pushing for Bitcoin's use as a daily currency.
Interestingly, a new theory linked Jack Dorsey to Satoshi Nakamoto after financial news editor Seán Murray compiled a list of coincidences that he believes tie the Twitter co-founder to Bitcoin's anonymous creator.
Murray presented dates, timestamps, and cryptographic clues, arguing that Dorsey is “probably” Satoshi. However, the evidence remains circumstantial, and many in the crypto space remain skeptical.
Murray pointed out that Bitcoin's first-ever transaction occurred on Jan. 11, which happens to be Dorsey's mother's birthday, while the last block mined by Satoshi on March 5, 2010, coincides with his father's birthday.
He also claimed that Satoshi registered on the Bitcoin forum on Nov. 19—Dorsey's own birthday—and that the original Bitcoin source code documents are all timestamped at 4 a.m., a time Dorsey once featured on his Twitter profile.
Additionally, Murray highlighted a Bitcoin address created by Satoshi that begins with “jD2m”, suggesting it could stand for “Jack Dorsey 2 Mint”, referencing Dorsey's former San Francisco residence at 2 Mint Plaza.
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Bitcoin's price crash from $97,000 in late February surprised most crypto market participants but not this analyst. The crypto analyst known as Doctor Profit, who previously warned of a correction when Bitcoin was approaching $97,000, recently released a new technical outlook that dissuades a bullish trajectory in the short term.
In a breakdown shared on the social media platform X, Doctor Profit noted that the breakdown isn't complete yet. This outlook comes from a former detailed analysis in which the analyst highlighted various Bitcoin price movements to watch out for, all of which have come to pass.
Doctor Profit Says Bitcoin Market Dump Is Just Beginning
Bitcoin has experienced ups and downs in the past few days with incredibly volatile movements. These ups and downs saw the Bitcoin price fall below $75,000 at the beginning of the week before spending the past four days on a recovery path towards $80,000. Amidst the price volatility, crypto analyst Doctor Profit clarified that he expects the current downward move in Bitcoin's price to extend further.
In a recent post on social media platform X, the analyst described the correction as a “market massacre” that is expected to continue, stating that the party just started. He revealed that he had placed his first buy orders within the $58,000 to $68,000 range, suggesting that the Bitcoin price would keep falling until it reaches this region.
Rather than seeing the recent decline as a setback, the price action is a calculated part of the broader strategy which the analyst laid out in an earlier detailed analysis.
Doctor Profit's analysis is based on the M2 money supply, a macroeconomic metric he believes is widely misunderstood within the crypto space. Many traders have recently cited the uptick in M2 as a bullish signal for Bitcoin, assuming that more liquidity means an immediate surge in prices. However, the analyst stressed that timing is everything. He noted that Bitcoin tends to front-run traditional markets when responding to M2 increases, but even then, the reaction is not instantaneous.
What To Expect With BTC
He reminds his followers that in July 2024, he predicted a 50bps rate cut, which was considered highly unlikely at the time. Once that cut materialized in September, around the same time Bitcoin was hovering near $50,000, he labeled it extremely bullish and called for a major rally. As it turned out, the M2 money supply began expanding in February 2025, which aligned with his forecast. Yet, he cautions that while M2 is now climbing, its effect on Bitcoin will play out gradually.
Looking at Bitcoin's price behavior on the charts, Doctor Profit shifted his focus to the $70,000 to $74,000 range. He believes this range could either serve as a springboard for a fresh upward rally if a strong daily close occurs above the “Golden Line” around the weekly EMA50 or as a signal for a deeper downside if the price breaks beneath it.
Should a more dramatic breakdown occur, the analyst advised scaling back and waiting for even lower entries around the $50,000 to $60,000 zone. Doctor Profit predicted that the bull run will not resume until sometime around May or June, with upside targets of $120,000 to $140,000.
Bitcoin has managed to push above $81,000 after Donald Trump announced a 90-day pause on his ground-breaking tarriffs. At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $82,000, up by 7% in the past 24 hours.
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Kraken, the popular cryptocurrency platform, has partnered with MasterCard, which will allow users to spend their crypto assets, from established best altcoins to new meme coins, directly at more than 150M merchants.
This partnership can be a historic move in the payment industry, as it will allow users to pay for real-world goods and services with their crypto holdings, just like they spend cash.
Read on as we explore the specifics of this announcement and talk briefly about the UK's changing relationship with crypto. We'll also point you toward the best altcoins to buy now.
Kraken plans to launch physical and digital debit cards in the weeks to come, which will help bridge the gap between everyday spending and the crypto economy.
Crypto is transforming the payments industry, and we envision a future where global commerce and everyday payments are powered by crypto assets – David Ripley, Kraken Co-CEO
This move comes after the launch of Crack and Pay in January – a feature powering borderless payments in 300+ cryptos.
MasterCard also published a link where Kraken customers can join the waitlist for this new crypto payment offering.
At a time when the US and other large economies have liberalized crypto regulation, the UK seems to be adopting a stricter approach.
As per reports, the FCA wants to regulate activities such as stablecoin issuance, crypto lending, exchange activities, and payment services.
Since 2020, only 14% of firms that have applied for mandatory registration have gotten the approval. Out of this, BlackRock is the latest addition to the FCA register.
This decision also comes at a time when six UK digital economy trade bodies have written a letter to the UK Prime Minister to appoint a special team for crypto and digital asset regulation management in the country. Just like the US has done.
The letter underlines that blockchain and crypto can add $73.6B to the UK economy in the next 10 years. Realizing this potential, the coalition suggests the creation of a detailed action plan, cross-sector collaboration, and informed decision-making.
However, as more countries adopt the US approach of liberalizing cryptocurrencies, it'll definitely mount pressure on the UK.
Growing mainstream adoption will help the market rebound. It also presents retail investors like us with a great opportunity to invest in promising crypto assets. If you don't know where to look, here are three suggestions.
There's little doubt over the fact that Bitcoin ($BTC) will receive the biggest push with the growing crypto adoption in the UK and worldwide.
Also, with $BTC showing signs of a reversal (it's taking support on the 50 EMA), the time is ripe to capitalize on the King Crypto.
And BTC Bull Token ($BTCBULL) might just be the best crypto to buy to rally alongside $BTC's growth. It's the ONLY crypto right now offering free (and real) $BTC to token holders.
Now, the biggest reason we're confident about BTC Bull Token following $BTC's price is that the aforementioned airdrops will take place every time $BTC reaches a new milestone, such as $150K and $200K.
Although this game plan already sounds like a surefire winner, the developers have further bolstered the token's future by scheduling regular token burns.
These will artificially contract the total supply, and as investors rush to grab the few remaining $BTCBULL tokens, their price will most likely see an uptick.
In fact, our BTC Bull Token price prediction suggests that the token could climb as high as $0.0096 by the end of 2026. So, if you get in now (when the price is just $0.002455), you'll be able to generate nearly 400% returns.
The project has so far raised over $4.5M, and here's a detailed guide on how to buy $BTCBULL.
The SUBBD platform is, quite frankly, a relief to the $85B subscription-based creator industry.
Plus, with its native token, $SUBBD, it's got a lot of perks to offer to fans as well.
A huge reason we believe SUBBD Token ($SUBBD) has serious potential is how it plans to reduce the distance between the creators and their fans.
With AI live streams, direct chat, and the ability to request personalized content, $SUBBD will help fans get closer to their favorite creators, which was the point all along.
What's more, as a $SUBBD token holder, you'll also receive subscription discounts, loyalty rewards, and the earliest access to new platform features.
You'll get governance rights, too. This means you'll be able to vote on matters, such as which features the developers should prioritize, which creators should/should not be onboarded, themes, etc.
The best part? You can buy $SUBBD, one of the best new cryptocurrencies, for just $0.055125. That's because the token is currently on presale.
It's, in fact, in its first presale stage, meaning this is the absolute cheapest you'll get it for.
And with $SUBBD price prediction targeting $0.668 by the end of 2026, early adopters may see a nearly 1,200% gain over the current price.
In light of new crypto partnerships being forged and Trump finally agreeing to pause his reciprocal tariffs, Fartcoin ($FARTCOIN) has emerged as one of the top trending cryptos.
With full-blown degen energy backing this absurdly themed meme coin, it has jumped over 91% in the last seven days – and it's up 202% in just the last month. Take that, crypto pessimists!
What's $FARTCOIN, you ask? Built on a suggestion by the Truth Terminal AI chatbot, Fartcoin came into existence as a result of Elon Musk's fascination with fart jokes.
Currently trading at $0.6983, $FARTCOIN is in a pole position to rally higher.
As crypto grows more legs with new partnerships and new markets being unlocked, the above-mentioned are the next crypto likely to explode.
However, it's important to remember that returns aren't guaranteed. The crypto market does as it pleases, after all. With volatility being the main portfolio killer, make sure you don't invest more than you're willing to lose.
Also, please do your own research, as none of what we put out is a substitute for financial advice.
Krishi is in charge of covering the latest crypto news, sharing valuable information in an easy-to-read manner. With an experience of over 4 years as a tech/crypto writer, he has the necessary toolkit required to identify good crypto presales and tokens.
Krishi is in charge of covering the latest crypto news, sharing valuable information in an easy-to-read manner. With an experience of over 4 years as a tech/crypto writer, he has the necessary toolkit required to identify good crypto presales and tokens.
Disclaimer: The information found on NewsBTC is for educational purposes
only. It does not represent the opinions of NewsBTC on whether to buy, sell or hold any
investments and naturally investing carries risks. You are advised to conduct your own
research before making any investment decisions. Use information provided on this website
entirely at your own risk.
ドナルド・トランプ大統領は、金融エコシステムに与えた打撃を逆転させる大胆な決定をしました。彼は90日間ですべての関税を停止することを発表しました。これにより、仮想通貨コミュニティは大きな動きを見せ、ビ...
Solaxy đang nổi lên như một dự án nổi bật, kết hợp độc đáo giữa meme coin và giải pháp...
Giá Solana đã tăng hơn 11% trong vòng 24 giờ, giao dịch ở mức $115.73 tính đến 10:16 PM EST...
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In today's crypto for advisors, Zac Townsend from bitcoin life insurance company Meanwhile explains estate planning options for managing bitcoin inheritance.
Then, Peter Dunworth from The Bitcoin Adviser answers questions about these strategies from an advisor's point of view in Ask an Expert.
– Sarah Morton
You're reading Crypto for Advisors, CoinDesk's weekly newsletter that unpacks digital assets for financial advisors. Subscribe here to get it every Thursday.
At its recent all-time high, the bitcoin market cap hit $2.1 trillion, indicating that significant wealth has been created for holders of the original cryptocurrency. With the regulatory tailwinds behind digital assets in the new administration and increasing institutional adoption, individuals and their advisors should consider strategies to mitigate potential estate taxes on bitcoin wealth.
Many tax professionals expect Congress to extend the increased lifetime gift exemption amount established by the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, currently set at roughly $14 million per individual. This means that any American can gift $14 million tax-free, but amounts exceeding this amount are subject to a 40% estate tax. If you believe bitcoin will appreciate significantly in the future, gifting it at today's price can be a strategic move, allowing future appreciation to occur outside of your estate.
There are several ways to transfer bitcoin out of one's estate, each with varying tax and control implications. These options include:
These strategies are not mutually exclusive — when used in concert, they can maximize tax benefits and wealth preservation. Let's look at each of them in turn.
Gifting bitcoin directly
Transferring bitcoin to someone's digital asset wallet as a gift is a simple way to move it out of your estate. However, there are important considerations to this approach:
Funding an irrevocable trust with bitcoin
An irrevocable trust allows for some level of control over bitcoin despite it being outside of your estate. You can design the trust to pay out at certain ages or life events, as examples. However, like direct gifting, it does not solve the cost basis issue — beneficiaries of the trust receive the bitcoin via distribution at the same cost basis it held when you originally funded the trust.
Bitcoin-denominated life insurance
Bitcoin-denominated life insurance is a new concept that allows an individual to pay their life insurance premiums in bitcoin and borrow against their BTC-denominated policy tax-free, with the policy paying out more, stepped-up cost basis bitcoin at death to the beneficiaries. If a policy is owned individually, the death benefit pays out into the estate and, therefore, can be subject to estate tax.
Combining an irrevocable trust with bitcoin Life Insurance
Using an irrevocable trust and a BTC-denominated life insurance policy together solves for all of these concerns — estate tax, cost basis and control. Here's how it works:
Bitcoin is typically viewed as a low time preference asset, meaning its holders (or, HODLers) tend to be long-term investors rather than traders; this, coupled with its meteoric rise and potential future price appreciation, makes it an important asset to plan for potential estate taxes. Advisors and individuals should consider one or a combination of these strategies to optimize bitcoin-related tax planning.
- Zac Townsend, co-founder and CEO, Meanwhile
Q. How might the new administration affect bitcoin investors?
A. With regulatory tailwinds and increasing institutional adoption, bitcoin investors now face both opportunities and challenges. The primary concern for those with significant bitcoin holdings is potential estate tax exposure, especially as many portfolios have grown substantially with bitcoin recently reaching a $2.1 trillion market cap.
Q. What are some strategies for reducing bitcoin estate tax exposure?
A. Three main approaches exist: direct gifting to family members, funding irrevocable trusts with bitcoin and utilizing bitcoin-denominated life insurance policies. Each offers different balances of tax benefits and control. The most comprehensive solution combines an irrevocable trust with a bitcoin-denominated life insurance policy.
Q. Why should one consider acting now rather than later?
A. Gifting bitcoin at today's valuation allows future appreciation to occur outside your estate. With the lifetime gift exemption currently at approximately $14 million per individual, strategic planning now can significantly reduce eventual tax burdens as bitcoin potentially continues to appreciate.
- Peter Dunworth, The Bitcoin Adviser
Zac Townsend is the co-founder and CEO of Meanwhile, the world's first Bitcoin life insurance company. Meanwhile's mission is to democratize access to financial protection and security. Formerly, Townsend was a leader in the financial services practice of McKinsey & Company and served as the inaugural Chief Data Officer of California. Townsend was also the founder of a banking API business called Standard Treasury which was sold to Silicon Valley Bank.
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Ethereum Price Climbs Following Tariff U-Turn and Better Than Expected Inflation Report
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Ethereum has climbed 9% in the past 24 hours, following the Trump administration announcing plans to temporarily pause tariffs yesterday. It was also buoyed by Thursday morning's better-than-expected U.S. inflation report—but ETF flows show that many investors are still retreating from cryptocurrency.
At the time of writing, the Ethereum price has been sitting just above $1,500, after having fallen 0.4% in the past hour.
Bitcoin, which has gained 6.1% in the past day, has fared better than the broader crypto market, which saw its market capitalization grow 4.2% since yesterday, according to CoinGecko data. Still, gains for the Bitcoin price havel lagged behind many of the most prominent altcoins.
XRP is up 11.5% in the past 24 hours, while Dogecoin and Solana are up 6.7% and 8.4%, respectively.
But despite Bitcoin's strong performance, $127.2 million left Bitcoin ETFs yesterday, with BlackRock's IBIT ETF, the industry's largest, leading the pack with $89.7 million in withdrawals, according to data from Farside Investors. Only one fund, Bitwise's BITB ETF, had a positive flow of capital, gaining $6.7 million.
This marks the fifth consecutive day of outflows for Bitcoin ETFs. It would seem that institutional investors haven't been swapped by the crypto market's rebound following the U.S. tariff announcement. Capital has been flowing out of Bitcoin ETFs for seven of the past eight working days.
Ethereum funds also showed net outflows yesterday, despite the cryptocurrency rebounding even more than Bitcoin with an 8.1% rise. Yesterday, $11.2 million left Ethereum ETFs.
Investor sentiment for Bitcoin and Ethereum is bright
Many investors are still betting on prices going higher.
The vast majority—93%—of users on market prediction platform Myriad are betting on Bitcoin cracking $78,000 by 11:59 p.m. UTC on April 10. (Disclosure: Myriad is a prediction market and engagement platform developed by Dastan, parent company of an editorially independent Decrypt.)
Meanwhile, the Crypto Fear & Greed Index, a third-party sentiment analysis tool, is also showing signs of optimism returning. It shifted to “Fear” in the immediate aftermath of the tariff pause announcement, from “Extreme Fear” from the day before, and for most of the past month.
But the U.S. government's tariff U-turn might not be the only thing fueling optimism for Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Paul Atkins was officially confirmed by the Senate on Wednesday as the new leader of the SEC. Some believe Atkins, who was President Donald Trump's pick, will bring a looser approach to crypto regulation than his predecessor Gary Gensler.
Edited by Stacy Elliott.
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Can Bitcoin scale without sacrificing its founding values? On the Clear Crypto Podcast, Eli Ben-Sasson explains how three key principles might fix money for everyone, not just the elite.
Bitcoin wasn't supposed to just sit still.
When Satoshi Nakamoto released the white paper in 2008, it wasn't a blueprint for digital gold; it was a peer-to-peer cash system. But fast-forward to today, and Bitcoin's biggest critics and supporters alike often agree on one thing: It doesn't really work like money, at least not yet.
In the latest episode of The Clear Crypto Podcast, hosts Nathan Jeffay and Gareth Jenkinson speak with Eli Ben-Sasson, the co-founder of StarkWare and one of the leading minds in cryptographic scaling. His message? That might be about to change.
Ben-Sasson lays out a compelling framework for how Bitcoin can evolve — not by abandoning its principles, but by scaling them. He describes three core pillars that need to align in order for Bitcoin to fulfill its promise.
Broadness, integrity and verifiability, according to Ben-Sasson, are concrete, technical targets for Bitcoin's widespread adoption and useability. Not only that, but the tools to hit these targets already exist.
The reintroduction of a long-dormant opcode, OP_CAT, could be the first domino. “Nine lines of code,” he said, “that would make Bitcoin programmable again.”
Right now, Bitcoin is often described as digital gold, a pristine, untouchable store of value. But Ben-Sasson wants to see it function more like a digital economy: permissionless, inclusive and usable in everyday transactions. That means rethinking what Bitcoin is for and upgrading how it works.
The conversation touches on everything from the politics of Bitcoin governance to the role of zero-knowledge proofs and layer-2s in building scalable, decentralized systems.
Related: Jack Dorsey pushes Signal to adopt Bitcoin payments
It also explores what it would take to build money that works for everyone, not just the technically elite or financially privileged.
To hear the full conversation on The Clear Crypto Podcast, listen to the full episode on Cointelegraph's Podcasts page, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And don't forget to check out Cointelegraph's full lineup of other shows!
Magazine: SEC's U-turn on crypto leaves key questions unanswered
OpenSea presents a letter to the Crypto Task Force of the US SEC to urge clarity on NFT regulation. The renowned marketplace asks to eliminate the existing confusion in the Non-Fungible Token sector.
Summary
OpenSea is fighting to bring clarity to NFT regulation in the USA. The well-known marketplace has submitted a letter to the Crypto Task Force of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of the USA, where it asks to eliminate the existing confusion in the NFT sector.
First and foremost, OpenSea informs the regulators that NFT marketplaces cannot be classified as either exchanges or securities brokers, under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (Exchange Act).
On this topic, the lawyers of the marketplace Adele Faure and Laura Brookover, provide a series of regulated definitions that prove this statement.
Furthermore, given the decentralization of the blockchain on which NFT buying and selling transactions occur, OpenSea states that it is not even the central authority that accepts or executes the payments.
In this regard, OpenSea describes itself in this way:
“OpenSea acts as an online marketplace that allows discovering NFTs and connecting with buyers and sellers. However, the actual transfer of value and assets is carried out on the blockchain through publicly available smart contracts.”
In the last chapter of the letter, then, OpenSea releases two of its recommendations to support the Crypto Task Force of the SEC in its work with digital assets.
This is a real encouragement to the Commission to eliminate the ongoing regulatory uncertainty that prevails in the NFT sector, and to protect the ability of US tech companies to be leaders in this sector.
To succeed in this dual objective, the lawyers of OpenSea propose first and foremost that the SEC clearly declare that NFT marketplaces like OpenSea cannot be classified as exchanges and brokers under federal securities laws.
And then, the second proposal requires that the SEC clarify the following:
In this sense, for the two lawyers of OpenSea, the NFT marketplaces are just exploration tools.
This move by OpenSea comes after last February 2025, it emerged that the US SEC had decided to close the investigation into the famous marketplace.
The previous US administration had issued a Wells notice against OpenSea last August 2024, indicating the intention to initiate legal action.
With the decision of the current administration to close the previous investigation, it seems that the approach to the NFT sector is softer, led by the pro-crypto President Trump.
However, with the current letter, OpenSea refers to what could be new regulatory guidelines on the topic of NFT marketplaces in the USA.
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US inflation dropped in March, raising optimism that the Federal Reserve will adopt a more dovish tone in upcoming meetings—boosting crypto prices.
Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that the headline Consumer Price Index fell from 0.2% in February to -0.1% in March. On an annual basis, inflation declined from 2.8% to 2.4%, putting it on track to reach the Fed's target of 2.0%.
The closely watched core CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, also dropped from 0.2% to 0.1% month-over-month, pushing the annual core figure down to 2.8%. This marked the first time in years that core CPI fell below 3%.
The decline in inflation came despite the implementation of new U.S. tariffs on imported goods. President Donald Trump raised tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports to 25%, disrupting the USMCA deal he negotiated during his first term. He also increased tariffs on Chinese goods by 20%.
Additionally, the U.S. implemented new tariffs on imported steel and aluminum used in construction and manufacturing.
As a result, the latest inflation data is likely to increase pressure on the Federal Reserve to resume interest rate cuts. The downward trend in inflation may continue, especially after Trump paused the Liberation Day tariffs on most countries.
The US inflation data came as Bitcoin (BTC) and most altcoins like Ethereum (ETH) and Ripple (XRP) bounced back from their weekly lows. Bitcoin rose and stalled at $82,000, while Ethereum and XRP rose to $1,600 and $2, respectively.
U.S. stocks also rallied following Trump's decision to pause some tariffs and instruct trade representatives to begin negotiations with over 70 countries. However, he raised tariffs on Chinese imports to 125%, putting over $500 billion worth of goods at risk.
This decision led to a sharp decrease in recession odds. Goldman Sachs, which boosted its recession odds earlier this week, was the first Wall Street bank to scale it down. A Polymarket poll with over $2.2 million showed that there was a 50% chance of a recession, down from this week's high of 66%.
Falling inflation, especially as economic growth slows, could push the Fed toward cutting interest rate, an outcome that would serve as a bullish catalyst for Bitcoin and other altcoins. For instance, the crypto bull run that began in early 2023 was fueled in part by expectations that the Fed would ease monetary policy as inflation declined.
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Willemstad, Curaçao, April 10th, 2025, Chainwire
Whale.io has officially launched its highly anticipated NFT bridge, seamlessly transporting the iconic Whale NFT collection from the TON blockchain to the Solana blockchain. The migration is now live on bridgemedaddy.com a dedicated domain facilitating the cross-chain transfer. Now listed on Magic Eden, one of the largest NFT marketplaces on Solana, Whale.io introduces its collection to a new blockchain environment, maintaining features such as zero gas fees and a range of rarity traits.
A New Home on Solana with Magic Eden
The Whale NFT collection, a standout success on TON, is now swimming into Solana's vibrant waters, and there's no better place to showcase it than Magic Eden. Known for its sleek interface, massive user base, and fast transactions, Magic Eden is the perfect stage for Whale NFTs to shine. With Solana's high-speed, low-cost blockchain powering the action, collectors and traders can expect a seamless experience as they dive into this next chapter of the Whale journey.
Solana's ecosystem is recognized for its active NFT development, and Whale.io's integration adds another established collection to the network. Magic Eden's reputation as the go-to marketplace for Solana NFTs, provides a platform for the Whale NFT collection to reach a broader audience. Whether one is a longtime Whale holder or a Solana native looking to get in on the action, this bridge unlocks a world of possibilities—starting at bridgemedaddy.com.
How the Whale NFT Bridge Works
Users seeking to transfer Whale NFTs from the TON blockchain to Solana can do so via bridgemedaddy.com, which offers a streamlined bridging process. According to details shared on Whale.io's blog, the process is user-friendly and secure, leveraging cutting-edge bridging technology to ensure the user's NFTs make the journey to Solana. The process includes the following steps:”
The collection will be revealed again.
During the process, the user's Ton NFTs will be burned and a new NFT will be minted on the Solana blockchain. The freshly minted new beast has new traits, new rarity, and new value after the artwork is revealed.
One of the notable aspects of the Whale NFT collection is the artwork reveal. While the artwork remains the same as on TON, the specific NFT received after bridging is not predetermined. The process introduces a randomized assignment, meaning holders may receive an NFT with different traits or rarity once on Solana.
Why Solana and Magic Eden Are the Perfect Fit
Solana's blockchain is a powerhouse—blazing fast, cost-efficient, and home to a thriving NFT community. It's no wonder Whale.io chose it as the next stop for its 20,000-strong NFT collection. These characteristics support Whale.io's decision to expand its 20,000-item collection to the network, with trading now available on Magic Eden.
Magic Eden takes it up a notch with its top-tier marketplace features. From curated listings to real-time analytics, it's built to showcase Whale NFTs in all their glory. The platform's large user base increases the potential visibility of Whale NFTs across a range of rarity tiers. As Whale.io's blog highlights, Solana's “high-throughput, low-latency network” paired with Magic Eden's “battle-tested tools” is a match made in NFT heaven, promising faster feature rollouts and a bigger splash in the market.
From TON Triumph to Solana Stardom
The Whale NFT collection made history on TON, minting out 20,000 NFTs in 11 hours and soaring to a 7x floor price increase within a year. Now, it's ready to conquer Solana with the same energy. The team's signature moves—buybacks, burns, and zero gas fees—are coming along for the ride, ensuring the collection stays hot on Magic Eden. As detailed on whale.io/thedailyfinn/wtf/nft-bridge, these strategies have kept Whale NFTs trending on TON's Getgems, and they're set to do the same on Solana.
Bridge Launch and Ongoing Developments
The Whale NFT bridge is more than a migration—it's a celebration of what's possible in the NFT space. Whether a user is a collector, trader, or gamer, the bridge provides an opportunity to interact with the Whale NFT collection on Solana. The team promises more updates, from marketplace drops to soon-to-be-released token enhancements. Users can follow Whale.io's official channels to stay in the loop.
With the launch of the Whale NFT bridge at bridgemedaddy.com and integration into the Solana ecosystem via Magic Eden, the collection expands its reach across blockchain networks. This development marks a continued evolution of the Whale.io platform within the broader NFT landscape
About Whale.io
Whale.io is a trailblazer in NFTs and blockchain gaming, fusing art, utility, and community into unforgettable projects. The Whale NFT collection and the Wheel of Whales miniapp are designed to explore the intersection of utility and entertainment within decentralized environments.
Further information about the Whale NFT collection and the $WHALE token is available through the following resources:
Website: https://bridgemedaddy.com/
Socials: https://linktr.ee/whalesocials_tg
Whale SpokespersonWhale[email protected]
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HONG KONG, April 10, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- XT.COM, a leading digital asset exchange, is pleased to share highlights from the HK VIP Party #BeyondTrade, held on April 6 in Central, Hong Kong. The event extended into the early hours of April 7, bringing together an eclectic community of investors, key opinion leaders, and passionate music lovers—underscoring XT.COM's long-standing commitment to fostering global connectivity and going #BeyondTrade.
Looking Back on the Event
The HK VIP Party took place alongside the Hong Kong Web3 Festival, infusing fresh energy into a city already recognized as a global financial and cultural hub. Over 300 invited guests attended an exclusive gathering at a chic social lounge in Central, which was transformed for the evening to create an atmosphere of high-level networking and celebration. Throughout the event, participants exchanged insights on emerging trends in digital finance while enjoying memorable performances and lively discussions.
Building on XT.COM's annual theme of “#BeyondTrade,” the night exemplified the platform's dedication to uniting diverse communities through more than just transactions. By hosting leaders from finance, technology, and the arts, XT.COM once again demonstrated its drive to bridge industries, champion inclusivity, and expand its brand presence worldwide.
Honoring Legacy with a Legendary Performance
A standout highlight of the evening was the special performance by Hong Kong rock legend Paul Wong, who revisited classics from Beyond's timeless repertoire. The moment he struck his first chord, guests responded with enthusiastic cheers, many reminiscing about the powerful cultural impact these songs had across different eras. Wong's set ignited a wave of nostalgia and camaraderie, reflecting the city's pioneering spirit and demonstrating how cherished legacies can resonate across generations.
Just as Beyond's music endures in collective memory, XT.COM's approach to digital asset exchanges is defined by an enduring vision that transcends short-term market fluctuations. The performance underscored how a blend of tradition and forward thinking can spark meaningful engagement—hallmarks of XT.COM's #BeyondTrade philosophy.
Fostering a Forward-Thinking Community
Beyond the musical highlights, attendees engaged in dynamic discussions about the latest developments in the blockchain and crypto spheres. Investors, entrepreneurs, and opinion leaders shared insights on how digital finance is evolving—particularly in the face of new technology shifts and changing global markets. They also explored ideas for building more robust, user-focused platforms that could promote innovation and inclusivity.
This atmosphere of collaboration captured XT.COM's broader mission of creating genuine connections across various disciplines. The exchange strives to reach audiences outside the traditional crypto space, illuminating opportunities for cultural and economic growth through open dialogue and strategic partnerships.
A Seven-Year Journey of Resilience
For XT.COM, the HK VIP Party served as another milestone in its commitment to community engagement and long-term growth. Over the past seven years, the exchange has adapted to market shifts and regulatory landscapes while remaining focused on broadening access to digital finance solutions. Such resilience echoes the enduring appeal of beloved cultural icons—much like the timeless anthems performed by Paul Wong.
“Our mission goes beyond transactions,” said an XT.COM spokesperson. “We are here to create real connections and generate lasting value for users, investors, and partners alike. This is precisely what #BeyondTrade stands for: looking past short-term gains to foster a more inclusive and innovative environment.”
Looking Ahead: The Journey Continues
As the final notes of Wong's performance lingered in the early morning air, attendees left with a sense of shared purpose and optimism. XT.COM reaffirmed its commitment to pushing boundaries, unveiling fresh initiatives in the coming months to further engage communities and adapt its platform to the rapidly changing digital asset landscape.
By maintaining its focus on global connectivity, user empowerment, and cross-industry collaboration, XT.COM intends to keep expanding the horizons of what a digital asset exchange can achieve—continuing to go #BeyondTrade in every sense.
About XT.COM
Founded in 2018, XT.COM now serves nearly 7.8 million registered users, over 1,000,000+ monthly active users and 40+ million users in the ecosystem. Our comprehensive trading platform supports 800+ high-quality tokens and 1000+ trading pairs. XT.COM crypto exchange supports a rich variety of trading, such as spot trading, margin trading, and futures trading together with an aggregated NFT marketplace. Our platform strives to cater to our large user base by providing a secure, trusted and intuitive trading experience.
Contact:Bella WeiListing@xt.com
Disclaimer: This content is provided by XT exchange. The statements, views, and opinions expressed in this content are solely those of the content provider and do not necessarily reflect the views of this media platform or its publisher. We do not endorse, verify, or guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of any information presented. This content is for informational purposes only and should not be considered financial, investment, or trading advice. Investing in crypto and mining related opportunities involves significant risks, including the potential loss of capital. Readers are strongly encouraged to conduct their own research and consult with a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions. However, due to the inherently speculative nature of the blockchain sector--including cryptocurrency, NFTs, and mining--complete accuracy cannot always be guaranteed. Neither the media platform nor the publisher shall be held responsible for any fraudulent activities, misrepresentations, or financial losses arising from the content of this press release.Speculate only with funds that you can afford to lose.Neither the media platform nor the publisher shall be held responsible for any fraudulent activities, misrepresentations, or financial losses arising from the content of this press release. In the event of any legal claims or charges against this article, we accept no liability or responsibility.
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Blockchain technology has revolutionised many industries, from finance to supply chains, and even art, with the rise of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. However, as its adoption grows, so do concerns about its environmental impact. The energy-intensive nature of blockchain systems, especially those based on proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanisms, has sparked a debate about the sustainability of this technology. This article explores the environmental concerns surrounding blockchain, the efforts to mitigate its carbon footprint, and the future of greener blockchain alternatives.
The primary environmental concern associated with blockchain is the high energy consumption required to operate PoW blockchains. PoW is the consensus mechanism that underpins Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. In PoW, miners use significant computational power to solve complex mathematical puzzles in exchange for new cryptocurrency tokens. This process consumes enormous amounts of electricity, as miners must compete to solve puzzles faster than others in the network.
Bitcoin, for instance, has often been criticised for its carbon footprint. According to studies, Bitcoin's energy consumption is comparable to that of entire countries, such as the Netherlands or Argentina. A significant portion of this energy comes from non-renewable sources, further contributing to carbon emissions. In fact, Bitcoin mining alone accounts for approximately 0.5% of global electricity consumption.
In response to concerns over energy usage, there have been increasing efforts to develop more sustainable blockchain solutions. One of the most notable innovations in this area is the shift from PoW to proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanisms, which are far less energy-intensive.
Proof-of-Stake and Its Advantages
Unlike PoW, PoS does not rely on miners solving complex puzzles. Instead, validators (or ‘stakers') are chosen to create new blocks and confirm transactions based on the number of tokens they hold and are willing to ‘stake' as collateral. This dramatically reduces the amount of computational power needed to secure the network and, as a result, reduces energy consumption.
Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation, has made significant strides in moving from PoW to PoS with the launch of Ethereum 2.0. This upgrade has been touted as a significant step toward reducing Ethereum's carbon footprint by approximately 99.95%. Other blockchain platforms, like Cardano and Polkadot, have already adopted PoS from the outset, highlighting the growing trend towards energy-efficient blockchain systems.
Another promising development in blockchain's environmental impact is its role in promoting renewable energy sources. Blockchain technology is increasingly being integrated into the renewable energy sector to track energy production, distribution, and consumption in real time. It enables more efficient and transparent trading of renewable energy credits, helping to incentivise cleaner energy production.
For instance, Power Ledger, an Australian startup, uses blockchain to enable peer-to-peer trading of renewable energy. This allows consumers with solar panels to sell excess energy to others, reducing reliance on fossil fuels and promoting the use of clean energy. Similarly, energy providers are exploring blockchain to optimise grid management and increase the integration of renewable energy sources, reducing the need for non-renewable backup power.
In addition to the transition to PoS and renewable energy integration, blockchain can also play a role in carbon offsetting initiatives. Several blockchain-based platforms are facilitating the purchase and tracking of carbon credits, ensuring greater transparency and accountability in the carbon offset market.
For example, the platform Verra is developing a blockchain solution to track carbon credits, allowing businesses and individuals to purchase verified carbon offsets with greater confidence. By offering transparent and immutable records, blockchain can help prevent fraudulent claims and ensure that carbon offset projects deliver the environmental benefits they promise.
While the shift to PoS and the promotion of renewable energy are significant steps in addressing blockchain's environmental concerns, the journey towards a more sustainable blockchain ecosystem is far from over. Researchers and innovators are exploring additional ways to reduce the carbon footprint of blockchain, including:
Blockchain technology has undeniably made a profound impact on the world, enabling new economic models, decentralisation, and greater transparency. However, its environmental impact, particularly through energy-intensive proof-of-work systems, remains a significant challenge. Thankfully, there is a growing commitment within the industry to develop more energy-efficient alternatives, such as proof-of-stake and green blockchain solutions.
As the technology continues to evolve, blockchain could play an increasingly important role in promoting sustainability, whether through cleaner consensus mechanisms, support for renewable energy, or facilitating carbon offsetting initiatives. The future of blockchain is not only about decentralisation and innovation; it's also about ensuring that these advancements can coexist with a planet that thrives in harmony with sustainable practices.
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A New York assemblyman has filed a bill urging the State Board of Elections to study how blockchain technology could be utilized to protect voters' data during U.S. elections.
According to the official filing from New York State Assembly member Clyde Vanel, Assembly Bill AA7716 aims to study how the blockchain can be used to protect voter personal records as well as safeguard the election results.
At press time, the bill is currently being reviewed by the Assembly Election Law Committee, awaiting a legislative vote. Once it advances, it would have to pass through to the Assembly and State level before it is reviewed by the state governor for approval.
According to the bill, the New York Board of Elections should conduct a formal study that evaluates how blockchain technology can be utilized to improve U.S. elections, particularly to protect voter records and ensure transparency with regards to election results.
The bill mandates the New York State Board of Elections to collaborate with the Office of Information Technology Services, and request assistance from experts knowledgeable in blockchain technology, cybersecurity, voter fraud and election systems.
If the bill does get enacted, New York's Board of Elections would have to present the results of the study no later than one year after the bill is formalized. The Board's findings must include examples of how other states have implemented similar technological solutions in their elections.
A long-time advocate for crypto and blockchains, Vanel recently teamed up with Maryland delegate Adrian Boafo to push for Democratic lawmakers to establish a federal cryptocurrency regulatory framework. He also filed for a similar bill back in 2017, but it did not pass through.
The use of blockchain technology to safeguard elections is not a new concept. In March 2024, permissionless zero-knowledge registry Rarimo launched a digital identity protocol called the Freedom Tool, which was designed to revolutionize electoral systems through the blockchain.
Unlike traditional voting mechanisms, the Freedom Tool uses blockchain technology and identity management in order to make each vote anonymous and verifiable.
In October 2024, Rarimo's Freedom Tool was implemented into a government electoral system when Georgian opposition party, the United National Movement, launched United Space — an identity app powered by Rarimo — ahead of its parliamentary elections.
The app's blockchain-based technology provided voters with a system that was free of privacy violation concerns and potential voter manipulation. It also ensured citizens had a level of anonymity that traditional election systems could not.
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The World Food Program USA has announced that it now accepts up to 80 different cryptos as donations, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and USD Coin (USDC). This was made possible thanks to the collaboration with The Giving Block.
Summary
The World Food Program USA has announced that it has decided to accept up to 80 different cryptos as donations, embracing technology. Thanks to a partnership with The Giving Block, donors can now donate in Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and USD Coin (USDC), but also in ApeCoin, BONK, and Dogecoin.
“Do you want to have a greater impact with your donations? WFP USA now accepts donations in cryptocurrency: a safe and tax-efficient way to provide food aid to families in need around the world. To learn more about cryptocurrencies and our partnership with @TheGivingBlock”
This decision comes after the Trump administration halted funding for the United Nations' urgent food aid initiatives (UNAID) in 14 impoverished countries, including Afghanistan, Syria, and Yemen.
Not only that, on March 31, the World Food Program USA launched Emergency Hunger Relief Fund. This fund aims to raise over 25 million dollars of support from the private sector and individual donors in the USA to help bridge the funding gaps of WFP programs that provide life-saving assistance to 58 million people on the brink of hunger.
With the aforementioned premises, the World Food Program has decided to modernize its ways of obtaining donations by embracing crypto technology.
In this regard, Dorota Amin, Chief Philanthropy and Partnerships Officer of the World Food Program USA, said:
“Traditional aid systems are under immense pressure. Embracing new technologies like blockchain and cryptocurrencies is not just a choice, it is necessary. By opening our doors to cryptocurrency donors, we are tapping into a growing community of mission-oriented individuals eager to create change”.
In the announcement, the WFP also highlights the advantages that donors in cryptocurrencies would obtain by making their crypto donations.
In addition to the lower fees on transactions compared to credit cards, for example, the WFP also talks about the tax advantages.
In fact, with crypto donations in the USA, the donor becomes exempt from capital gains tax, and may also obtain eligibility for market value deductions.
Other advantages include the speed of the transaction, which offers the immediate availability of the donated money, instead of waiting days to receive it.
In the last 24 hours, it seems that the crypto market is experiencing significant price pumps.
In fact, looking at the top 10 cryptos ranked by market capitalization, they are all colored in green, with price pumps ranging from +7% to +11%.
They would seem like good news then, even if in reality, we are talking about price recoveries. At the time of writing, Bitcoin (BTC) is worth $82,250, still very far from its ATH or All-Time High of December 2024 above $107,000.
Even Ethereum (ETH) is at $1,620, but still far from its ATH or All-Time High of November 2021 above $4,600.
And finally, Ripple (XRP), the crypto winner of the lawsuit against the SEC, is now worth $2.01, also far from its ATH – All-Time High of January 2025, which was close to $3.30.
Stay updated on all the news about cryptocurrencies and the entire world of blockchain.
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OpenSea's lawyers argue NFT marketplaces should be exempt from SEC regulation, as they don't fit the definition of a broker.
Non-fungible token marketplace OpenSea has urged the US Securities and Exchange Commission to exclude NFT marketplaces from regulation under federal securities laws.
The SEC needs to “clearly state that NFT marketplaces like OpenSea do not qualify as exchanges under federal securities laws,” OpenSea general counsel Adele Faure and deputy general counsel Laura Brookover said in an April 9 letter to Commissioner Hester Peirce, who leads the agency's Crypto Task Force.
Faure and Brookover argued that NFT marketplaces don't meet the legal definition of an exchange under US securities laws as they don't execute transactions, act as intermediaries or bring together multiple sellers for the same asset.
“The Commission's past enforcement agenda has created uncertainty. We therefore urge the Commission to remove this uncertainty and protect the ability of US technology companies to lead in this space,” Faure and Brookover wrote.
OpenSea's legal team has asked the SEC to issue informal guidance on NFT Marketplaces. Source: SEC
“In preparing this guidance, the Crypto Task Force should specifically address the application of exchange regulations to marketplaces for non-fungible assets, similar to the recent staff statements on memecoins and stablecoins,” Faure and Brookover added.
Under a notice published on April 4, the SEC said stablecoins that meet specific criteria are considered “non-securities” and are exempt from transaction reporting requirements.
Meanwhile, the SEC's division of corporation finance said in a Feb. 27 staff statement that memecoins are not securities under the federal securities laws but are more akin to collectibles.
Faure and Brookover argued the Crypto Task Force should also exempt NFT marketplaces like OpenSea from having to register as a broker, arguing they don't give investment advice, execute transactions, or custody customer assets.
“We ask the SEC to clear the existing industry confusion on this issue by publishing informal guidance. In the longer term, we invite the Commission to exempt NFT marketplaces like OpenSea from proposed broker regulation,” they said.
Related: OpenSea pauses airdrop reward system after user backlash
Under the Trump administration, the SEC has slowly been walking back its hardline stance toward crypto forged under former Chair Gary Gensler.
The regulator has dismissed a number of enforcement actions it previously launched against crypto firms and has dropped probes into crypto companies over alleged securities law violations, including one into OpenSea.
Magazine: Trump-Biden bet led to obsession with ‘idiotic' NFTs —Batsoupyum, NFT Collector
April 10, 2025
4 min read
Denisovan Fossil Shows Enigmatic Human Cousins Lived from Siberia to Subtropics
The third confirmed location of extinct hominins known as Denisovans shows these human cousins adapted to an impressive range of environments
By Cody Cottier edited by Andrea Thompson
Illustration of a Denisovan male walking under the bright sun of Taiwan.
Cheng-Han Sun
A fossilized jawbone found off the coast of Taiwan nearly two decades ago belonged to a male Denisovan, scientists have found, confirming that this enigmatic group of archaic humans thrived across a vast geographic range, from Siberian snowfields to subtropical jungles. Unlike their cousins the Neandertals, however, Denisovans left behind few physical clues: this is only the third location to yield verifiable remains since their discovery 15 years ago.
The scarcity of fossils is striking because DNA evidence suggests Denisovans flourished throughout East Asia for hundreds of thousands of years. Yet scientists had no inkling of their existence until 2010, when researchers realized that a finger bone—and later some other bone fragments and teeth—from Denisova Cave in southern Siberia represented an entirely unknown branch on the hominin tree. Another decade passed before a mandible with two molars, found by a Buddhist monk in a Tibetan cave in 1980, was linked to the same elusive lineage.
“That's very little to go on,” says Frido Welker, a molecular anthropologist at the University of Copenhagen and a co-author of the new jawbone analysis, which was published on Thursday in Science. The Siberian and Tibetan fossils revealed that Denisovans started roaming the Eurasian continent at least 200,000 years ago and survived long enough to interbreed with anatomically modern humans as the latter ventured out of Africa some 50,000 years ago. But the record is sparse enough, Welker says, that “every piece that is informative changes our picture.”
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His team's finding shows that not only could Denisovans endure the severe Siberian winter and the high-altitude Tibetan Plateau but that they also lived in the warm, humid climate of low-latitude East Asia. “It shows that they were extraordinarily adaptive,” says Bence Viola, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Toronto, who was not involved in this study. Besides Homo sapiens, no other hominin group—not even the hardy Neandertals—mastered such diverse environments.
Photos of the Penghu 1 mandible viewed from right side (l) and top (r).
Yousuke Kaifu
The jawbone (formally known as Penghu 1) was hauled out of the shallow Penghu Channel, just off Taiwan's western coast, by a commercial fishing dredge sometime before 2008 and described in a study in Nature in 2015. Its DNA was too degraded for identification. So Welker and his colleagues focused instead on proteins, complex biomolecules that take longer to break down than DNA. They found two protein variants known to be specific to Denisovans—enough to “confidently identify” the fossil, according to Janet Kelso, a computational biologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, who was not involved in this study.
For many researchers who work in this field, that confirmation comes as no surprise. “We all pretty much expected this would be a Denisovan,” Viola says, noting that its robust structure was similar to the Tibetan mandible. Plus, it wasn't the first hint of Denisovan presence in the broader region: In 2022 a team of researchers, including Welker, reported that a molar resembling the Tibetan specimens had been found in a cave in the Annamite Mountains in Laos. But like Penghu 1, its DNA was too far gone, so there's no conclusive evidence that it belonged to a Denisovan. It's possible, however, that the molar could eventually be tested using Welker's protein analysis technique.
The jawbone also adds context to what Viola calls “a bit of a mystery:” Comparisons of Denisovan DNA with that of humans today show that many of the ancient hominin's genes live on in billions of people, from Aboriginal Australians to Native Americans. The highest rates of Denisovan DNA have been found in today's inhabitants of the Philippines and the island of New Guinea, as well as other Pacific islands, but “it's been kind of hard to square that with the places we have Denisovan fossils from,” Viola says. Siberia and Oceania aren't exactly neighbors.
This new study provides another anchor point for where Denisovans and early modern humans could have met and swapped genes, says Emilia Huerta-Sánchez, a population geneticist at Brown University, who was not involved in the study. Her work has shown that several genetically distinct Denisovan populations engaged in these interhominin unions—and that some of the DNA we acquired from them offered an evolutionary advantage (for instance, by enabling Tibetans to breathe the thin air of their homeland).
The proteins in Penghu 1 don't, however, do much to advance researchers' understanding of gene flow between Denisovans and early modern humans, according to Huerta-Sánchez. “This is a little bit of data,” she says, but to really flesh out those ancient interactions, “it would be nice to get a whole genome from a different geographic location,” somewhere outside Siberia and Tibet. That's an inherently difficult task, given the fragility of DNA, especially in warmer climates.
Welker says he'll wait until more data come in to speculate on precisely how our most cryptic relatives fit into the story of human evolution. For now, the jawbone marks “a new addition to our hominin family,” as he puts it—and another breadcrumb on the trail of the Denisovans.
Cody Cottier is a freelance journalist based in Fort Collins, Colo.
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“When it comes to the fall of the Roman Empire, this climate shift may have been the straw that broke the camel's back.”
Unusual small stones on a beach in Iceland may help tell the story of the Roman Empire's demise.
A team of researchers from three different continents studied local cobbles—round stones about the size of a human fist—and the mineral clues embedded within them to better understand a dramatic climate event from the sixth century A.D. that coincided with the undoing of one of the world's greatest dynasties.
“When it comes to the fall of the Roman Empire, this climate shift may have been the straw that broke the camel's back,” Tom Gernon, professor of Earth science at the University of Southampton, said in a statement.
Historians have long debated the role of rapid cooling as part of the fall of the Roman Empire, but the new rock-based research strengthens the case that a brief (but intense) period of cooling may have hampered an already declining empire and incited a mass population migration that reshaped Europe. The team behind this research published a study describing their findings in the journal Geology.
The timing of what is known as the Late Antique Little Ice Age has always intrigued historians studying the ties between the climate and European history. Three massive volcanic eruptions around 540 A.D. likely triggered the brief but impactful climate shift, as volcanic ash blocked sunlight and lowered global temperature for around 200 to 300 years.
So, where do these rocks come in? Well, the scientists believe the rocks were carried to Iceland via icebergs formed during the glaciation event, and can now help show the chaotic nature of the climate during that period of history.
“We knew these rocks seemed somewhat out of place because the rock types are unlike anything found in Iceland today,” Christopher Spencer, lead author of the research, said in a statement.
The team crushed the rocks in question to analyze the age and composition of zircon crystals locked inside, which helped pinpoint their source.
“Zircons are essentially time capsules that preserve vital information including when they crystalized as well as their compositional characteristics,” Spencer said. “The combination of age and chemical composition allows us to fingerprint currently exposed regions of the Earth's surface, much like is done in forensics.”
The team linked the debris to specific regions in Greenland. “This is the first direct evidence of icebergs carrying large Greenlandic cobbles to Iceland,” Spencer said.
“On one hand, you're surprised to see anything but basalt in Iceland, but having seem them for the first time, you instantly suspect they arrived by iceberg from Greenland,” Ross Mitchell, a co-author of the study, said in a statement.
“The fact that the rocks come from nearly all geological regions of Greenland provides evidence of their glacial origins,” Gernon said. “As glaciers move, they erode the landscape, breaking up rocks from different areas and carrying them along, creating a chaotic and diverse mixture—some of which ends up stuck inside the ice.”
The team determined the ice-rafted rocks were likely dropped in Iceland in the seventh century, coinciding with a major climate shift known as the Bond 1 event. “This timing coincides with a known major episode of ice-rafting, where vast chunks of ice break away from glaciers, drift across the ocean, and eventually melt, scattering debris along distant shore,” Gernon said.
The “climate-driven iceberg activity may have been one of the many cascading effects of rapid cooling,” Spencer said, alongside the mass human migrations that spread the population of Europe across the continent, helping to weaken—and eventually extinguish—the Roman Empire.
Tim Newcomb is a journalist based in the Pacific Northwest. He covers stadiums, sneakers, gear, infrastructure, and more for a variety of publications, including Popular Mechanics. His favorite interviews have included sit-downs with Roger Federer in Switzerland, Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles, and Tinker Hatfield in Portland.
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The patterns of crossing threads that make up a knot can be explored mathematically.Credit: Ilie Lupescu/500px via Getty
Are quantum computers worth the billions that are being invested in them? The answer is probably many years away. However, the machines could prove to be particularly suited to solving problems in mathematics — especially in topology, the branch of maths that studies shapes.
In a preprint posted on arXiv in March1, researchers at Quantinuum, a company headquartered in Cambridge, UK, report using their quantum machine H2-2 to distinguish between different types of knot on the basis of topological properties, and show that the method could be faster than those that run on ordinary, or ‘classical', computers. Quantinuum chief product officer Ilyas Khan says that Helios, a quantum computer that the company expects to release later this year, could get much closer to beating classical supercomputers at analysing fiendishly complicated knots.
Although other groups have already made similar claims of ‘quantum advantage', typically for ad hoc calculations that have no practical use, classical algorithms tend to catch up eventually. But theoretical results2,3 suggest that for some topology problems, quantum algorithms could be faster than any possible classical counterpart. This is owing to mysterious connections between topology and quantum physics. “That these things are related is mind-blowing, I think,” says Konstantinos Meichanetzidis, a Quantinuum researcher who led the work behind the preprint.
In that work, Meichanetzidis and his colleagues used a quantum computer to calculate knot ‘invariants' — numbers that describe particular types of knot. The invariants they looked at were devised by the New Zealand-born mathematician Vaughan Jones.
Knot invariants are typically calculated from patterns of crossings — how the threads in a knot cross over each other when the knot is flattened on a surface — but depend only on the knot's topological type. In other words, the same knot can be flattened in two different ways, with vastly different crossing patterns, but the knot invariant will still be the same. If two crossing patterns have different knot invariants, it means that they come from knots that are topologically distinct. (However, the converse is not always true: in rare cases, two topologically different knots can give the same invariant.)
Quantum stock whiplash: what's next for quantum computing?
Quantum stock whiplash: what's next for quantum computing?
Meichanetzidis's team implemented a quantum algorithm for calculating the invariants of knots, proposed4 by Jones and computer scientists Dorit Aharonov and Zeph Landau. The algorithm is a series of quantum operations corresponding to the crossings of a flattened knot. The researchers used it to calculate Jones invariants for knots with up to 600 crossings on Quantinuum's H2-2 quantum computer. This is still well within the scope of classical computing, but the company's machines should eventually be able to handle 3,000 crossings or so, at which point even the fastest classical supercomputers will run out of steam, says Meichanetzidis.
Mathematically, the theoretical equivalence between knot crossings and quantum algorithms has been known for decades, but only now has the team been able to fully put it into practice, says Aharonov, who is at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “I expected that the transition between the languages would be much less efficient,” she adds.
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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-01094-z
Laakkonen, T. et al. Preprint at arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2503.05625 (2025).
Schmidhuber, A., Reilly, M., Zanardi, P., Lloyd, S. & Lauda, A. Preprint at arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2501.12378 (2025).
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Sci-fi is here.
You've probably seen a movie in which a character pulls up a hologram display that they can poke, prod, and manipulate as easily as you could mess with a real object sitting on a desk in front of you.
The idea is so ubiquitous in science fiction that it's become nearly synonymous with the word “hologram.” In almost every news story written about hologram technology and how far it has come, at some point, a disclaimer has to be made explaining that ‘it's not quite Tony Stark tech, but it's still cool!'
Well, this time, it is Tony Stark tech—or, at least, an extremely early prototype of Tony Stark tech.
For the first time, a team of engineers has managed to create a hologram that you can directly interact with using your hands. If you're projecting a holo-cube, you can reach into that display and slide it back and forth or turn it around.
“What we see in films and call holograms are typically volumetric displays,” Elodie Bouzbib, the first author on the paper describing this new tech, said in a press release. “These are graphics that appear in mid-air and can be viewed from various angles without the need for wearing virtual reality glasses. They are called true-3D graphics.”
Volumetric displays have existed (at least in prototype form) for some time. Most of them look kind of like enclosed projectors, except they project in 3D rather than 2D. They work by showing a bunch of images really fast onto something called a diffuser, which is basically a projector screen that moves up and down faster than the human eye can see. At each point along the trajectory of the screen, it's hit by a new image—each of which looks a single layer of a 3D-printed object—and the human eye collects all of those images together into a 3D hologram.
This new tech works on the same principle, but with one simple switch: the material of the diffuser.
Most diffusers are thin, rigid, and brittle, and if a person tried to poke at a 3D image created by one, it would likely break and could even cause injury. The diffusers behind the new holo-tech, however, are made of a series of elastic bands that you can touch without fear of harming them or yourself.
This change in material facilitates the breakthrough at the heart of this work—direct interaction, which lead researcher Asier Marzo defined as “being able to insert our hands to grab and drag virtual objects.”
“We are used to direct interaction with our phones,” he continued, “where we tap a button or drag a document directly with our finger on the screen— it is natural and intuitive for humans. This project enables us to use this natural interaction with 3D graphics to leverage our innate abilities of 3D vision and manipulation.”
Obviously, this tech is still in the very early stages of development. And the team has plenty of plans for where to take it next, like adding haptic feedback to further enhance the tactile experience.
But at this moment, for the first time ever, you can poke a cube that isn't there and it will move. That's pretty damn cool.
Jackie (she/her) is a writer and editor from Pennsylvania with a background in astrophysics and a deep love of storytelling. She's especially fond of writing about space and physics, and loves sharing the weird wonders of the universe with anyone who wants to listen (and a few people who don't). You can also find her on the Popular Mechanics TikTok page, where she uses her voice instead of her keyboard to talk about even more science-y stories.
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The major spliceosome includes five small nuclear RNA (snRNAs), U1, U2, U4, U5 and U6, each of which is encoded by multiple genes. We recently showed that mutations in RNU4-2, the gene that encodes the U4-2 snRNA, cause one of the most prevalent monogenic neurodevelopmental disorders. Here, we report that recurrent germline mutations in RNU2-2 (previously known as pseudogene RNU2-2P), a 191-bp gene that encodes the U2-2 snRNA, are responsible for a related disorder. By genetic association, we identified recurrent de novo single-nucleotide mutations at nucleotide positions 4 and 35 of RNU2-2 in nine cases. We replicated this finding in 16 additional cases, bringing the total to 25. We estimate that RNU2-2 syndrome has a prevalence of ~20% that of RNU4-2 syndrome. The disorder is characterized by intellectual disability, autistic behavior, microcephaly, hypotonia, epilepsy and hyperventilation. All cases display a severe and complex seizure phenotype. We found that U2-2 and canonical U2-1 were similarly expressed in blood. Despite mutant U2-2 being expressed in patient blood samples, we found no evidence of missplicing. Our findings cement the role of major spliceosomal snRNAs in the etiologies of neurodevelopmental disorders.
More than 4,000 genes have been established as etiological for a rare disease, of which only 69 are noncoding1. Three of these noncoding genes—RNU4ATAC, RNU12 and RNU4-2—encode snRNAs that have crucial roles in pre-messenger RNA (mRNA) splicing. Variants in RNU4ATAC are responsible for microcephalic osteodysplastic primordial dwarfism type I (refs. 2,3), Roifman syndrome4 and Lowry–Wood syndrome5, whereas variants in RNU12 cause early-onset cerebellar ataxia6 and CDAGS syndrome7. These pathologies are inherited in an autosomal-recessive manner. Both RNU4ATAC and RNU12 encode components of the minor spliceosome, a molecular complex that catalyzes splicing for fewer than 1% of all introns in humans8. However, more than 99% of introns are spliced by the major spliceosome. Recently, we reported that de novo mutations in RNU4-2, which is transcribed into the U4-2 snRNA component of the major spliceosome, cause one of the most prevalent monogenic neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs)9. The discovery was published independently by a separate group10.
To explore whether other noncoding genes might also be causal for NDDs, we performed a refined statistical analysis of the 100,000 Genomes Project (100KGP) data in the National Genomic Research Library (NGRL)11. Following a previously described approach9,12, we used the BeviMed genetic association method13 to compare rare variant genotypes in the 41,132 canonical transcript entries in Ensembl v.104 with a biotype other than ‘protein_coding' (Supplementary Data), which included 14,307 entries annotated as pseudogene transcripts, between 7,452 unrelated, unexplained cases annotated with the ‘Neurodevelopmental abnormality' (NDA) Human Phenotype Ontology (HPO) term and 43,727 unrelated participants without the NDA term. Notably, whereas our previous analyses filtered out single-nucleotide variants with combined annotation-dependent depletion (CADD)14 score < 10, our present analysis removed this threshold to expand the variant search space.
Our analysis yielded only two genes with a posterior probability of association (PPA) with NDA > 0.5. RNU4-2, which we have reported previously9, had a PPA of ~1, and RNU2-2P (now called RNU2-2) had a PPA of 0.97. The association with RNU2-2 depended on inclusion of variants with CADD scores ≤ 10 (Extended Data Fig. 1). Conditional on the association, two variants, at nucleotide positions 4 and 35, had a BeviMed posterior probability of pathogenicity (PPP) > 0.5 (Fig. 1a). The nine NDA cases with either of the variants had a significantly greater phenotypic homogeneity based on HPO terms than expected under random selection of nine NDA cases from unexplained and unrelated NDA study participants in the 100KGP (P = 1.33 × 10−3, Fig. 1b), supporting causality for a distinct NDD. RNU2-2 has a 191-bp sequence that is identical to that of the canonical gene RNU2-1, except for eight single-nucleotide substitutions (all within n.108–191). Unlike RNU2-1, which has a variable copy number within a region on chromosome 17, RNU2-2 has a unique sequence occurring in only one location on chromosome 11. Although at the time of analysis, RNU2-2 was known as RNU2-2P and annotated as one of many U2 pseudogenes in bioinformatics databases15, it has recently been shown to be expressed in cell lines, and its transcripts, U2-2P (now U2-2), have been shown to have the greatest abundance and stability of all noncanonical U2 snRNAs16. After aggregation over the 11 copies of RNU2-1 in the GRCh38 build of the reference genome, RNU2-1 and RNU2-2 show comparable levels of expression in whole blood and in blood cells (Fig. 1c). RNU2-2 resides in a 5′ untranslated exon of WDR74 that had previously been identified as being enriched for hotspot mutations in cancer, although the existence of RNU2-2 at that locus was not known at the time17. A recent study showed that both RNU2-1 and RNU2-2 carry recurrent somatic mutations (n.28C>T) that drive B cell-derived tumors, prostate cancers and pancreatic cancers18. The same study showed that RNU2-2 is a functional gene that is transcribed independently of WDR74—a finding that we recapitulated in blood and blood cells (Extended Data Fig. 2)—and that both the canonical U2-1 and noncanonical U2-2 snRNAs are incorporated into the spliceosome18.
a, BeviMed PPAs between each of RNU4-2 and RNU2-2 (previously known as RNU2-2P) and NDA. All other noncoding genes and pseudogenes had PPA < 0.5. Only two RNU2-2 variants had conditional PPP > 0.5: n.4G>A and n.35A>G. Prob., probability. b, Distribution of phenotypic homogeneity scores for 100,000 randomly selected sets of nine participants chosen from 9,112 unrelated NDA-coded participants. The score corresponding to the nine identified cases with one of the two RNU2-2 variants with PPP > 0.5 is indicated with a red line. c, Scatter plot of log10 expression of RNU2-1 against that of RNU2-2 in whole-blood samples from a random subset of 500 participants in the NGRL and in four blood cell types from 204 NBR participants. TPM, transcripts per million. d, Top, numbers of participants with a rare allele at each of the 191 bases of RNU2-2, stratified by affection status and inheritance information of the carried allele. The two variants with PPP > 0.5 are indicated with green arrows. The color-coded track shows the aggregated (over distinct alleles at a position) minor allele count (aMAC) in gnomAD v.4.1.0 (gn.) at each position, and the black bars show the numbers of distinct alternate alleles in gnomAD at each position (multiple insertions and multiple deletions at a given position each count as one). Variants failing quality control (QC) in gnomAD are not shown in this subpanel. Bottom, data corresponding to nucleotide positions 1 to 41 in greater detail, including gnomAD-QC-failing variant n.35A>T. Above and below the RNU2-2 cDNA sequence (Seq.), the alternate alleles in 100KGP participants and the distinct alleles in gnomAD are shown, respectively; ‘+' indicates insertions, and the variant that failed QC in gnomAD is indicated. e, Pedigrees for participants with a rare alternate allele n.4 or n.35 in RNU2-2. Pedigrees used for discovery have a ‘G' prefix and are labeled in black. Pedigrees used for replication in the IMPaCT-GENóMICA, URDCat and ENoD-CIBERER aggregate collection; the 100KGP; the NBR; Erasmus MC UMC; the GMS; Radboud UMC; deCODE or the ZOEMBA study have an ‘I', ‘M', ‘N', ‘R', ‘S', ‘W', ‘Y' or ‘Z' prefix, respectively, and are labeled in blue. Hom., homozygous; ref., reference.
The two germline variants with a high PPP, n.4G>A and n.35A>G, are located in a genomic locus spanning a region of approximately 40 nucleotides at the 5′ end of the 191-bp RNU2-2 gene. The locus has a markedly reduced density of population genetic variation in gnomAD19, consistent with the effects of negative selection (Fig. 1d). Published secondary structure data of the U2 snRNA show that r.4 is located within the helix II U2–U6 interaction domain, whereas r.35 is part of the highly conserved recognition domain GUAGUA that binds the branch sites of introns20,21,22 (Extended Data Fig. 3). Trio sequencing of four of the five cases with n.4G>A and three of the four cases with n.35A>G showed that the variants were de novo in each case. A variant with a different alternate allele at nucleotide 35, n.35A>T, was called in eight unaffected participants; it was also present in gnomAD but failed quality control (QC) (Fig. 1d). Analysis of whole-genome sequencing (WGS) and Sanger sequencing data suggested that n.35A>G is a germline variant, but n.35A>T is a recurring somatic mosaic variant. This somatic variant is observed only in individuals over the age of 40 years, consistent with clonal hematopoiesis (Extended Data Fig. 4).
To replicate our findings in the nine NDD cases, we examined eight additional rare disease collections: a component of the 100KGP not included in the discovery dataset (10,373 participants, of whom 1,736 have an NDA); the NIHR BioResource-Rare Diseases (NBR) data23 (7,388 participants, of whom 731 have an NDA); the UK Genomic Medicine Service (GMS) data (32,030 participants, of whom 6,469 have an NDA); data from the Erasmus MC UMC (1,527 participants, of whom approximately 400 have an NDA); an aggregate of the IMPaCT-GENóMICA, URDCat and ENoD-CIBERER programs for undiagnosed rare diseases24 (1,707 probands with NDDs and WGS data); clinical data from Radboud UMC Nijmegen (1,037 probands with an NDA); WGS data from deCODE genetics (73,821 participants, of whom 4,416 have an NDA) and data from the ZOEMBA study (127 participants, of whom 71 have an NDA). We identified a further 16 cases in these replication collections (Fig. 1e), all but two of whom were confirmed to have a de novo variant. There were no unaffected carriers of either variant. Eight replication cases had n.4G>A, seven replication cases had n.35A>G, and one replication case had a different alternate allele at nucleotide 35, n.35A>C. Although this case represented the only individual harboring n.35A>C, modeling of the interactions between U2-2 snRNA and canonical branch site sequences suggested that n.35A>C has a destabilizing effect on binding that is greater than that of the n.35A>G variant and in many cases similar in magnitude to that of the n.4G>A variant with respect to its cognate partner U6 (Extended Data Fig. 5). All these variants were called confidently by WGS (Extended Data Fig. 6). In the 100KGP, RNU2-2 was a more prevalent etiological gene than all but 29 of the ~1,400 known etiological genes for intellectual disability, explaining about one-fifth the number of cases as RNU4-2, the etiological gene for RNU4-2 syndrome, also known as ReNU syndrome (Fig. 2). This relative prevalence was consistent with observations in the IMPaCT-GENóMICA, URDCat and ENoD-CIBERER aggregate collection, which identified 27 cases with RNU4-2 syndrome and six cases (that is, 4.5 times fewer) with RNU2-2 syndrome.
Of the 9,112 unrelated NDA-coded cases in the 100KGP, the numbers solved through pathogenic or likely pathogenic variants in a gene are shown, provided at least nine cases were diagnosed. For RNU2-2, the number of NDA-coded cases in the 100KGP with one of the recurring de novo variants is shown.
Analysis of HPO terms for the nine uniformly phenotyped 100KGP cases revealed that 100% were assigned ‘Intellectual disability' and ‘Global developmental delay', 89% were assigned ‘Delayed speech and language development', 78% were assigned ‘Motor delay' and 56% were assigned ‘Autistic behavior', in line with frequencies among NDA cases generally (Fig. 3). However, certain terms were enriched in RNU2-2 cases: ‘Seizure' was annotated in 89% of RNU2-2 cases (versus 27% in other NDA cases, Bonferroni-adjusted (BA) P = 2.44 × 10−3) but later confirmed to be present in 100%, ‘Microcephaly' in 78% of cases (versus 18%, BA P = 1.62 × 10−3), ‘Generalized hypotonia' in 56% of cases (versus 13%, BA P = 3.56 × 10−2), ‘Severe global developmental delay' in 44% (versus 2.7%, BA P = 8.89 × 10−4) and ‘Hyperventilation' in 33% of cases (versus 0.16%, BA P = 7.56 × 10−6). No HPO terms were significantly underrepresented in the RNU2-2 cases. Of the terms that were enriched among cases of RNU4-2 syndrome, ‘Seizure', ‘Microcephaly' and ‘Generalized hypotonia' were also enriched in RNU2-2 cases. However, ‘Severe global developmental delay' and ‘Hyperventilation' were only enriched in RNU2-2 cases, suggesting that these may be differentiating phenotypic features. Strikingly, three RNU2-2 cases were coded with the seldom-used ‘Hyperventilation' term by three independent clinicians.
Graph showing the ‘is-a' relationships among HPO terms present in at least three of the nine NDA-coded RNU2-2 cases in the discovery collection or significantly enriched among them relative to 9,112 unrelated NDA-coded participants of the 100KGP. The significantly overrepresented terms are highlighted. For each term, the number of cases with the term and the proportion that number represents out of nine is shown. For each overrepresented term, the proportion of NDA-coded participants with the term and the proportion of NDA-coded RNU2-2 cases with the term are represented as the horizontal coordinate of the base and the head of an arrow, respectively. *, Only eight of the nine (89%) of the cases had the ‘Seizure' HPO term in the NGRL, but epilepsy was confirmed in the case without the HPO term by inspecting the individual's electronic health record and the numbers attached to ‘Seizure' were updated accordingly.
Detailed clinical vignettes for the 15 cases in pedigrees G1–2, G4, I1–6, M2, R1, S3, W1, Y1 and Z1 are provided in Supplementary Note and Supplementary Table 1. These indicate that the neurodevelopmental phenotype caused by the RNU2-2 variants typically manifests from 3 to 6 months of age but is progressive, frequently severe and accompanied by characteristic dysmorphic features (Fig. 4). All the cases displayed prominent epilepsy, usually from the first few months of life, and seizures were severe and pharmacoresistant. Seizures were characteristically complex and included spasms, tonic, tonic clonic, myoclonic and absence types, classified in some probands as Lennox–Gastaut syndrome. These features distinguish the RNU2-2 cases from previously reported cases of RNU4-2 syndrome, in which the developmental phenotype was reported as less severe, some of the dysmorphic features were different, and epilepsy was typically later in onset, less severe and more commonly focal9,10,25. Extraordinarily, case M2 also harbored a de novo truncating variant in SPEN predicted to cause Radio–Tartaglia syndrome26. However, the individual in this case had short stature (<−2.65 s.d.) and microcephaly (<−2.65 s.d.), which are not characteristic of Radio–Tartaglia syndrome, as well as having a craniofacial morphology that more closely resembled that of other RNU2-2 patients than Radio–Tartaglia syndrome patients (Supplementary Note). This atypical presentation is consistent with a dual rare genetic diagnosis.
Clinical photographs of individuals from pedigrees G1, G4, S3, R1 and I1–6. The individuals in these cases show common features of long palpebral fissures with slight eversion of the lateral lower lids, long eyelashes, broad nasal root, large low set ears, wide mouth and wide spaced teeth. The approximate ages of the individuals when the photographs were taken are shown. Photographs of individual M2, who has Radio–Tartaglia syndrome in addition to RNU2-2 syndrome, are included in the Supplementary Note. We have obtained specific consent from the families to publish these clinical photographs. m, months; yr, years.
Using trio WGS data, which were available for 17 families, we were able to determine the parental origin of the de novo mutations for ten of those families. Echoing observations in cases with RNU4-2 syndrome, the pathogenic RNU2-2 mutations were ubiquitously of maternal origin, suggesting that they may affect spermatogenesis. Analysis of uniquely aligned reads at heterozygous sites in whole-blood RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) data revealed that both alleles of RNU2-2 were expressed robustly in cases (Extended Data Fig. 7). However, a genome-wide comparison of the RNA-seq alignments between five cases and 495 unrelated unexplained NDA-coded participants did not reveal differential gene expression, differential splice junction usage or any pattern of aberrant splicing in the cases (Extended Data Fig. 8), suggesting that transcriptomic analysis of other tissue types will be required to uncover the underlying molecular mediators of disease.
U2 is involved in all stages of pre-mRNA splicing and contains distinct domains that interact with the catalytic U6, intronic branch sites and scaffolding of several protein assemblies27. Notably, the U6 binding domain and the branch site recognition domain of U2-2 are transcribed from a region in RNU2-2 exhibiting markedly reduced population genetic variation (Fig. 1d). Studies in the 1990s of yeast U2 snRNA showed that variants in branch site recognition sequence GUAGUA inhibit splicing and even generate a dominant lethal phenotype when the recognition sequence is changed entirely28,29. Position r.35 in the human U2 sequence corresponds to r.36 in the yeast U2 sequence, where n.36A>G and n.36A>T result in 0–10% and 10–20% splicing activity, respectively, compared with the wild-type sequence29. Although the U2–U6 recognition sequences are not conserved between yeast and human, a similar organization is retained. The U2–U6 interaction in yeast is not very sensitive to variation in U2 snRNA29, but genetic suppression experiments that changed multiple residues within U2 or U6 snRNAs, including position r.4 in U2 snRNA, have demonstrated that the U2–U6 helix II plays a part in the regulation of splicing in mammalian cells30,31. Mice with variants in a direct ortholog of RNU2-2 do not exist; however, mice with a homozygous 5-bp deletion in U2 ortholog Rnu2-8 present with ataxia and neurodegeneration32. Transcriptomic analysis of the mutant cerebellum detected aberrant splicing, particularly increased retention of short introns. Although it remains unclear how this splicing defect might cause neuronal death, it has been hypothesized that premature translation termination codons within the retained introns could trigger the nonsense-mediated decay (NMD) pathway. We and others have shown that the recessive human disorders caused by variants in RNU4ATAC and RNU12 result in minor intron retention in blood cells and fibroblasts2,4,6,33,34. By contrast, we have been unable to detect any significant and reproducible large-scale splicing defect in the blood cells of patients with dominant germline variants in the major spliceosome gene RNU2-2. Although a recent study described systematic disruption of 5′ splice site usage in the whole blood of some patients with de novo RNU4-2 variants10, RNA-seq of fibroblasts in a separate case study could not detect any defect in splicing25. Moreover, transcriptomic analysis of primary hematological tumors and cell lines transfected with vectors expressing the n.28C>T RNU2-2 mutation did not reveal any significant differences in splicing18. Therefore, further studies are required to understand how RNU4-2 and RNU2-2 mutations affect splicing. It might be that, in contrast to recessive splicing disorders, it is challenging to detect widespread splicing defects in these newly discovered dominant disorders because wild-type transcripts are expressed in combination with misspliced transcripts from the same gene that are subjected to NMD. In certain cell types, the effects of NMD might be overcome such that the overall expression levels of mRNAs remain unchanged, owing to rapid mRNA turnover and dosage compensation35. However, certain cell types, such as stem cells, which we have not yet been able to study, might be more sensitive to high NMD dosage than terminally differentiated cells. Neuronal stem cells and mouse models of RNU4-2 and RNU2-2 pathologies may be needed to resolve these mechanistic questions.
Participants in the 100KGP, the 100KGP Pilot Project and the GMS were enrolled to the NGRL under a protocol approved by the East of England–Cambridge Central Research Ethics Committee (ref: 20/EE/0035). We obtained written informed consent to publish additional clinical data from a subset of the affected cases in the NGRL following local best practices. NBR participants were enrolled under a protocol approved by the East of England–Cambridge South Research Ethics Committee (ref. 13/EE/0325). The investigations at Erasmus MC UMC were approved by the center's institutional review board (MEC-2012-387). Informed consent at that institution was obtained for all diagnostics, and written informed consent was obtained from the parents of participants for publication of medical data including photographs, in line with the Declaration of Helsinki. Participants in the IMPaCT-GENóMICA, URDCat and ENoD-CIBERER programs were enrolled through clinical services under a protocol approved by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III Research Ethics Committee (CEI-PI01_2022) and endorsed by the institutional review boards of the participating hospitals. The ZOEMBA study was approved by the institutional review board of Amsterdam UMC (registration number NL67721.018.19). Written informed consent to publish clinical data and photographs of the affected individuals were obtained following local best practices.
The enrollment criteria for participants in the NGRL are available from the Genomics England website36. The available enrollment criteria for replication cohorts are given in refs. 23,24.
The genetic association analysis was conducted as described previously9,12, except that variants were not thresholded on CADD score. Cases comprised all the 9,112 unrelated cases in the 100KGP included in the merged variant call format file provided by the 100KGP that were annotated with the NDA HPO term, whereas the controls comprised all the 40,937 unrelated participants in the merged variant call format file who were not assigned the NDA HPO term. Of the 9,112 cases, 7,452 had been previously solved through pathogenic or likely pathogenic variants. Cases explained by variants in a given gene were reassigned to the control group in the genetic association analyses for genes other than that gene.
To assess the phenotypic homogeneity of the nine participants in the discovery collection with n.4G>A or n.35A>G in RNU2-2, we computed a phenotype homogeneity score for that group with respect to unexplained and unrelated NDA study participants. We calculated this score using the get_sim_grid and get_sim_p functions from the ontologySimilarity R package37, as previously described9. We then obtained a Monte Carlo P value as the proportion of random sets of nine unexplained unrelated NDA cases with a homogeneity score greater than or equal to the homogeneity score of the group carrying either of the RNU2-2 variants.
To identify enriched or depleted HPO terms among the nine NDA-annotated cases with n.4G>A or n.35A>G in RNU2-2 in the discovery collection, compared with unrelated NDA-coded participants without either of these two variants, we computed P values of association using Fisher's two-sided exact test. We only tested enrichment for terms that were attached to at least three of the nine cases and belonged to the set of nonredundant terms at each level of frequency among the cases. To account for multiple comparisons, we adjusted the P values by multiplying them by the number of tests. An adjusted P < 0.05 was deemed to indicate statistical significance. To visualize both common and distinctive HPO terms for RNU2-2 cases, we selected terms that were either statistically significant or present in at least 50% of the cases, removed redundant terms at each level of frequency among the nine cases, and arranged the terms along with a nonredundant set of ancestral terms as a directed acyclic graph of ‘is-a' relations. These analyses were conducted using the ontologyX R packages37.
The NBR Molecular Phenotyping Study is a multicenter multiomics study of approximately 1,000 patients. It consists of RNA-seq and proteomics data for platelets, neutrophils, monocytes and CD4+ T cells. Approximately 5,000 study participants in the NGRL also underwent whole-blood RNA-seq. We aligned the NBR blood cell RNA-seq data to the GRCh38 reference genome using STAR to assess coverage in the RNU2-2 locus. We did the same for NGRL participants using RNA-seq reads aligned by DRAGEN to the GRCh38 reference genome. Both the NBR and the NGRL data were generated following a ribosomal RNA depletion and fragment size selection protocol that enables sequencing of short RNAs. To quantify expression of U2-1 and U2-2 in the NBR and the NGRL participants, we used the kallisto v.0.51.1 pseudoaligner to map reads against a GRCh38 reference transcriptome composed of all transcript sequences in Ensembl v.104 after removing duplicate sequences using the rmdup function from seqkit v.2.9.0. As only one of the 11 copies of the RNU2-1 sequence was included in the reference transcriptome, this approach ensured that quantification of U2-1 expression was not diluted over repeated entries of the RNU2-1 sequence.
To compute the proportions of WGS reads supporting alternate alleles, we extracted the sequencing depth and the number of reads supporting each alternate allele at n.4 and n.35 of RNU2-2 from BAM files using ‘samtools mpileup' with default settings.
We used the following primers to amplify genomic DNA containing the RNU2-2 gene before Sanger sequencing: forward primer, 5′-CCAATCCCAGGATCCTAAAAA-3′; reverse primer, 5′-GAAGACCACATGGAGATACTACG-3′. The amplified fragments corresponded to chr. 11:62841419–62842071 in version GRCh38 of the human reference genome.
We calculated the free energy of duplex formation ΔG38 of duplex formation with U6-1 and with branch site sequences for wild-type and mutant U2-2 using the RNA.fold_compound.eval_structure function in the ViennaRNA (v.2.6.4) Python package. This enabled us to calculate the difference in stability change on mutation, ΔΔG.
For each proband for which trio WGS data were available, we selected read pairs overlapping the position of the de novo variant in question. For each inherited variant called in the mother but not in the father that was supported by such read pairs, we constructed a 2 × 2 contingency table indicating the number of read pairs supporting each allele across the inherited and the de novo variant. If across all of these maternally inherited variants, the number of reads supporting linkage between the reference allele for one variant and the alternate allele for the other variant was equal to zero, and if at least one read supported linkage between the de novo alternate allele and at least one maternally inherited alternate allele, then the origin was determined to be maternal. If across all of the paternally inherited variants, the number of reads supporting linkage between the two reference alleles was equal to zero and the number of reads supporting linkage between the two alternate alleles was equal to zero, and at least one read supported linkage between the reference allele at the de novo variant position and at least one paternally inherited alternate allele, then the origin was determined to be maternal. The same logic was applied to determine a paternal origin. If none of the above conditions was met, the origin was determined to be inconclusive.
We performed QC on RNA-seq data derived from the whole blood of 5,546 participants in the NGRL as follows. Based on visual inspection of QC parameter distributions, we filtered out samples with a percentage of RNA fragments larger than 200 bases (as measured using an Agilent TapeStation 4200) of ≤65%, a total read count outside the range (108M, 592M), a genome mapping rate <0.85 or a high-quality read rate <0.9 (where reads were deemed to be of high quality if they aligned as proper pairs, had fewer than seven mismatches and had a mapping quality ≥60). After QC filtering, 5,165 samples remained for analysis, including five cases with implicated variants in RNU2-2. We assessed allele-specific expression in cases by counting genome-aligned RNA-seq reads overlapping heterozygous sites using ‘samtools mpileup' with default settings. We selected 500 samples for differential gene expression and splice junction usage analysis by taking samples from the five cases and 495 samples selected at random from those passing the QC criteria and belonging to unrelated NDA-coded individuals presently unexplained. We used DESeq2 (ref. 39) to conduct differential gene expression analysis, taking the transcript quantifications generated by the Salmon software40 and aggregated by gene with the tximport BioConductor package41. For the differential splicing analysis, we used the 905,036 junctions observed (that is, supported by at least one spliced read) in at least five of the 500 samples. We obtained one-sided P values by permutation of case labels within the 500 NGRL samples for the lowness of the sum of ranks of normalized numbers of reads supporting groups of splice junctions ranked from high to low and low to high, assigning the maximum rank in the event of ties. We grouped the splice junctions by dinucleotide pairs at the splice sites, quantile of GC content in the region encompassed by the splice junction and quantile of splice junction length. The numbers of reads for each sample were normalized by dividing by the total number of uniquely aligned reads supporting splice junctions genome-wide. To identify differentially spliced individual junctions, we also computed the mean ranks from low to high (assigning the average rank in the event of ties) of normalized splice junction usage across the five cases among the 500 samples for all the 905,036 selected junctions. The mean rank for the splice junction with the lowest mean rank (among the 87,067 splice junctions observed in at least 495 of the 500 samples) and highest mean rank (among all 905,036 splice junctions) was recorded. These values were then compared with equivalents for 500 randomly selected sets of five samples from among all 500 samples to assess whether there was at least one splice junction with extreme usage among the five RNU2-2 cases.
Further information on research design is available in the Nature Portfolio Reporting Summary linked to this article.
Genetic and phenotypic data for participants in the 100KGP study, 100KGP Pilot study and the GMS are available through the Genomics England Research Environment via the application at https://www.genomicsengland.co.uk/join-a-gecip-domain. WGS data from the NGRL were obtained for 78,132 100KGP participants, 4,054 100KGP Pilot participants and 32,030 GMS participants (v.3). RNA-seq data from the NGRL and corresponding quality control metrics were obtained for 5,546 participants of the 100KGP from the ‘transcriptome_file_paths_and_types' and ‘rnaseq_qc_metrics' tables (Main Programme v.18). Access to blood cell RNA-seq data generated by the NIHR BioResource can be requested by contacting the NIHR BioResource Data Access Committee at dac@bioresource.nihr.ac.uk. HPO phenotype data in the NGRL were obtained from the ‘rare_diseases_participant_phenotype' table (Main Programme v.14), ‘observation' table (GMS v.3) and ‘hpo' table (Rare Diseases Pilot v.3); specific disease class data from the ‘rare_diseases_participant_disease' table (Main Programme v.13); ICD-10 codes from the ‘hes_apc' table (Main Programme v.13); pedigree information from the ‘rare_diseases_pedigree_member' table (Main Programme v.13), ‘referral_participant' table (GMS v.3), and ‘pedigree' table (Rare Diseases Pilot v.3); and explained and/or unexplained status of cases from the ‘gmc_exit_questionnaire' tables (Main Programme v.18, GMS v.3). Ensembl v.104 (http://may2021.archive.ensembl.org/index.html), gnomAD v.3.0 (https://gnomad.broadinstitute.org/) and CADD v.1.6 (https://cadd.gs.washington.edu/) were used for transcript selection and variant annotation against reference genome GRCh38. A more recent version of gnomAD, v.4.1.0, was used to assign the variant allele frequencies in RNU2-2 shown in Fig. 1. Data presented in this paper were requested from the Genomics England Airlock on 13 August 2024 at 03:39 BST. The manuscript was submitted to the Genomics England Publication Committee on 21 August 2024 at 23:51 BST and approved for submission on 27 August 2024 at 15:52 BST.
Software packages rsvr v.1.0, bcftools v.1.16, samtools v.1.9/1.16.1 and Perl v.5 were used to build the 100KGP Rareservoir. The Rareservoir software is available from https://github.com/turrogroup/rsvr. R v.3.6.2 and v.4.3.3 and all R packages that were used for data analysis and visualization (Matrix v.1.2-18, dplyr v.0.8.5, bit64 v.0.9-7, bit v.1.1-14, DBI v.1.1.0, RSQLite v.2.1.4, BeviMed v.5.7, ontologyIndex v.2.12, ontologySimilarity v.2.7, ontologyPlot v.1.7, ggplot2 v.3.5.0, tximport v.1.32.0 and DESeq2 v.1.44) are available via the Comprehensive R Archive Network site (https://cran.r-project.org/) or Bioconductor (https://bioconductor.org). The ViennaRNA v.2.6.4, salmon v.1.10.0, seqkit v.2.9.0 and kallisto v0.51.1 packages can be installed via the conda package manager, available from https://anaconda.org/anaconda/conda.
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This research was made possible through access to data in the NGRL, which is managed by Genomics England Limited (a wholly owned company of the Department of Health and Social Care). The NGRL holds data provided by patients and collected by the NHS as part of their care and data collected as part of their participation in research. The NGRL is funded by the National Institute for Health Research and NHS England. The Wellcome Trust, Cancer Research UK and the Medical Research Council have also funded research infrastructure. We thank NIHR BioResource volunteers for their participation, and gratefully acknowledge NIHR BioResource centers, NHS Trusts and staff for their contribution. We thank the National Institute for Health and Care Research, NHS Blood and Transplant, and Health Data Research UK as part of the Digital Innovation Hub Programme. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care. The Barakat laboratory was supported by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (ZonMw Vidi, grant 09150172110002) and acknowledges support from EpilepsieNL and CURE Epilepsy. These funding bodies had no influence over the study design, results, data interpretation or final manuscript. We thank all participants and families involved in the programs ‘Infraestructura de Medicina de Precisión asociada a la Ciencia y la Tecnología en Medicina Genómica (IMPaCT-GENóMICA)' and ‘Programes de Malalties Rares no Diagnosticades de Catalunya i CIBERER (URDCat/ENoD-CIBERER)'. IMPaCT-GENóMICA was supported by Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación and the European Union European Regional Development Fund (IMP/00009) (principal investigator: Á.C.). URDCat was supported by the Department of Health of Catalonia (grant SLT002/16/00174) (principal investigator: L.A.P.-J.). The ENoD-CIBERER program was funded by the Biomedical Network Research Center for Rare Diseases-CIBER-ER-ISCIII (principal investigator: L.A.P.-J.). The ZOEMBA study was funded by Metakids and the United for Metabolic Diseases consortium, who thank M. Oud for bioinformatic support. K.F. was supported by Katholieke Universiteit (KU) Leuven Special Research Fund (BOF) (C14/23/121), Research Foundation – Flanders (G072921N) and NIH award R01HL161365. K.D.W. was supported by the Belgian American Education Foundation and NIH award R01HL161365. A.D.M. was supported by NIH award R01HL161365. D.G. and E.T. were supported by NIH awards R01HL161365 and R03HD111492, and E.T. was further supported by the Lowy Foundation USA.
These authors jointly supervised this work: Andrew D. Mumford, Ernest Turro.
Department of Medicine, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
Daniel Greene & Ernest Turro
Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA
Daniel Greene, Koenraad De Wispelaere & Ernest Turro
Department of Cardiovascular Sciences, Center for Molecular and Vascular Biology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
Koenraad De Wispelaere & Kathleen Freson
Bristol Medical School, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
Jon Lees & Andrew D. Mumford
Department of Clinical and Molecular Genetics, Hospital Universitari Vall d'Hebron, Barcelona, Spain
Marta Codina-Solà, Irene Valenzuela & Eduardo F. Tizzano
Medicine Genetics Group Vall d'Hebron Research Institute, Barcelona, Spain
Marta Codina-Solà, Irene Valenzuela & Eduardo F. Tizzano
deCODE genetics/Amgen Inc., Reykjavik, Iceland
Brynjar O. Jensson, Kari Stefansson & Patrick Sulem
NIHR BioResource, Cambridge University Hospitals, Cambridge, UK
Emma Hales, Andrea Katrinecz, Sonia Pascoal, Natasha P. Morgan & Kathy Stirrups
Department of Haematology, School of Clinical Medicine, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
Emma Hales, Andrea Katrinecz, Sonia Pascoal, Natasha P. Morgan & Kathy Stirrups
Andalusian Platform for Computational Medicine, Andalusian Public Foundation Progress and Health-FPS, Seville, Spain
Esther Nieto Molina
Department of Human Genetics, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, the Netherlands
Rolph Pfundt
Department of Clinical Genetics, Erasmus MC University Medical Center, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
Rachel Schot, Frank Sleutels, Sarina G. Kant & Tahsin Stefan Barakat
CIBER-ER (Biomedical Network Research Center for Rare Diseases), Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII), Madrid, Spain
Marta Sevilla Porras, Anna Duat Rodríguez, Elena González Alguacil, Irene Madrigal Bajo, Nelmar Valentina Ortiz Cabrera, Laia Rodríguez-Revenga Bodi, Ángel Carracedo, Pablo Lapunzina, Beatriz Morte & Luis Alberto Pérez-Jurado
Department of Medicine and Life Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain
Marta Sevilla Porras & Luis Alberto Pérez-Jurado
Department of Human Genetics, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, the Netherlands
Robin Wijngaard
Pediatric Department, Hospital San Pedro de Alcántara, Cáceres, Spain
Ignacio Arroyo Carrera & Deyanira García-Navas Núñez
Wessex Clinical Genetics Service, University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, Southampton, UK
Giles Atton & Nicola Foulds
Clinical Genetics Department and Institut de Recerca Sant Joan de Déu, Hospital Sant Joan de Déu, Esplugues de Llobregat, Spain
Didac Casas-Alba & Antonio F. Martinez-Monseny
Department of Medical Genetics, Belfast City Hospital, Belfast, UK
Deirdre Donnelly & Shane McKee
Genetics Department, Hospital Niño Jesús, Madrid, Spain
Anna Duat Rodríguez, Bárbara Fernández Garoz, Elena González Alguacil & Nelmar Valentina Ortiz Cabrera
Clinical Genetics Unit, Birmingham Women's Hospital, Birmingham, UK
Joanna Jarvis
Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics Department, Hospital Clinic of Barcelona and Institut de Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS), Barcelona, Spain
Irene Madrigal Bajo & Laia Rodríguez-Revenga Bodi
Neuropediatric Department, Pediatric Service, Hospital Universitario Marqués de Valdecilla, Santander, Spain
Andrea Sariego Jamardo
Faculty of Medicine, School of Health Sciences, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland
Kari Stefansson
Clinical Genetics, Nottingham University Hospital NHS Trust, Nottingham, UK
Mohnish Suri
Departments of Pediatrics and Human Genetics, Emma Center for Personalized Medicine, Amsterdam Gastro-Enterology Endocrinology Metabolism, Amsterdam University Medical Centers, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Clara Van Karnebeek
Clinical Genetics, University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, Leicester, UK
Pradeep Vasudevan
Genetics Department, Hospital Universitario Marqués de Valdecilla, Instituto de Investigación Valdecilla (IDIVAL), Santander, Spain
Ana Isabel Vega Pajares
Genomic Medicine Group, Center for Research in Molecular Medicine and Chronic Diseases, University of Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Ángel Carracedo
Galician Foundation of Genomic Medicine, IDIS, Galician Service of Health, Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Ángel Carracedo
Department of Pediatric Neurology, Amsterdam University Medical Centers, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Marc Engelen
Institute for Medical and Molecular Genetics (INGEMM), IdiPAZ, Madrid, Spain
Pablo Lapunzina
Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands
Patrick Rump
Neurology, Nottingham University Hospital NHS Trust, Nottingham, UK
Michael O'Donoghue
Genetics Service, Hospital del Mar and Hospital del Mar Research Institute, Barcelona, Spain
Luis Alberto Pérez-Jurado
NHS South West Genomic Medicine Service Alliance, Bristol, UK
Andrew D. Mumford
Mindich Child Health and Development Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA
Ernest Turro
Charles Bronfman Institute for Personalized Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA
Ernest Turro
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D.G. conducted statistical and bioinformatic analyses and cowrote the paper. K.D.W. analyzed RNA-seq data, generated expression scatterplots and made the illustration showing molecular interactions. J.L. modeled free energies of association. A.K. processed NBR RNA-seq data. S.P. performed PCR and Sanger sequencing. E.H. oversaw recruitment to the NBR RNA-seq project. M.C.-S., I.V. and E.F.T. designed primers, selected cases for sequencing and provided early access to detailed phenotype data on RNU4-2 cases for comparative analysis. I.V. summarized the vignettes in a table. R.S. and F.S. coordinated WGS of Erasmus MC cases. R.P. and P.R. provided data for the family that gave consent at Radboud UMC Nijmegen. R.W., C.V.K. and M.E. recruited and provided data for the ZOEMBA study participants. B.O.J., P.S. and K. Stefansson provided data for the deCODE study participant. G.A., T.S.B., D.D., N.F., J.J., S.G.K., S.M., M.O'D., M.S. and P.V. obtained consent and provided detailed phenotype information. I.A.C., D.C.-A., A.D.R., B.F.G., D.G.-N.N., E.G.A., I.M.B., A.F.M.-M., N.V.O.C., L.R.-R.B., A.S.J. and A.I.V.P. obtained consent from and provided clinical information on individuals recruited to the IMPaCT-GENóMICA, URDCat and ENoD-CIBERER programs. E.N.M. and M.S.P. were responsible for implementing the IMPaCT-GENóMICA, URDCat and ENoD-CIBERER programs under the supervision of Á.C., P.L., B.M. and L.A.P.-J. T.S.B. and M.O'D. also provided expert clinical interpretation. K. Stirrups and N.P.M. oversaw the NBR RNA-seq study. K.F. provided biological interpretation and cowrote the paper. A.D.M. coordinated clinical contacts, provided clinical and biological interpretation, and cowrote the paper. E.T. oversaw the study and cowrote the paper.
Correspondence to
Ernest Turro.
The authors affiliated with deCODE genetics/Amgen Inc. (B.O.J., K. Stefansson and P.S.) are employed by the company. The other authors declare no competing interests.
Nature Genetics thanks the anonymous reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work.
Publisher's note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Histograms of the posterior probability of association (PPA) between the 41,132 canonical Ensembl transcripts not annotated as being protein-coding and neurodevelopmental abnormality (NDA), with and without filtering out variants with a CADD v1.6 score <10. The CADD v1.6 scores for n.4 G > A, n.35 A > G and n.35 A > C were 7.7, 9.4 and 9.1, respectively. The more recent CADD v1.7 gives scores >10 for these variants.
Coverage of uniquely aligned RNA-seq reads from the whole blood of five RNU2-2 cases in the NGRL and in four blood cell types of an exemplar participant in the NBR demonstrating that RNU2-2 (previously annotated as the pseudogene RNU2-2P) is expressed abundantly in blood cells.
Assembly of the spliceosome A complex is initiated by binding of the intronic 5′ splice site (5′SS) to the U1 snRNA and the intronic branch site sequence to the U2-2 snRNA through Watson-Crick pairing of cognate ribonucleotides. The branch site sequence is depicted as the human YNYUNAY consensus motif (Y means C or T; N means any ribonucleotide), which interacts with the GUAGUA sequence at positions 33 to 38 in the U2-2 snRNA (depicted in red)20. The spliceosome pre-B complex is formed by incorporation of the U4/U6.U5 tri-small nuclear ribonucleoprotein (snRNP) complex that contains the U4, U5 and U6 snRNAs. This requires interactions between U5 snRNA and the 5′ and 3′ exons42 and further interactions between nucleotides near the 3′ end of the U6 snRNA and a cognate CGCUUCUCG sequence (nucleotides 3–11) close to the 5′ end of the U2-2 snRNA (depicted in blue)43. Tethering of U4/U6.U5 tri-snRNP to U2-2 within the spliceosome pre-B complex enables displacement of U1 to enable a new interaction between U6 snRNA with the 5′SS and reconfiguration of U4/U6.U5 tri-snRNP to form the catalytically active spliceosome B complex, which is a prerequisite for the splicing reaction44. The critical U6 snRNA region that interacts with the intronic 5′SS45 is maintained in correct orientation by conserved regions in the adjacent U4 snRNA (depicted in orange), which are the sites of destabilizing variants responsible for the recently described RNU4-2 syndrome9. The variants responsible for RNU2-2 syndrome occur at critical interaction sites between U2-2 snRNA near r.4 and U6 snRNA and between U2-2 snRNA near r.35 and intronic branch sites. These interactions are necessary for intron recognition and the correct assembly of the catalytically active spliceosome B complex46.
a, For each of the three rare variants at positions n.4 and n.35 of RNU2-2 called in the discovery collection, truncated bar charts showing the distribution of the proportions of reads supporting the alternate allele over participants, partitioned into 0% and all left-open intervals of size 4% up to 100%. In contrast to n.4 G > A and n.35 A > G, the reads in the eight participants with the n.35 A > T heterozygous call exhibit a strong skew in favor of the reference allele. Furthermore, seven participants with a homozygous reference call at n.35 have at least 8% of aligned reads at that position supporting the ‘T' allele, suggesting that n.35 A > T is not a germline variant, but rather a low-frequency somatic mosaic variant. b, Histogram of age at enrollment of participants in the discovery collection. The purple points show the age at enrollment of study participants with at least 8% of aligned reads supporting the ‘T' allele at n.35. These participants are significantly older than expected by chance (P = 1.3 × 10−3, Kolmogorov-Smirnoff test). To comply with Genomics England's rules on identifiability, all ages of at least 95 years are included in the same x = 95 bin. c, Sanger sequencing traces from an NDA case (in pedigree N1) with the n.4 G > A call, an unaffected participant with the n.35 A > T call, and a control with neither call, showing that n.4 G > A is a germline variant while n.35 A > T is a likely somatic mosaic variant.
a, Differential binding stability (ΔΔG) values between U2-2 and U6-1 for the A4 mutant allele compared to the reference G4 allele and between U2-2 and each of 16 branch site sequences consistent with the human YUNAY motif. Each of the substitutions reduces the predicted free energies of association relative to the corresponding reference allele. b, For each of the alleles observed at r.4 of RNU2-2 (the reference G4 and the mutant A4), a graphical representation of Watson-Crick interactions between the U6-interacting region in U2-2 (encompassing UCGCU at r.2–6) and the corresponding U6-1 snRNA region. Hydrogen bonding between cognate nucleotides is depicted with dotted lines. c, For each of the germline alleles observed at r.35 (the reference A35 and the mutant G35 and C35 alleles), a graphical representation of Watson-Crick interactions between the branch site recognition region in U2-2 (GUAG at n.33–36) and an example branch site sequence (CUUAU). Hydrogen bonding between cognate nucleotides is depicted with dotted lines.
Sequencing read pileups for cases identified in the replication collections. The reads supporting the reference allele are in blue and those supporting the variant allele are in red.
Coverage of RNA-seq reads from whole blood aligned to the genome near RNU2-2 in five cases. The coverage levels of reads containing alternate alleles at heterozygous sites are shown in red. The locations of the mutant alleles at n.4 and n.35 are indicated with green arrows. The aligned reads overlapping heterozygous sites show that both alleles are expressed robustly in the cases in pedigrees G6, M1 and S3. The cases in pedigrees G1 and G5 were heterozygous only at n.4, where coverage was too low to assess allele-specific expression.
a, Histogram of the number of differentially expressed genes controlling FDR at 0.05 with the Benjamini-Hochberg procedure for randomly selected sets of five from 500 RNA-seq samples (five cases with implicated variants in RNU2-2 and 495 unexplained unrelated NDD cases). The number of such genes for the five cases is shown with a red line. b, Histogram of the proportion of unique RNA-seq alignments that contain a splice junction in the 500 RNA-seq samples. The proportions corresponding to the samples from the five cases with implicated variants in RNU2-2 are shown with red bars. c, Histogram of the mean (over randomly selected sets of five samples) rank of normalized splice junction (SJ) usage of the splice junction with the lowest (left) and highest (right) mean rank. The red lines correspond to the lowest and highest mean ranks for the five RNU2-2 cases. d, One-sided P values obtained by permutation of case labels within the 500 NGRL samples for the lowness of the sum of ranks of normalized numbers of reads supporting groups of splice junctions ranked from high to low (the upward facing blue triangles) and low to high (the downward facing red triangles), assigning the maximum rank in the event of ties. The splice junctions were grouped by: dinucleotide pairs at the splice sites (for N ≥ 5), quantile of GC content in the region encompassed by the splice junction, and quantile of splice junction length. The dashed line at y = 0.05/102 indicates the P value significance threshold to control the family-wise error rate at 0.05.
Supplementary Note.
GRCh38 coordinates for the 41,132 canonical transcript entries in Ensembl v.104 with a biotype other than ‘protein_coding'.
Table summarizing the contents of the 15 clinical vignettes.
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Pursuit of honest and truthful decision-making is crucial for governance and accountability in democracies. However, people sometimes take different perspectives of what it means to be honest and how to pursue truthfulness. Here we explore a continuum of perspectives from evidence-based reasoning, rooted in ascertainable facts and data, at one end, to intuitive decisions that are driven by feelings and subjective interpretations, at the other. We analyse the linguistic traces of those contrasting perspectives in congressional speeches from 1879 to 2022. We find that evidence-based language has continued to decline since the mid-1970s, together with a decline in legislative productivity. The decline was accompanied by increasing partisan polarization in Congress and rising income inequality in society. The results highlight the importance of evidence-based language in political decision-making.
Honesty and truthfulness underpin accountability, transparency and informed decision-making in democratic societies. A collective commitment to truth cultivates discourse grounded in empirical evidence and fosters social cohesion through a shared understanding of reality1. In many democracies, there is currently much concern about ‘truth decay'2: the blurring of the boundary between fact and fiction3, not only fuelling polarization but also undermining public trust in institutions3,4.
We adopt a framework that distinguishes two rhetorical approaches with which politicians can express their pursuit of truth5,6,7,8. One approach, which we call evidence-based, pursues truth by relying on evidence, facts, data and other elements of external reality. An alternative approach, called intuition-based, pursues truth by relying on feelings, instincts, personal values and other elements drawn mainly from a person's internal experiences. Productive democratic discourse balances between evidence-based and intuition-based conceptions of truth. While evidence-based discourse provides a foundation for ‘reasoned' debate, intuition contributes emotional and experiential dimensions that can be critical for exploring and resolving societal issues. However, although the mix of evidence-based and intuition-based pathways to truth ranges along a continuum, exclusive reliance on intuition may prevent productive political debate because evidence and data can no longer adjudicate between competing political positions and eventually lead to an agreement. Here, we examine these developments by analysing the basic conceptions of truth that politicians deploy in political speech. We are not concerned with the truth value of individual assertions but with how the pursuit of truth is reflected in political rhetoric.
We apply computational text analysis9,10 to measure the relative prevalence of evidence-based and intuition-based language in 145 years of speeches on the floor of the US Congress. The conceptions of truth used in congressional rhetoric are relevant to various measures of political and societal welfare. We analyse congressional rhetoric in relation to two likely drivers of democratic backsliding11: partisan polarization and income inequality. Polarization, characterized by growing ideological divisions and partisan animosity, undermines constructive dialogue, hampers compromise and erodes trust in political institutions, ultimately weakening democratic processes12,13. Previous research underscores the link between political polarization and language use, highlighting the influence of ideological divisions on communication patterns and political behaviour14,15. Economic inequality is also negatively associated with various individual and social outcomes16. For example, individuals in environments characterized by high inequality tend to project individualistic norms onto society17. This fosters greater competition and reduces cooperation, which, in turn, may damage democracy11. Polarization can play a role in increasing inequality through lower congressional productivity18, which could be affected by a shift from evidence-based language to intuition-based language in congressional rhetoric. This motivates our analysis of congressional rhetoric in congressional productivity, as assessed through the quantity and quality of enacted laws over time19,20.
Our analysis involves 8 million congressional speech transcripts between 1879 and 2022. Details on preprocessing of the corpus can be found in the Methods. We measure the relative salience of evidence-based language over intuition-based language as the evidence-minus-intuition (EMI) score, building on a text analysis approach that combines dictionaries with word embeddings to represent documents and concepts10 as used in previous work on political communication21,22. We constructed dictionaries to capture evidence-based and intuition-based language styles that underlie the two conceptions of truth (for example ‘fact' and ‘proof' in the evidence-based dictionary and ‘guess' and ‘believe' in the intuition-based dictionary; see the Methods for the full dictionaries). We adopt the approach for construction and validation of dictionaries used in22 (see the Methods for details). Our final dictionaries consist of 49 keywords for evidence-based language and 35 keywords for intuition-based language (see Methods). We use a Word2Vec embeddings model9 that we train on the congressional speeches. This approach converts each conception of truth into a vector representation by averaging the embeddings of the corresponding dictionary keywords. Similarly, the target text is represented as the average word embeddings of content words. We quantify the EMI score as the difference between cosine similarities of the text being analysed and the two dictionaries. A positive EMI score indicates a higher prevalence of evidence-based language (Supplementary Table 1), whereas a negative score suggests reliance on intuition-based language (Supplementary Table 2). See the Methods for further details, including validation of the EMI score against human ratings.
Figure 1a shows the trend of EMI score over time, reflecting the relative prevalence of evidence-based language. EMI was high and relatively stable from 1875 through the early part of the twentieth century. Subsequently, an upward trend from the 1940s culminated in a peak in the mid-1970s. Since then, evidence-based language has been on the decline. We also include a plot showing the trends of the evidence and intuition scores in the Supplementary Note 3 (Supplementary Fig. 2).
a–d, Time series of the EMI score in each congressional session between 1879 and 2022 (a), EMI scores separated by party (b), congressional polarization and inequality (c) and congressional productivity, measured as the MLI and the number of public laws passed by each session (d). We compute bootstrapping 95% CIs for EMI with 10,000 samples, which may appear too small to be visible owing to the large sample size.
However, notable dips in EMI also occurred during the early, stable period: the 56th Congress (from 1899 to 1901) has the historically lowest EMI score before the 1970s, closely followed by the 73rd Congress (from 1933 to 1935). These two periods align with notable historical events. In the 1890s, the USA experienced the Gilded Age, marked by rapid industrialization and economic growth, but also social unrest and increasing economic inequality. The 1930s were marked by the Great Depression during which the country faced high unemployment, widespread poverty and social upheaval. These economic and social upheavals probably influenced the language used in Congress during these periods. The profound impact of these events might have led to a greater emphasis on intuition-based language, consonant with previous research that has documented shifts in language use among individuals facing stressful situations23 as well as among political leaders confronted with crises24,25. An examination of a sample of speeches with low EMI scores in specific periods shows a tendency to focus on the crisis of the time (see Supplementary Table 3 for illustrative examples).
Focusing on the period past 1970, one striking observation is that the level of EMI has recently fallen to its historical minimum, following a decreasing linear trend that started in the peak session of 1975–1976 (b = −0.032, P < 0.001, R2 = 0.927). Figure 1b illustrates the temporal trend of the EMI score for Democrats and Republicans separately. There is a strong positive correlation between the EMI scores for both parties (Pearson's r = 0.778, 95% confidence interval (CI) = [0.666, 0.855], P < 0.005). We observe some divergence between parties in the early periods. However, since the mid-70s, both parties have moved largely in the same downward direction in their rhetoric. The same pattern holds for both parties across the House and Senate (Supplementary Fig. 3). It is, however, noticeable that the EMI of Republicans dropped substantially, and more steeply than for Democrats, in the last session (2021–2022). A Mann–Whitney test shows that the difference in median EMI score (−0.435 for Democrats and −0.753 for Republicans) is significant (P < 0.001).
To exclude a dependence of the trend observed in Fig. 1a on topic composition of the speeches, we aggregate the EMI score by taking a macroaverage over topics such that topics have equal weighting. The results of this approach show a very similar trend (Supplementary Note 10).
To address potential concerns about semantic change over the extended timescale of this study, we perform an analysis of the stability of the meaning of dictionary keywords and also compute the EMI score using temporal embeddings. The results (Supplementary Note 11) show that the meanings of the keywords are relatively stable over time, and the trend of the EMI score computed using temporal embeddings aligns closely with Fig. 1a.
Turning to the potential correlates of the observed trends, Fig. 1c shows partisan polarization in Congress over time, measured as the difference between the first dimension of DW-NOMINATE (Dynamic Weighted NOMINAl Three-step Estimation) scores26,27 for the two major parties averaged across the House and Senate. It is important to clarify that the political polarization indicator used in this study, DW-NOMINATE, measures polarization using voting behaviour within a legislative context. However, polarization is a complex and multifaceted concept with various definitions and indicators, including affective polarization, issue polarization and perceived polarization. Additional indicators can also be derived from computational text analysis, as well as from opinion, structural and interactional dynamics. Exploring these alternative measures is beyond the scope of the current study.
Figure 1c also includes the trend of income inequality28 using the share of pretax income of the top 1% of the population (source: https://wid.world/). The recent decline of EMI is accompanied by a corresponding upward trend in partisan polarization in Congress and rising income inequality in society, which is statistically supported as follows.
EMI and polarization are negatively cross-correlated (Pearson's r = −0.615, 95% CI = [−0.741, −0.447], P < 0.005), and a lagged correlation analysis shows that lag zero has the highest correlation (Supplementary Fig. 6a). Supplementary Fig. 5 also depicts the relationship. When included in lagged regression models, EMI does not explain a significant amount of the empirical variance of polarization, but polarization has a significant coefficient in the EMI model (b = −0.15, 95% CI = [−0.29, −0.01], P < 0.05). Refer to the Methods section for details of the regression results.
EMI values are informative of future inequality. Figure 2 shows the historical values of inequality as a function of EMI in the previous session, that is, the previous two years (Pearson's r = −0.948, 95% CI = [−0.973, −0.902], P < 0.001). A lagged correlation analysis shows that the strongest correlations appear when EMI precedes inequality (Supplementary Fig. 6b).
The shaded area shows the 95% CI of a locally estimated scatterplot smoothing (LOESS) fit, and labels indicate the year corresponding to the inequality measurement.
This is buttressed by a lagged regression model including the level of inequality, polarization and EMI from the previous session, as well as their interaction. The results of that fit in comparison with an autoregressive (AR) model reveal a negative coefficient of EMI with inequality 2 years later (b = −0.11, 95% CI [−0.20, −0.02]). Details of these models are in the Methods section. The interaction with polarization is not significant and weak enough for the slope of EMI to stay negative (Supplementary Fig. 7). These regression results are robust to other specifications of the analysis, for example, when using the Gini index instead of the top 1% share of income (restricted to the time since full income data became available), when using all available data since 1912 and when considering a longer lag for polarization (Supplementary Table 4).
Evidence-based language can be a tool to identify factual constraints for Congress to formulate legislation, which often requires some form of bipartisan agreement. We examine the relationship between EMI and congressional productivity as measured by three indicators. First is the major legislation index (MLI)19 which measures the productivity of Congress in terms of important legislation. Second is the legislative productivity index (LPI)19, which combines assessments of important legislation and number of laws enacted. Third is the count of the number of laws passed by each session of Congress20 without considering their significance. Previous research analyses congressional productivity as a function of polarization, party composition in the legislature and executive branch19 and public mood towards more regulation as measured in surveys29. From these indicators, polarization and public mood towards regulation are the most important predictors, explaining a significant amount of the variance of productivity over time19.
Figure 3 shows the relationship between all three congressional productivity metrics and EMI measured in the same session. All three cases have positive and significant correlations (MLI: Pearson's r = 0.454, 95% CI = [0.09, 0.711], P < 0.05; LPI: Pearson's r = 0.836, 95% CI = [0.667, 0.923], P < 0.001; log-transformed number of laws: Pearson's r = 0.796, 95% CI = [0.633, 0.891], P < 0.001). However, polarization and public mood about regulation play an important role in congressional productivity, which is shown by the colour of the plotting symbols in Fig. 3. Points representing high public mood (blue) tend to lie above the regression line, and points with low public mood (red) tend to lie below. For that reason, we fitted the base models of ref. 19 and tested if adding the EMI of a session has a positive association with the LPI. The results (see Methods for details) reveal that, after controlling for known correlates in productivity and for an interaction between polarization and EMI, the coefficient of EMI is positive and significant for MLI (b = 0.67, 95% CI = [0.14, 1.20], P < 0.05) and LPI (b = 0.83, 95% CI = [0.40, 1.26], P < 0.05), and positive for the number of laws but not statistically significant (P < 0.1). We see this as an indication that EMI plays a role in congressional productivity, with the association being more salient when considering major legislation in comparison with minor laws where parliamentary debate might not play a bigger role.
Points are coloured according to public mood towards regulation during the legislative period. The grey lines represent linear regression models of each productivity variable as a function of EMI alone, and the shaded areas indicate the 95% CIs for the regression fits.
We introduce an approach for quantifying the conception of truth that members of Congress embrace and deploy in their rhetoric. Using embedded dictionaries in conjunction with embedding of congressional speeches, we calculate and validate the EMI score from transcripts of congressional speeches spanning the years 1879–2022. The EMI score reflects the prevalence of evidence-based language when positive and intuition-based language when negative. We study the temporal trends of the EMI score and investigate its relationships with measures of polarization and inequality as well as congressional productivity.
We find that EMI shows a pattern of relative stability until the 1940s, which is followed by a clear upward trajectory that reached a maximum in the 1970s. Since then, EMI trends downwards, indicating a decline in the prevalence of evidence-based language for both parties. The degree of synchronization in the linguistic styles used by both Democrats and Republicans during this period points to their alignment around messaging strategies30.
We examine the decline in EMI in relation to three outcome variables that are indicative of democratic health and find a concerning association in all cases: a decline in evidence-based language is associated with increasing polarization and increasing income inequality but decreased congressional productivity. The temporal sequence of those trends differs between variables. For polarization, the strongest association with EMI is greatest at lag zero, and we find that polarization is a significant predictor of EMI, but not vice versa. This suggests that polarization and politicians' rhetoric evolve in tandem. By contrast, EMI precedes shifts in income inequality, such that a stronger emphasis on evidence-based reasoning is associated with subsequent reduction in income inequality whereas greater reliance on intuition seems to be associated with the persistence of existing social disparities. This finding aligns with existing research on language and social inequality31, which underscores how language patterns have consequences for understanding social issues and may either promote or inhibit necessary changes. Intuition-based language may help to explain the relationship between polarization and inequality, as it is linked to legislative inaction and can hinder policies that address income inequality through redistribution18.
Finally, the association of evidence-based language with congressional productivity is again contemporaneous. In the Habermasian view of communicative action32, evidence-based language serves as the foundation for ‘reasoned' debates and can steer discussions away from personal and political hostilities. In this communicative process, evidence-based language serves as a tool to establish a shared understanding of the state of the world and contributes to the formulation of well-informed decisions. The positive correlation that we observe in our study between the EMI score and legislative productivity (in terms of quality and quantity) is in line with this viewpoint.
The observed patterns in congressional language are the result of a complex interplay of various factors, some of which are unique to the political and societal context of the USA. One contributing factor to these patterns is the control exerted by party leadership over who speaks on the congressional floor33, potentially shaping the content and tone of speeches. This control mechanism is likely to influence the language used by congressional members in aligning with the strategic objectives of their party. In addition to the influence exerted by party leaders, members of Congress may find themselves compelled to cater to their base, encompassing constituents, donors and lobbyists, particularly in a highly polarized environment driven by partisanship34.
Modifications to congressional rules and procedures, particularly around the length of debates, can influence the breadth and depth of discussions on the congressional floor. For example, the introduction of the ‘cloture' rule in the Senate in 1917 provided a mechanism to limit debate time and expedite legislative processes. Before this, there was no formal method to end a debate or force a vote on an issue, which allowed extended deliberations. While such rules may improve efficiency, they can also shorten discussions and potentially limit the richness of legislative debates. The evolving nature of congressional rules and procedures can influence the characteristics of discourse on the congressional floor over time.
Presidents have increasingly sought to expand their powers, often justified by their role as commander-in-chief, particularly during crises or in an attempt to unilaterally advance their policy agendas35. Mechanisms such as executive orders and the creation of administrative agencies under presidential control have facilitated this expansion. While some of these actions are supported by congressional authorization, the steady accumulation of executive power may have implications for the legislative branch. This expansion may limit the sphere of influence of Congress, potentially reducing its role to rubber-stamping presidential initiatives. Conversely, it can also lead to tensions and heightened oversight efforts by Congress on activities of the executive branch and agencies. The balance of power between the executive and legislative branches can shape the nature and focus of congressional discourse.
Furthermore, the impact of media on politicians, particularly their adoption of media logic36, introduces an additional dimension to the nature of political representation. This influence could be amplified by the live coverage of proceedings through the C-SPAN (first introduced in the House in 1979 and then in the Senate in 1986). In an era characterized by increasing polarization, politicians might find themselves driven to embrace a perpetual campaign style of representation37, transforming congressional speeches into orchestrated performances aimed at capturing media attention. Consequently, this shift may result in a reduced focus on meaningful intellectual discourse and nuanced policy discussions within the legislative body. This interpretation meshes well with a recent analysis of the Twitter/X communications of US Congress members from 2011 to 2022, which similarly differentiated between evidence-based ‘fact-speaking' and authentic ‘belief-speaking' as alternative expressions of honesty22. That study discovered an association between the prevalence of authentic belief-speaking and a decrease in the quality of shared sources in tweets, particularly among Republicans. This suggests a potential link between belief-based language and the dissemination of low-quality information to the public.
The findings presented in this study highlight important correlational associations. The absence of causal evidence underscores the need for future research to further establish definitive causal relationships.
We have highlighted concerning trends in Congress where evidence-based language is declining and partisan polarization is increasing. The decline in the quality and quantity of legislative output at a time of multiple global crises should be of concern. On a more positive note, understanding the complex relationship between the language of political discourse and partisan polarization points to avenues for interventions focused on fostering more constructive and productive debate. Initiatives such as those promoting collaboration and communication across partisan boundaries38 can contribute to rebuilding a more robust democratic discourse. Ultimately, the challenge lies in having a Congress (and, by extension, a deliberative public) where truth is valued, polarization is in check and legislative outcomes reflect the diverse needs of the citizens.
We initially rely on the dataset compiled by Gentzkow et al.39 and supplement it with recent data obtained by accessing the congressional records' website using an automated script40. The dataset includes essential metadata such as speaker information (including party) and dates. The dataset consists of 14,153,443 speeches spanning the congressional sessions of 1879–2022. To ensure the quality of our dataset, we use a number of preprocessing steps. First, we remove procedural speeches. Procedural speeches are speeches delivered by members of Congress that mainly deal with the rules and procedures that govern legislative proceedings. These may include discussions on amendments to rules, requests for unanimous consent, or the announcement of votes. We train three classifiers, following the methodology outlined by Card et al.41, to identify procedural speeches. We remove procedural speeches by using a majority vote ensemble of the classifiers.
In general, the congressional record is of high quality. However, in the earlier years, it contains some instances of optical character recognition errors that result in unintelligible content (for example, in the rendering of a table). To mitigate the potential noise from lengthy speeches that consist mainly of lists of names or numbers, we use a filtering mechanism. This filter evaluates the ratio of common (top 100) English words (for example, ‘the', ‘and' and ‘is') to the total token length of a speech. We set a threshold of 0.05, ensuring that speeches with substantive content are retained for further analysis. We keep speeches that are attributed to members of the two major parties. We filter out speeches with fewer than 11 tokens and remove duplicate entries. Our final dataset consists of 8,435,769 speeches with an average length of approximately 199 tokens. Speeches made by Democrats account for 53% of the dataset and 47% of speeches are by Republicans. Supplementary Fig. 1 shows the number of speeches for each congressional session across both chambers (House and Senate) from 1879 to 2022. The number of speeches for each session varies. Nevertheless, there is a substantial amount of speeches available, with at least 35,000 speeches for each session, to enable a reliable analysis. To facilitate further analysis, we split longer speeches (consisting of more than 150 tokens) into chunks of approximately 150 tokens each. We set a minimum chunk size of 50 tokens, such that a chunk smaller than the minimum size is merged with the immediately preceding chunk.
We start with seed keywords, one for each conception of truth, generated by the researchers involved in this work. The goal is to capture linguistic cues that may signal the pursuit of truth in a speaker. Initial keywords for evidence-based language include ‘reality', ‘assess', ‘examine', ‘evidence', ‘fact', ‘truth' and ‘proof'. For intuition-based language, the initial keywords include ‘believe', ‘opinion', ‘consider', ‘feel', ‘intuition' and ‘common sense'. We expand these lists computationally using a combination of fastText embeddings42 and Colexification networks43. Using fastText embeddings, we expand the seed words by including those words with a cosine similarity score above 0.75. Colexification networks connect words within a language on the basis of their common translations across other languages, thus identifying words that express related concepts. For instance, the words ‘air' and ‘breath' are considered colexifications because they translate into the same word in multiple languages. Incorporating colexification networks into lexicon expansion results in word lists with a better trade-off between precision and recall compared with methods relying solely on word embeddings44. We filter the expanded lists by removing duplicates and terms appearing in both categories. In addition, we retain only one variant of lemma inflections (for example, ‘investigate', ‘investigates' and ‘investigated'). Following the same approach used in ref. 22, we then recruited participants on Prolific to rate each keyword on their representativeness on two scales, one for evidence-based and one for intuition-based language. We then keep only words rated as statistically more representative for their respective construct than the other. We received ethics approval from the University of Bristol for the validation of words included in the dictionaries. Informed consent was obtained from all participants before their participation in the annotation task. The annotation task was performed in accordance with relevant ethical guidelines and regulations.
Our final dictionaries consist of 49 keywords for evidence-based language and 35 keywords for intuition-based language (Table 1). The difference in the number of keywords is not a concern in our approach, because we use the distributed dictionary representation method10, which effectively normalizes the impact of varying keyword counts by representing each dictionary with a single vector. This ensures a consistent measure of evidence-based and intuition-based language, enabling meaningful comparisons across both constructs.
In our methodology, we start by training 300-dimensional word embeddings using the Word2Vec9 algorithm on the corpus of congressional speeches. We use the Gensim library45. Word2Vec is an algorithm that generates dense vector representations of words, known as word embeddings. The rationale behind using Word2Vec lies in its ability to capture semantic relationships among words by representing them in a continuous vector space. This algorithm learns to predict the context of a word on the basis of its surrounding words or vice versa. The resulting word embeddings encode semantic similarities, making them valuable for computational analysis of language.
Following this, we compute a representation for the concepts of interest by averaging the word embeddings for the relevant keywords in the respective dictionaries for evidence-based and intuition-based language. For a given text, we compute its representation by taking the average of the word embeddings for its content words. This representation allows a graded measure of relatedness to each construct as we can calculate the cosine similarity between each construct representation and the representation of a given target text that is computed in the same manner.
To generate the representations and compute cosine similarities, we use the sentence-transformers library46, leveraging our trained Word2Vec model. This approach offers efficiency and effectiveness in capturing the semantic content of textual data. This set-up allows us to obtain textual embeddings with minimal computational resources and ensures the scalability of our analysis.
To address variations in the length of speeches, we perform length adjustments for the cosine similarities. This involves binning the similarities by length and subtracting the mean similarity within each bin from the cosine similarity of each instance. Subsequently, we apply a Z-transform to the cosine similarities to derive the evidence and intuition scores. Finally, we obtain the EMI score by subtracting the intuition score from the evidence score. A positive EMI score indicates a higher prevalence of evidence-based language, whereas a negative score suggests a reliance on intuition-based language. Supplementary Tables 1 and 2 contain illustrative examples of speeches with positive and negative EMI scores, respectively. For further analysis, we take the mean of the EMI score per 2-year period, corresponding to the typical duration of congressional sessions. For completeness, we also include a plot of the trends for each of the component scores (Supplementary Fig. 2).
Given the extended timescale of this study, concerns may arise about semantic change and the possibility that the embeddings model relies mostly on more recent data. To address these concerns, we train temporal embeddings on two-decade slices of the speeches and downsample the data to ensure comparable token counts across time periods. We conduct an analysis on the stability of the semantics of dictionary keywords and compute the EMI score using the resulting temporal embeddings. The results (Supplementary Note 11) show that the semantics of the keywords remain relatively stable over time and that the trend of the EMI score is qualitatively similar to Fig. 1a.
We split the EMI score into four bins per decade. We sample five (four for the most recent decade) (quasi)sentences from each bin per party (Democrats versus Republicans) and decade, resulting in a sample of size 592. We ask participants on Prolific to rate to what extent a given text is evidence-based and intuition-based (or evidence-free) on two Likert scales ranging from 1 to 7. We received an ethics review exemption from the University of Konstanz ethics review board for the annotation task used to validate the EMI score. Informed consent was obtained from all participants before their participation in the annotation task. The annotation task was performed in accordance with relevant ethical guidelines and regulations. Each text has at least five ratings. We collected a total of 4,563 human ratings from 156 participants. The average number of ratings provided by each participant is 29 (with a minimum of 11 and maximum of 30). As the average of the ratings for each scale are negatively correlated at the document level (−0.85, P < 0.001), we derive human judgement by assigning a label of evidence-based if the average evidence-based rating is greater than the average intuition-based rating; otherwise, we classify the item as intuition-based. Annotators have relatively high levels of agreement. Sampling five annotations at random for each text, the intraclass correlation for the mean of the difference between the evidence-based and intuition-based scales is 0.714 (95% CI = [0.675, 0.749]).
We calculate the area under the curve (AUC) of the receiver operating characteristics curve as the evaluation metric following previous work that used classification metrics21,22. We compute the AUC score per decade and for all samples. The AUC is a measure of the reliability of our computed EMI score, with a score of 1 indicating perfect accuracy and 0.5 representing performance equivalent to random chance. Our method achieves an overall AUC of 0.79 across decades, ranging from 0.60 to 0.94 (Table 2). Compared with the random baseline AUC of 0.5, our method demonstrates acceptable to excellent discrimination levels47.
Supplementary Table 3 presents examples of speeches with low EMI score (in the bottom 1%) in periods with overall low EMI scores in Fig. 1a. Consistent with previous research23,24,25 that highlighted changes in the language of individuals and political leaders during crises, these examples suggest a tendency for discussions about the crisis of the time to rely more on intuition-based language rather than evidence-based language.
Supplementary Fig. 3 shows the trend of EMI by party in both chambers of the US Congress over time. The trends follow a similar pattern to the one observed for the overall EMI score in the main text in Fig. 1a,b.
We fit time series as linear regression models that include lagged dependent variables to consider autocorrelation. For each time series, we fit AR models with increasing lags up to a point in which the quality of models does not improve with additional lags. In all cases we report, inclusion of one lag generated the best univariate AR model. We next extend these models with other variables including EMI and other covariates. We measure variance inflation factors (VIFs) of the independent variables of the models and include interaction terms when any of the covariates, excluding the lagged dependent variable, has a VIF above 10. After fitting a model specified in this way, we measure standard errors and P values with a heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation (HAC)-adjusted estimator. We assess the stationarity of residuals with augmented Dickey–Fuller (ADF) tests and Kwiatkowski–Phillips–Schmidt–Shin (KPSS) tests, and the normality of residual distributions with Jarque–Bera (JB) tests. Models generally passed these regression diagnostics, being able to reject the null hypothesis of the ADF test at a 0.05 level and failing to reject the null of the KPSS and JB tests at a 0.1 level. We report here any relevant cases where those diagnostics are different.
In our primary analysis of inequality, we consider the fraction of income of the top 1% from 1944, which is the year when tax declaration exemption rules qualitatively changed and led to more reliable inequality metrics48. We assessed the robustness of our results with alternative specifications, namely using the Gini index (from https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/historical-income-inequality.html) in the same period and using the full record of the share of income of the top 1% from 1912.
We add one more specification to robustly test how the role of polarization influences our results about EMI and inequality. A lagged correlation analysis between inequality and polarization indicates that the correlation between these two is strongest when considering a lag of eight legislative sessions (Supplementary Fig. 6c). To consider this longer lag, we fitted an additional regression model of inequality with EMI and the previous value of inequality, but with the value of polarization eight sessions prior. Results of this fit are reported in Supplementary Table 4.
The session with the highest EMI score is 1975–1976, with a score of 0.358, closely followed by the previous session with an EMI score of 0.355 but substantially higher than the mean session, which has a slightly negative EMI of −0.017. The peak EMI is more than two standard deviations (s.d.) above the mean of the historical distribution (s.d. 0.174). From that peak, a downward trend is noticeable and is confirmed by a linear regression model of the form
The fit has an intercept a = 0.258 and a slope b = −0.032, both with P < 0.001. The model has R2 = 0.927, and the fit can be seen in Supplementary Fig. 4. This is further corroborated by breakpoint analyses (Supplementary Note 12) that identified the session 1973–1974 (the session before 1975–1976) as a breakpoint.
To measure partisan polarization in Congress, we use the first dimension of the DW-NOMINATE score26, which measures the ideological position of members of Congress derived from their roll-call votes. The difference in aggregate score for the two major parties reflects the extent to which they differ ideologically. A higher difference in the first dimension indicates a greater ideological distance or polarization between the parties. A lower difference suggests a closer alignment in their ideological positions. We use the DW-NOMINATE data from Voteview27, which offers a comprehensive and widely used resource for studying the ideological landscape and partisan dynamics within the US Congress.
To understand the relationship between EMI and polarization (scatter plot in Supplementary Fig. 5), we fitted lagged regression models of the form
and compared them with AR models ignoring the other variable. Results of the fits (Table 3) show that polarization does not have a significant coefficient in the EMI model and that the polarization model has a significant negative coefficient for EMI, but of small magnitude compared with the AR coefficient of EMI. A KPSS test of residuals in this model rejects the null hypothesis (P = 0.036), but an ADF test also rejects the null (P = 0.02). While residuals deviate a bit from being stationary, we use HAC covariance matrix estimation and residuals do not significantly deviate from normality, as a JB test is not significant (P = 0.645).
To measure income inequality, we use the share of pretax income of the top 1% of the population28. The data are from the world inequality database (https://wid.world/). A lagged correlation analysis shows that the strongest correlation between EMI and inequality has a lag 2, where EMI precedes inequality (Supplementary Fig. 6b). Inequality is also known to be correlated with polarization18, which we also observe in our lagged correlation analysis in Supplementary Fig. 6c. For that reason, we study the role of EMI in inequality while considering polarization, as EMI and polarization are negatively cross-correlated. The VIF of a specification including lagged measures of inequality, EMI and polarization is 9.67, indicating that we need to include an interaction term between EMI and polarization. Thus, our model has the form
We compare this model with a simple AR model including lagged values of inequality and polarization. The results are presented in Table 4. The lagged value of EMI has a negative and significant coefficient on inequality, and the interaction with polarization is not significant. Knowing the EMI in one session improves the prediction of inequality in the 2-year period that follows. The interaction between EMI and polarization, while positive, does not lead to an important mediation in the role of EMI, as shown in Supplementary Fig. 7a. Residuals in this model are stationary (ADF P = 0.022, KSPP P > 0.1) and do not deviate from normality (JB P = 0.822).
The results of our analysis of inequality remain qualitatively similar with different specifications for the decisions we took in our analysis above. Supplementary Table 4 presents the results, where the first model uses the Gini index as a measure of inequality. In this specification, the VIF of predictors is 13.17, indicating the need for inclusion of an interaction term between polarization and EMI. The coefficient of EMI is negative and significant, but it has a significant positive interaction with polarization. Supplementary Fig. 7b shows the shape of this interaction, revealing that high levels of polarization do not reverse the direction of association with EMI. Residuals in this model are stationary (ADF P < 0.01, KPSS P > 0.1) and do not deviate from normality (JB P = 0.343). The second model uses the share of income of the top 1% of the population but includes less reliable data since 1912. In this model, the VIF is 3.175, but we keep the interaction term between polarization and EMI for comparability to other models. The result is similar as for the case using the Gini index: the coefficient for EMI is negative and significant, but the interaction with polarization is positive and significant. Supplementary Fig. 7c shows the shape of this interaction, where high levels of polarization do not reverse the slope of inequality with EMI. Residuals in this model are stationary (ADF P < 0.01, KPSS P = 0.09) but deviate from normality (JB P < 0.01). For that reason, we performed a bootstrapping test on the coefficient of EMI with 10,000 samples, which indicates that the negative coefficient for EMI is robust to non-normal residuals (95% CI = [−0.34, −0.13]). The model with a longer lag for polarization also has a high VIF of 10.02, motivating the inclusion of the interaction between EMI and polarization. Residuals are stationary (ADF P < 0.01, KPSS P > 0.1) and do not deviate from normality (JB P = 0.716). In this model, the coefficient of EMI is also negative and significant, and the interaction between polarization and EMI is significant only at the 0.1 level. Supplementary Fig. 7d shows the shape of this interaction, revealing the same pattern in which, even for high polarization, the slope of EMI is negative.
Following the specification of ref. 19, we fit a base model of three congressional productivity indices (MLI, LPI and log-transformed number of laws) as a function of the lagged dependent variable, polarization, policy mood and two indicator variables for whether the same party controls both the presidency and the majority in Congress and for a change in this variable. We extend this model by adding the EMI score of the same session in which productivity is measured. Thus, our model is for each variable Y (MLI, LPI and log laws)
Note that, in this model specification, we use the EMI in the same session as the congressional productivity metric, as we aim to identify a correlation between variables that is robust to the known associations with other indicators. Table 5 presents regression results. Across the three models, explanatory variables reached VIF values up to 12.98, so we included an interaction term between polarization and EMI. Tests of stationarity of residuals had lower significance due to the smaller sample sizes (ADF P = 0.26 for MLI, P = 0.07 for LPI and P = 0.03 for number of laws), but KPSS tests were not significant in all three cases (P > 0.1) and JB tests were not significant either (P > 0.5). These small deviations from stationarity of residuals are corrected with the HAC covariance estimator.
While our analysis of productivity includes the important variable of mood, data on public policy mood are available only since the 1950s, as they were collected via surveys. To analyse further the role of EMI in productivity, we adopt the approach of ref. 19, using the logarithm of the number of patents (from https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/h_counts.htm) approved during each session as an approximation of public mood regarding regulation. While this is an imperfect approximation, it allows us to study a much longer period, dating back to the nineteenth century. Thus, for each dependent variable, we now have models of the form
where npatents(t) represents the logarithm of the number of patents approved during the congressional session t. Covariates in this model have VIF up to 7.67 (LPI), and therefore we include an interaction term between EMI and Pol in each model. Results are presented in Supplementary Table 5. Residuals were approximately stationary, with significant ADF tests for MLI (P = 0.014) and number of laws (P = 0.01), and significant at the 0.1 level for LPI (P = 0.09). KPSS tests were not significant for all three models (P > 0.1), and JB tests were not significant for LPI (P = 0.33) and number of laws (P = 0.52). For MLI, a JB test was significant (P < 0.01), indicating non-normal residuals. For that reason, we performed a bootstrap test with 10,000 samples, which gave a 95% CI for the coefficient of EMI of [0.026, 0.214], indicating that the significant coefficient of the MLI model is robust to deviations from normality in the residuals. The coefficients of interaction terms between EMI and polarization are not significant and the coefficient for EMI is significant only for MLI, while it is not for LPI nor the number of laws.
Further information on research design is available in the Nature Portfolio Reporting Summary linked to this article.
Congressional speeches are available at https://data.stanford.edu/congress_text (ref. 39) and https://www.govinfo.gov/ (retrieved using https://github.com/unitedstates/congressional-record/). DW-NOMINATE scores are from https://voteview.com (ref. 26). Inequality data are from https://wid.world/. The Gini index is from https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/historical-income-inequality.html. Data on the number of patents are from https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/h_counts.htm. Data on public policy mood are available at https://stimson.web.unc.edu/data/ (ref. 29). Data on legislative productivity are available at https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/ILILUD (ref. 19) and https://osf.io/mrghc/ (ref. 20). All the data used in this study are deposited in an Open Science Framework (OSF) repository at https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/Z6UTW (ref. 49).
Data were collected and analysed with Python (v3.6.13) and R (v4.3.1) scripts. The word embeddings models were trained using the implementation of Word2Vec algorithm in the Gensim library (v3.4.0). We efficiently apply the word embeddings using the sentence-transformers library (v2.2.2). The codes used to perform the analyses reported in this Article are available via GitHub at https://github.com/saroyehun/EvidenceMinusIntuition (with a snapshot available via Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14288137 (ref. 50)).
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S.L. acknowledges financial support from the European Research Council (ERC Advanced Grant 101020961 PRODEMINFO), the Humboldt Foundation through a research award, the Volkswagen Foundation (grant ‘Reclaiming individual autonomy and democratic discourse online: How to rebalance human and algorithmic decision making') and the European Commission (Horizon 2020 grant 101094752 SoMe4Dem). S.L. also receives funding from Jigsaw (a technology incubator created by Google) and from UK Research and Innovation through EU Horizon replacement funding grant number 10049415. D.G. is also a beneficiary of the ERC Advanced Grant 101020961 PRODEMINFO, and S.T.A. is supported by PRODEMINFO. D.G. also received funding from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG – German Research Foundation) under Germany's Excellence Strategy – EXC-2035/1 – 390681379. J.L. was supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant number 101026507. The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript. We thank T. Brown for useful input on the manuscript.
Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
Segun T. Aroyehun & David Garcia
Department of Psychology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beersheba, Israel
Almog Simchon
School of Psychological Science, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
Fabio Carrella & Stephan Lewandowsky
IDea_Lab, University of Graz, Graz, Austria
Jana Lasser
Complexity Science Hub, Vienna, Austria
Jana Lasser & David Garcia
Department of Psychology, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
Stephan Lewandowsky
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S.L., D.G. and S.T.A. conceptualized the research. S.T.A. collected the data. S.T.A. and D.G. developed the text analysis pipeline. F.C. performed the construction and validation of the keywords. A.S. performed the validation of the EMI score. D.G. and S.T.A. performed the statistical analyses. J.L. provided advice on the statistical analyses and visualization. S.L. and D.G. acquired funding and supervised the project. S.T.A., D.G. and S.L. prepared the initial draft of the manuscript. All authors contributed to preparing and editing the final version of the manuscript.
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Stephan Lewandowsky.
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Supplementary Notes 1–12, Figs. 1–15 and Tables 1–6.
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Despite their deleterious effects, small insertions and deletions (InDels) have received far less attention than substitutions. Here we generated isogenic CRISPR-edited human cellular models of postreplicative repair dysfunction (PRRd), including individual and combined gene edits of DNA mismatch repair (MMR) and replicative polymerases (Pol ε and Pol δ). Unique, diverse InDel mutational footprints were revealed. However, the prevailing InDel classification framework was unable to discriminate these InDel signatures from background mutagenesis and from each other. To address this, we developed an alternative InDel classification system that considers flanking sequences and informative motifs (for example, longer homopolymers), enabling unambiguous InDel classification into 89 subtypes. Through focused characterization of seven tumor types from the 100,000 Genomes Project, we uncovered 37 InDel signatures; 27 were new. In addition to unveiling previously hidden biological insights, we also developed PRRDetect—a highly specific classifier of PRRd status in tumors, with potential implications for immunotherapies.
Small insertions and deletions (InDels; <100 bp) represent the second most prevalent form of genetic variation after substitutions1. InDel mutagenesis is substantial and nonrandom, reflecting underlying mutational processes, be they benign by-products of normal physiology or malign consequences of exogenous exposures and/or endogenous dysfunctions.
While studies of mutational processes over the last decade have focused primarily on substitutions2,3, recent advancements in InDel detection and annotation4,5,6 have led to the identification of 18 small InDel signatures (IDS) in human cancers7. These signatures were defined using an 83-channel classification system (that is, 83 InDel subtypes, herein referred to as COSMIC-83), founded upon characteristics such as the InDel size, nucleotides affected, lengths of flanking mononucleotide/polynucleotide repeat and sequence homology at the InDel junctions. Subsequent re-analysis of the same dataset using a revised algorithm reported nine additional de novo IDS8.
Accurate InDel characterization is crucial for biological and clinical purposes. For instance, a high proportion of microhomology-mediated deletions is a key predictor of clinically actionable homologous recombination deficiency, carrying the greatest weight in homologous recombination deficiency detection and classification algorithms9,10. Additionally, the detection of microsatellite instability (MSI) in mismatch repair (MMR)-deficient tumors relies on measuring genome-wide InDel mutagenesis and/or analyzing panels of mononucleotide/dinucleotide repeats11,12,13. Recent studies have also highlighted how 2–5 bp short deletions and 2–4 bp duplications are distinct readouts of TOP1 activity (amplified in RNaseH2-null cells)14 and TOP2A dysfunction15, respectively.
Given the increasing importance of InDel mutagenesis in tumor classification and prediction of therapeutic sensitivities16,17,18,19, we established a ‘ground truth' set of experimental IDS focused on ‘postreplicative repair deficiency' (PRRd), which encompasses defects in MMR and replicative polymerase proofreading—biological abnormalities that often display exquisite sensitivity to immune checkpoint inhibition (ICI)20,21,22. We uncovered inherent limitations in the prevailing InDel classification schema (COSMIC-83) that hamper its ability to distinguish biologically distinct signatures. To address this, we explored whether incorporating sequences 5′ and 3′ to an InDel–features crucial for substitution classification–could contribute additional understanding and resolution power. Additionally, sequence motifs known to increase mutational vulnerability and their genome-wide prevalence were factored into our proposition. Our approach unambiguously classifies every InDel into a specific subcategory. Here we demonstrate that our alternative InDel taxonomy uncovers new etiologies of InDel mutagenesis, offering mechanistic insights and potential clinical added value.
We generated a ‘ground truth' set of isogenic cellular models by introducing CRISPR edits to key PRRd-associated genes in an hTERT-immortalized RPE1 (TP53−/−) cell line23. We created four single MMR gene knockouts (ΔMLH1, ΔMSH2, ΔMSH3 and ΔSETD2 (ref. 24)), two knock-in missense mutants of polymerase Pol ε (POLE exonuclease mutant p.P286R and p.L424V), two mutants of Pol δ (POLD1 exonuclease mutant p.S478N and polymerase mutant p.R689W) and three double mutants with combined polymerase proofreading mutation and MMRd (POLD1S478N/+ΔMLH1, POLD1S478N/+ΔMSH2 and POLEP286RΔMSH2; Supplementary Tables 1 and 2). Successfully edited clones were propagated in culture for approximately 45–50 days to permit mutation accumulation. Subsequently, two to five daughter subclones were isolated per genotype for whole-genome sequencing (WGS) and mutational signature analyses (Fig. 1a).
a, Mutation accumulation experiment in TP53-null hTERT-immortalized retinal pigment epithelial cell (hTERT-RPE1TP53-null, herewith referred to as the background control). b, InDel burden and average InDel fold increase of CRISPR gene edits (n = 2–5 subclones per genotype; Supplementary Tables 1–3). Red dashed line represents the mean InDel burden of control subclones. The y axis shows the InDel burden in log scale. c, Distinguishing COSMIC-83 InDel profiles of edited subclones from background control. Light blue error bars depict the mean ±3 s.d. of cosine similarities between n = 100 bootstrapped InDel profiles of unedited controls and the background profile (Extended Data Fig. 1d) aggregated from n = 7 unedited subclones. The x axis shows the InDel count in log scale. d, COSMIC-83 InDel mutational signatures associated with gene edits following background subtraction (Supplementary Table 4). e, Key features of COSMIC ID1, ID2 and ID7 (v.3.3). f, Heatmap of cosine similarities between gene-edit IDS and COSMIC IDS (v.3.3). Known, proposed etiologies are annotated above the heatmap (blue). g, Decomposed solution of gene-edit InDel signatures in d into COSMIC IDS (v.3.3).
Except for ΔSETD2, we observed elevated InDel burdens in all gene edits compared to an unedited control (background) (Fig. 1b and Supplementary Table 3). The mutation burden was approximately twofold higher in ΔMSH3 and POLD1R689W, tenfold in POLD1S478N, POLEL424V and POLEP286R, 55-fold in ΔMSH2 and ΔMLH1 and particularly significant in combined gene edits—around 200-fold in POLD1S478N/+ΔMLH1 and POLEP286RΔMSH2, and 300-fold in POLD1S478N/+ΔMSH2.
All lines except ΔSETD2 showed variations in their COSMIC-83 InDel signature profiles compared to control (Fig. 1c and Supplementary Table 4). We noted discriminative characteristics between gene edits (Fig. 1d and Extended Data Fig. 1). Dominant 1 bp T deletions at homopolymers of 6 bp or more (poly-T6+) were observed for ΔMLH1, ΔMSH2 and ΔMSH3, while POLD1S478N and POLEP286R showed exclusive 1 bp T insertions at poly-T5+. POLD1R689W, POLEL424V and all three combined polymerase/MMRd edits predominantly exhibited 1 bp T insertions at long homopolymers, although not exclusively, with variations of 1 bp T deletions between different genotypes. Together, these experiments revealed unique, diverse InDel signatures among different PRRd mutants. Remarkably, mutations within the same gene but affecting different functional protein domains manifested signature variations (that is, POLD1 exonuclease p.S478N versus polymerase p.R689W).
We also examined the substitution profiles of all gene edits (Extended Data Fig. 2 and Supplementary Table 5). Intriguingly, MMRd lines showed lower substitution-to-InDel ratios compared to control, while polymerase-dysfunction (Pol-dys) lines exhibited markedly increased ratios (Extended Data Fig. 2h). This suggests that genome instability is predominantly driven by an excess of InDel mutagenesis in MMRd, whereas substitution mutagenesis plays a more significant role in polymerase proofreading dysfunction. Furthermore, mutational asymmetry analyses revealed enrichment of both substitutions and InDels on the leading strand for POLE mutants while POLD1 mutants exhibited lagging strand bias, specifically T insertions at homopolymeric tracts of 5–7 nts (Supplementary Fig. 1 and Supplementary Table 6). This is in keeping with the hypothesized preferential activity of Pol ε and Pol δ in leading and lagging strand synthesis, respectively25,26, suggesting that POLE/POLD1 mutants tend to accumulate 1 bp A insertions on the nascent strand while replicating through 5–7 nts poly-T-tracts27,28. This lends support to the proposition that polymerase ε and δ are more proficient at detecting incorrectly paired bases at template adenines27.
Nevertheless, while the diversity of experimental InDel profiles was appreciable among PRRd genotypes, it was difficult to disambiguate gene-edit signatures from background mutagenesis. Clustering analyses and direct comparisons of gene edit and control InDel profiles showed extremely high similarity (cosine similarity > 0.9; Extended Data Fig. 1a,b,d). Discrimination between MMRd and Pol-dys signatures was also limited (Extended Data Fig. 1e). Unsupervised clustering using cosine distance revealed mainly two groups of signatures—deletion-driven MMRd signatures and insertion-driven polymerase mutant signatures (Extended Data Fig. 1f). We thus investigated the sufficiency of COSMIC-83 taxonomy, given that signal variation among the ten gene edits was primarily observed in two channels—1 bp T insertions at poly-T5+ and 1 bp T deletions at poly-T6+.
We compared experimental gene-edit InDel signatures with COSMIC IDS7. InDel signatures of ΔMSH2 and ΔMLH1 showed no similarity to the purported MMRd-associated ID7 (Fig. 1f). Instead, ΔMSH2 and ΔMLH1 signatures most resembled ID1 and ID2, ascribed to normal replication errors associated with nascent and template strand slippage, respectively (Fig. 1d–g).
The COSMIC-83 taxonomy aggregates 1 bp InDels at homopolymers >5 bp into single channels (that is, T6+ for deletions and T5+ for insertions, respectively; Fig. 1e and Extended Data Fig. 3a–d). Yet, the probability of microInDel formation increasing with the length of simple nucleotide repeats in MMRd29 is a recognized hallmark of MSI30. We surmised that the conflation of discriminatory signals within longer homopolymers into single ‘insertion at T5+' or ‘deletion at T6+' channel likely reduces the separative capacity for signature extraction. Hence, MMRd signatures cannot be distinguished from signatures of normal replication errors. This contrasts with corresponding PRRd-associated substitution signatures, which manifest as distinct and diverse patterns amongst MMRd and/or Pol-dys cancers3,7,31 (Extended Data Fig. 2b–g).
Notably, ID7 lacks signal within reputedly the most informative homopolymer channel (>5 bp). Instead, signals are only present in channels associated with ID1 and ID2 (Fig. 1e), resulting in systematic misattribution of all MMRd gene-edit signatures to ID1 and ID2 (Fig. 1f,g). Moreover, InDel signatures of POLE, POLD1 mutants and all combined polymerase/MMRd edits were indistinguishable from ID1 using COSMIC-83 taxonomy and sometimes indistinguishable from each other (Extended Data Fig. 1e). The signature of polymerase mutant POLD1R689W did not resemble any reported signatures. Because InDel mutagenesis of gene edits occurred predominantly at longer homopolymers and was erroneously assigned to ID1 and/or ID2 (Fig. 1g), we explored whether expanding on the long homopolymer channels and modifying the information presented in individual InDel channels could improve the resolution to disentangle the ostensibly alike but distinct biological signatures without compromising the power for signature extraction.
As with substitutions, incorporating surrounding sequence characteristics may enhance the discriminatory capacity of InDel catalogs for signature analyses32. We first classified InDels according to whether they were insertions, deletions or complex InDels (simultaneous insertions and deletions; Fig. 2a). Within insertions and deletions, InDels were subclassified by motif size (1 bp versus ≥2 bp). For 1 bp InDels, we considered the nucleotide content (C/G versus A/T motifs), the 5′ and 3′ flanking bases and the length of homopolymeric tracts. For InDels ≥2 bp, we identified the maximally repetitive motif within the InDel and accounted for its repeat length in the 3′ sequence (Supplementary Note 1). For deletions occurring with microhomology at the InDel junction, we considered the deletion motif length (L) and the microhomology length (M). This comprehensive taxonomy yielded 476 nonoverlapping InDel subcategories (channels; Supplementary Table 7 and Supplementary Note).
a, Proposed InDel classification schema and an example 89-channel InDel profile of an ΔMSH2 subclone. b, Distinguishing 89-channel InDel profiles of edited subclones from background control. Light blue error bars depict the mean ± 3 s.d. of cosine similarities between n = 100 bootstrapped InDel profiles of unedited controls and the background profile (Extended Data Fig. 5b) aggregated from n = 7 unedited subclones. The x axis shows the InDel count in log scale. c, Cosine similarities of edited subclones and bootstrapped controls in COSMIC-83 InDel profiles against 89-channel InDel profiles. Two-tailed Wilcoxon signed-rank test, P = 1.917 × 10−7). d, The 89-channel InDel mutational signatures associated with PRRd gene edits following background subtraction (Supplementary Table 4; https://signal.mutationalsignatures.com/explore/main/experimental/experiments?study=7). Ins, insertion; Del, deletion.
We examined whether all 476 channels were informative. By analyzing the InDel distribution across all channels in 18,522 tumors covering most cancer types from the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC)/The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA)33, Hartwig34 and the Genomics England (GEL) 100,000 Genomes Project35 (Extended Data Fig. 3e), we identified noninformative channels (that is, channels with no signal) and consolidated those with low signal to reduce the total number of InDel channels to 89 (Fig. 2a, Extended Data Fig. 3f and Supplementary Table 8). Overall, compared to COSMIC-83, the 89-channel taxonomy expands upon channels that had most of the signals, here 1 bp A/T InDels, into a larger array of channels, and condenses longer InDels and/or genome motifs infrequent in the genome (where signals were scant or nonexistent) into fewer InDel subcategories (Extended Data Fig. 4). Although the final numbers are not vastly different between the two classification systems, our data-driven approach, incorporating sequence contexts and enhancing signal distribution of mononucleotide/polynucleotide repeat tracts into additional channels, provides alternative information to the mutational signature extraction and assignment process, potentially increasing the likelihood of detecting new biologically meaningful signatures.
To test this, we applied the new 89-channel InDel taxonomy to our ground truth gene-edit dataset (Supplementary Table 4). Cosine similarities between experimental InDel profiles and control were much lower with the 89-channel format than with COSMIC-83 (Fig. 2b,c and Extended Data Fig. 5a,b), indicating that the new classification improved separation of gene edits from the background (mean cosine similarity, 0.68 ± 0.08 for 89-channel versus 0.89 ± 0.11 for COSMIC-83; two-tailed Wilcoxon signed-rank test, P = 1.917 × 10−7). We subsequently determined signatures associated with each gene edit using the 89-channel format. The resultant signatures showed more evenly distributed signals across the entire 89-channel profile (Figs. 1d, 2d and Extended Data Fig. 5c). Gene-edit signatures were also more readily discernible from one another (mean signature pairwise cosine similarity, 0.57 ± 0.25 for 89-channel versus 0.64 ± 0.3 for COSMIC-83; two-tailed Wilcoxon signed-rank test, P = 1.483 × 10−5; Extended Data Fig. 5d,e). Notably, InDel signatures of combined MMRd/polymerase mutants were not simply the sum of the individual mutational processes, likely reflecting the biological interactions of Pol ε and Pol δ with MMR in suppressing InDel formation during the replication of repetitive DNA.
Interestingly, we noted that while MMRd deletions are particularly amplified at longer homopolymers (8–9 bp > 5–7 bp > 0–4 bp), polymerase mutants displayed strikingly different distribution of excess insertion mutagenesis at shorter homopolymers (5–7 bp > 8–9 bp > 0–4 bp; Fig. 2d). The higher InDel rates in shorter homopolymers conferred by defective proofreading of Pol ε and Pol δ likely reflect the distance over which they interact with duplex DNA upstream of the polymerase active site29. Indeed, crystal structures of Pol ε and Pol δ have shown numerous contacts made within 5–7 bp of the polymerase active sites with duplex DNA36,37, with experimental model reinforcing this optimal distance29, explaining how proofreading may offer reduced protection against InDels outside of this ‘footprint' (that is, unpaired bases further upstream of the active site38; longer runs where MMR plays a more crucial role29). These unique insights were only appreciable due to the new 89-channel format, offering enhanced capturing of biological variation.
To compare the discriminatory capacity of both classification systems, we also performed de novo signature extraction on our ground truth experimental dataset (n = 37; Extended Data Fig. 6a). With COSMIC-83, only two de novo signatures were extracted—one dominated by T insertions at poly-T5+ (ID83A) and the other by T deletions at poly-T6+ (ID83B; Extended Data Fig. 6b). In contrast, the 89-channel format yielded four signatures, matching our expectation of a predominantly deletion-driven MMRd signature (InD89B), a predominantly insertion-driven polymerase signature (InD89D) and two distinct signatures with differing proportions of InDels (InD89A and InD89C), likely reflecting the combined polymerase/MMRd phenotypes (Extended Data Fig. 6c).
Finally, to determine whether this observed relationship between channel information content and signature extraction extended to other datasets and workflows, we applied three different algorithms3,8,39 to an unrelated cohort of 52 colorectal WGS from ICGC33 (Extended Data Fig. 6d). All three algorithms failed to discern all available signatures using COSMIC-83, reaching a discrimination limit of five, yielding sparse signatures with signal density highly concentrated in two channels (Extended Data Fig. 6d,e,g). Contrarily, the 89-channel format consistently enabled the detection of more de novo signatures across all algorithms used (Extended Data Fig. 6f,h). The extracted signatures also displayed signals across more channels, highlighting the superior performance of the 89-channel classification over COSMIC-83 in uncovering additional, true mutational processes.
To explore the impact of our new InDel taxonomy on signature discovery beyond PRRd phenotypes in human cancers, we analyzed seven tumor types (n = 4,775) known to display clinically relevant high tumor mutational burden (TMB) due to a range of abnormalities (for example, MMRd, environmental ultraviolet (UV) radiation, APOBEC-related mutagenesis)—bladder (n = 347), brain (CNS, n = 392), colorectal (n = 2,146), endometrial (n = 695), lung (n = 958), stomach (n = 181) and skin (n = 56) cancers from the GEL 100,000 Genomes Project35 (Fig. 3a).
a, InDel burden across seven cancer types (n = 4,775; left) and the number of mutations contributed by each InD to the GEL tumors. The size of each dot represents the proportion of samples of each tumor type that shows the mutational signature. The color of each dot represents the median mutation burden (per Mb) of the signature in samples that show the signature. b, Profiles of 37 consensus InDel mutational signatures (InDS) extracted and curated from seven GEL cancer cohorts (Supplementary Table 10; https://signal.mutationalsignatures.com/explore/main/cancer/signatures?mutationType=3&study=7). Putative etiologies are provided in the top-left squircles. N-Slip, nascent strand slippage; T-Slip, template strand slippage; NHEJ, nonhomologous end joining.
We performed mutational signature analysis per tumor type as previously described3 (Fig. 3a, Extended Data Fig. 7, and Supplementary Tables 9–11; Methods). We identified 37 consensus InDel signatures, referred to as InDS (to distinguish from COSMIC IDS; Fig. 3b). Ten signatures shared characteristics mappable to known IDS (InD1, InD2a, InD3a/InD3b, InD4a, InD6, InD8, InD9a, InD13 and InD18)7. The remaining 27 were new.
Exogenous exposures underlie five InDS. InD3a and InD3b often co-occurred in lung cancers with tobacco exposure. InD3a/InD3b clustered with experimental signatures induced by benzo(a)pyrene and its metabolite benzo(a)pyrene diol epoxide (Extended Data Figs. 8 and 9), supporting the notion that they represent modulated versions of tobacco-related DNA damage. InD13, characterized by T deletions at TT dinucleotides, is linked to UV damage, and InD18, found exclusively in colorectal samples, is due to colibactin exposure40. InD32 was identified in samples with prior exposure to platinum and was associated with a new platinum-associated signature, SBS112 (ref. 3).
Twenty InDS had probable endogenous origins (Extended Data Fig. 9). Several have been described, including InD1 and InD2a, errors associated with nascent and template strand slippage during normal DNA replication, respectively7. InD1 and InD2a were seen universally across all tumor types except CNS and skin cancers, which showed a tissue-specific variant, InD2b (Fig. 3a). InD4a is attributed to TOP1 transcription-associated mutagenesis14. InD6, marked by microhomology-mediated deletions, is associated with deficiency in HR repair7. InD8, which had deletions with little to no microhomology at deletion junctions, likely reflects the footprint of nonhomologous end-joining activity and/or radiotherapy41.
InD9a, correlated with SBS2 and SBS13 hypermutation, featured 1 bp C deletions at TCT and TCA (mutated base underlined), identical to mutable motifs characteristic of SBS2/SBS13, particularly at short poly-T tracts. It was presumptively induced by APOBEC (Extended Data Fig. 8c), corroborated by experimental evidence from an APOBEC overexpression DT40 model42. We proposed a mutagenesis mechanism wherein following C-to-U deamination at TCT by APOBEC, uracil removal by UNG leaves an uninformative abasic site. Template strand slippage can then occur at this short repetitive T tract, leading to a C deletion (Extended Data Fig. 8d). For reasons currently unclear, we also found similar C-deletion-dominated InD9b/InD9c, which, although resembled InD9a, lacked the predilection for a preceding T, and was possibly caused by an alternative mechanism.
Interestingly, we extracted eight gene-specific MMRd and Pol-dys InDS. MMRd-InD7 contrasts with COSMIC ID7. InD7 is characterized by the expected excess of 1 bp and 2 bp deletions, particularly at longer mononucleotide/dinucleotide repeat tracts. InD7 clustered with experimental signatures of ΔMLH1, ΔMSH2 and ΔMSH6 (Extended Data Fig. 9). We also identified InD19 (due to PMS2 deficiency), InD14 (associated with POLD1 exonuclease mutations), InD15 (associated with POLE exonuclease mutations), InD16a and 16b (resulting from concurrent loss of POLE proofreading and MMR), InD21 (associated with combined POLD1 proofreading defect and MMRd) and InD20, which we found through experimental investigations, was due to MMRd occurring on a POLE dysfunction background.
The remaining 12 signatures were of uncertain etiology. Five were probably artifacts—InD27 and InD28 often co-occurred, incurring thousands of InDels, and were related to SBS57, potentially an amplification or a sequencing artifact7. InD28m was likely a mixed signature of InD28 and InD4, remaining to be resolved with larger cohorts. InD5 and InD10 were ubiquitous and possibly artifacts.
While C insertions dominated both InD26 and InD30 at poly-C tracts followed by a 3′A, InD30 C insertions induced thousands of insertions at homopolymers CCC and CCCC, whereas InD26 C insertions mainly occurred at longer CCCCC and were not associated with hypermutation.
Three InDS (InD31, InD24 and InD12) showed striking correlations with signatures of other classes. InD31 displayed distinct C deletions at short homopolymers (<5 bp) followed by 3′G and T deletions at short homopolymers (<5 bp) followed by 3′A. It was only reported in samples with novel rare SBS105 (ref. 3), and often co-occurred with InD8. InD24 deletions peaked prominently at GTA and GTG and were strongly correlated with DBS8, which shows double substitutions at the same motifs (TGTG > TAGG/TTGG). InD12 exhibited C deletions between dinucleotides AA and AT and was associated with DBS25 featuring a tall peak at TT dinucleotide. Despite clear co-occurrence, the causes for these signatures remain cryptic.
InD4b and InD29 shared features with InD4a and InD8, respectively. Whether they represented tissue-specific variants, were mixed or caused by different mechanisms requires further investigation. InD11 appeared related to InD1 and might be an oversplit signature frequently enriched in high InDel burden samples, such as those with MMRd and Pol-dys. Seen in bladder and colorectal cancers, InD23 showed a striking pattern of longer insertions (≥5 bp) at nonrepeats. These insertions were almost exclusively tandemly duplicated from immediate neighboring sequences. InD33 was most prominent in one CNS tumor treated with temozolomide; however, its etiology remains unknown.
In summary, 5 InDS were of likely exogenous origins (InD3a, InD3b, InD13, InD18 and InD32), 20 were endogenous (InD1, InD2a, InD2b, InD4a, InD4b, InD6, InD7, InD8, InD9a, InD9b, InD9c, InD11, InD14, InD15, InD16a, InD16b, InD19, InD20, InD21 and InD29) and 12 had uncertain sources (InD5, InD10, InD12, InD23, InD24, InD26, InD27, InD28, InD28m, InD30, InD31 and InD33).
PRRd subtypes, typified by MSI, are clinically actionable with potential selective sensitivity to immunotherapies20,21,22. Current methods of detecting PRRd mainly rely on immunohistochemistry (IHC) staining of MMR proteins (but not for polymerase mutants) and/or PCR-based assays to determine MSI at selected genomic loci. These assays are not sensitive or robust enough, especially in nonepithelial tissues16. Using insights from this study, we therefore explored constructing a classifier for tumor PRRd stratification, reporting MMRd, Pol-dys and mixed MMRd/Pol-dys as distinct classes versus PRR proficiency.
We used 571 GEL cancers assigned as MMRd (n = 214), Pol-dys (n = 36), mixed MMRd/Pol-dys (n = 41) or PRR-proficient (controls, n = 280) based on confirmed causal genotypes and allelic status, and/or supporting IHC staining (Fig. 4a and Supplementary Table 12). Samples treated as controls had neither MMRd and/or Pol-dys confirmed through the lack of driver mutations in key MMR genes (that is, MLH1, MSH2, MSH6, and PMS2), POLE, POLD1, and displayed no evidence of MSI associated with these abnormalities43. We trained multiple multinomial elastic net regression models applying 7:3 partitioning iteratively across the dataset. Through exploring all possible features/models (Supplementary Table 13), we identified exposures of SBS and InDS associated with MMRd, Pol-dys and mixed MMRd/Pol-dys, as well as the ratio of total InDels to substitutions as the most predictive features (Fig. 4b and Supplementary Table 14; Methods). The final model, termed PRRDetect (postreplicative repair detect), was retrained on the entire dataset (n = 571). Then, in an independent validation cohort of 504 ICGC breast cancers44,45 and 847 GEL cancers, for which the true labels of PRRd were known, PRRDetect achieved an AUROC (area under the ROC curve) of 1 and an AUPRC (precision–recall curve) of 0.99 at distinguishing PRR-dysfunctional from PRR-proficient samples, performing superiorly to other MSI/MMRd detection tools, including MSIseq43, MMRDetect46 and TMB—an approved biomarker for immunotherapies20,21,47,48,49 (Fig. 4c,d and Supplementary Tables 12, 15 and 16).
a, Simplified workflow of the development of PRRDetect classifier. (1) Initial exploratory training using 571 ground truth samples. (2) Final retraining to produce the PRRDetect classifier. -ve ctrl, negative control. b, Distribution of coefficients across seven genomic features contributing to the final PRRDetect classifier. Green error bars depict the mean ± s.d. from ten replicates of training in cross-validation. Red dots indicate the final coefficients chosen for each class prediction (Supplementary Table 14). c, Validation and application of PRRDetect on independent cancer cohorts. d, ROC curves demonstrating the superior performances of PRRDetect on independent cancer cohort (n = 1,351) against alternative biomarker strategies. P values were calculated using two-sided nonparametric test based on the bootstrap distribution (10,000) of the difference in AUCs53. MMRDetect, P < 2.2 × 10−16; MSIseq, P = 6.617 × 10−15; TMB, P < 2.2 × 10−16. e, PRRDetect results of n = 1,335 ICGC and Hartwig cancers, ordered from the lowest to the highest prediction probability across the x axis (left to right) for MMRd (purple), combined MMRd/Pol-dys (blue) and Pol-dys samples (orange). Negative samples were ordered by TMB in increasing order from left to right. Results of MSIseq, MMRDetect, cancer gene driver annotation and cancer tissue origin are labeled at the bottom tracks. Dashed rectangle highlights the extent of false positive overcalling if using TMB > 10 mutations per Mb as a cutoff. f, Concordance of calls among TMB-high (>10 mutations per Mb), positive exposure to SBS signatures that impart hypermutation and PRRDetect prediction across n = 1,335 ICGC and Hartwig cancers. g, Concordance of calls among TMB-high (>10 mutations per Mb), positive exposure to SBS signatures that impart hypermutation and PRRDetect prediction across n = 4,775 GEL tumors. muts, mutations.
Next, to survey the prevalence of PRRd across alternative cancer cohorts, we applied PRRDetect on seven cancer types commonly enriched with hypermutator samples from ICGC33 and Hartwig34 (Fig. 4c,e,f, Extended Data Fig. 10a,b and Supplementary Table 17). PRRDetect predicted 3.7% (50/1,335) samples as PRR-dysfunctional, correctly identifying all Pol-dys, MMRd/Pol-dys samples and missing two subclonal MMRd samples (based on available published driver information for PRRd status). MSIseq missed 6 of 43 PRRDetect-predicted MMRd, 2 of 4 mixed MMRd/Pol-dys cases while displaying poor concordance for detecting pure Pol-dys cases (that is, missed all 7 cases). Unsurprisingly, PRRDetect captured all MMRDetect-positive cases. However, MMRDetect failed to identify all PRRd cases as it was not designed to detect Pol-dys/mixed phenotypes and missed seven MMRd samples. Crucially, we noted that many PRRDetect-positive cases did not have an associated driver mutation identified (33/50). This is clinically significant. Of 50 PRRDetect-positive cases, 39 were MMRd (only 8 had an associated driver mutation), 7 were Pol-dys (all had driver mutations in polymerase proofreading domains) and 4 were predicted as mixed MMRd/Pol-dys (2 had POLE exonuclease mutations and none had MMR drivers). If PRRDetect predictions were all true and sequencing approaches focused exclusively on identifying driver events associated with these deficiencies were used, a significant proportion of cases (66%) could be missed.
Given that PRRd cancers often present with high TMB, and TMB is used as a biomarker for immunotherapies, we explored the limits of TMB-based patient stratification. With an FDA-approved TMB cutoff of 10 mutations per Mb49, just over a tenth of 459 cases classified as TMB-high (50/459, 10.9%) had predicted PRR dysfunction (Fig. 4f, Extended Data Fig. 10b and Supplementary Table 17). The majority of other cases (353/459, 76.9%) had high TMB from tobacco, UV and APOBEC exposure; 56 (12.2%) were due to alternative causes. Thus, across independent cancer cohorts where MMRd and Pol-dys are known to occur at higher frequencies, ~89% of the samples classified as TMB-high may not have the intrinsic biological underpinnings associated with response to immunotherapies, with implications for the use of TMB as a selective biomarker for ICI50,51.
We asked whether this trend extended to the larger GEL cohort (n = 4,775). Among the 1,371 TMB-high cases, nearly half (677, 49.4%) were predicted as having MMRd and/or Pol-dys (Fig. 4g), of which, only ~50% of them had an identified driver. The remaining 564 (41.1%) had high TMB due to alternative mutagenic exposures; 130 (9.5%) were due to other undetermined causes. Furthermore, beyond revealing PRR dysfunction in typical tumor types such as colorectal cancers (19%, 400/2,146) and uterine cancers (37%, 255/695), PRRDetect predicted PRRd in a small but notable proportion of stomach (11/181, 6%), bladder (3/347, 1%), CNS (3/392, 1%) and lung cancers (8/958, 1%; Extended Data Fig. 10c and Supplementary Table 12). This reinforces two important clinical points—first, PRRd is not restricted to colorectal and uterine cancers despite being more prevalent in these tumor types; second, WGS can serve as a tumor-agnostic assay uncovering PRRd and any other actionable biological abnormalities in the future.
The ability to distill biologically relevant signatures is heavily influenced by how mutations are represented or classified, more so than the underlying algorithms used for signature extraction. Here we showed that a classification schema that aggregates potentially discriminatory signals into only a few channels and/or does not take surrounding sequence context into account is limited in its ability to discern biologically insightful InDel patterns, irrespective of the extraction algorithms used. Consequently, some of the currently reported InDel signatures may correspond to multiple mutational processes, affecting the specificity of their assignments. To overcome this limitation, we proposed an alternative InDel taxonomy that incorporates flanking sequence context and distributes signals across a broader set of channels, offering increased discriminative capability without sacrificing power for signature extraction. Using this framework, we captured the distinct MSI phenotypes and true biological diversity of PRRd-associated InDel patterns, evident in both isogenic cellular models and patient tumors. Indeed, these InDel signatures mirror the diverse PRRd-associated SBS signatures in cancers3,7,31.
Furthermore, we deciphered 37 consensus InDS from seven cancer types. We confirmed ten previously described IDS7,14,42, including those associated with tobacco use, UV exposure and APOBEC activity and reported eight new InDS of MMRd and polymerase proofreading dysfunction. While we have offered putative causes and associations for several new signatures, our current understanding of InDel mutagenesis remains incomplete. Future studies incorporating more cancer types and/or larger sample cohorts will help uncover additional signatures and illuminate new etiologies. The possibility of adapting the taxonomy in the future, to include features currently not explorable due to the limitations incurred by technological error rates of calling InDels using short-read WGS (that is, at longer simple repeats), could also be revealing.
Our classifier, PRRDetect, is highly sensitive and specific. It utilizes both SBS and InD signatures to stratify tumors by PRRd subtypes and, to our knowledge, is the only tool with this capability. Importantly, we found a lack of concordance between the current biomarkers of MSI/MMRd and the true biological state. Particularly, TMB, despite being FDA approved, is nonspecific50,51. This has profound clinical implications as more than 50% of TMB-high (>10 mutations per Mb) cancers arise from biological abnormalities and environmental exposures that have no substantiated biological basis for immunotherapies, potentially impacting patient outcomes. PRRDetect can also detect samples that have signatures of PRR deficiency but for which no drivers can be detected (nearly 50% of all PRRd cases). A limited sequencing assay would have simply missed a substantial portion of these tumors. Finally, our classifier does not distinguish between MMRd genotypes despite clear differences between, for example, MLH1, MSH2, MSH6 and PMS2; currently, there is no clinical indication to do so. However, should it become clinically important to distinguish between these genes, it shall be possible to do so.
In summary, our study highlights how mutation classification directly impacts the accuracy of signature analysis. Our decision to leverage the surrounding sequence context for classifying InDels stems from mechanistic work demonstrating the relationship between InDel formation and flanking 3′ and 5′ sequences32,52. Nevertheless, optimal classification remains an active research area. Alternative schema could unveil additional mutational processes in the future. Unraveling the landscape of InDel mutagenesis through the refined framework described here will hopefully translate into meaningful benefits for cancer patients.
The experiments described herein did not require approval from a specific ethics board.
All cell line models generated and used in this study are provided in Supplementary Table 1. All cells were grown in DMEM/F12 medium (Gibco/Thermo Fisher Scientific) supplemented with 10% FBS, at 37 °C and 5% CO2 in a humidified incubator. The original hTERT-RPE1 ΔTP53 cell was generated from a previous study23. To generate the remaining isogenic CRISPR-edited cell lines, 200k RPE1 ΔTP53 cells per each edit were electroporated with preformed ribonucleoprotein complex (RNP with final concentrations of 120 pmol gRNAs and 100 pmol Alt-R Cas9) in supplemented SE buffer, using nucleocuvette and AMAXA 4D-Nucleofector (Lonza) on program EH-158 according to the manufacturer's instructions. Following electroporation, cells were replated into fully supplemented DMEM/F12 medium to recover for 48 h. For knock-ins, homology-directed repair (HDR) donor oligos were supplied with the RNP for electroporation, and cells were replated for recovery in medium spiked in with final concentrations of 2 μM M3814 (Selleckchem) and 0.5 μM Alt-R HDR Enhancer (Integrated DNA Technologies) for the first 24 h. All cells were then cultured for additional 2 to 4 days to allow for gene editing and eventually subjected to limiting dilution on 96-w plates to isolate single-cell clones. Targeted clones were screened for successful frameshift edits for knockouts or incorporation of intended missense mutations for knock-ins via Sanger sequencing. All gRNAs, sequencing primers and genotypes of cell lines generated in this study are summarized in Supplementary Tables 1 and 2.
Double mutants were harder to establish but had similar doubling time to single mutants. Edited clones were cultured for 45–55 days (~40 to 50 doublings) to allow for mutation accumulation before a second round of single-cell limiting dilution was performed to isolate two to three daughter subclones per edit genotype, providing a bottleneck to capture mutations that had occurred since the isolation of the initial edited parental clones.
Genomic DNA was isolated from all samples using Quick-DNA Miniprep Plus Kit (ZymoResearch) following the manufacturer's protocol. WGS libraries were prepared and sequenced (150 bp, paired end, 25×) on the Illumina NovaSeq 6000 platform by Novogene.
Short reads were aligned to GRCh38/hg38 using BWA-MEM 0.7.17-r1188. Substitutions and InDels in genetic reference clones and daughter subclones were called as previously described46. Postprocessing filters were applied to improve the specificity of mutation-calling. Specifically, for single-nucleotide variant (SNV) calls by CaVEMan54 (v.1.13.15), we used CLPM = = 0 and ASMD ≥ 140. To reduce false positive calls by Pindel55 (v.3.2.0), we used QUAL ≥ 250 and REP < 10. Cell clones with an average variant allele frequency of <0.4 were designated as polyclonal and excluded from all subsequent quantitative analyses (that is, estimation of mutation burden). A variant allele frequency filter of 0.2 was applied to substitutions and InDels. De novo substitutions and InDels in subclones were obtained by subtracting from respective parental clones whenever available, or by removing mutations shared among subclones. De novo mutation counts are provided in Supplementary Table 3. Rearrangements were not analyzed as they were too few to be informative.
The derivation of gene edit-associated mutational signatures with cosine similarity, bootstrapping and background subtraction was performed using published framework (https://github.com/xqzou/COMSIG_KO)46. In short, we first (1) determined the background mutational signature in background control by aggregating the unedited and untreated subclone mutational profiles, (2) determined the difference between the mutational profiles of the edited clones and background mutation profile and if an edit generates a signature, we (3) removed background mutation profile from the mutation profile of the edited subclone (Supplementary Tables 4 and 5).
We also used Uniform Manifold Approximation and Projection (UMAP)56 to cluster the InDel profiles. Experimentally derived signatures were compared to published reference signatures3,7 using signature.tools.lib (v.2.4.4) from https://rdrr.io/github/Nik-Zainal-Group/signature.tools.lib/.
Replicative strand bias analysis was performed for 1 bp InDels only. InDels were mapped to leading or lagging strand using Repli-seq data (MCF-7) of the ENCODE project57. All 1 bp InDels were aligned with pyrimidines as the mutated base, following the convention in the field. This facilitated the identification of the InDel's corresponding strand. IntersectBed58 in BEDTools (v.2.26.0-114-g4c407ce) was utilized to identify mutations overlapping specific genomic features. To assess a specific mutational signature, the ‘expected' ratio of InDels between lagging and leading strands was calculated according to the distribution of the repeats in these regions. The ‘observed' ratio of InDels among different strands was determined by mapping InDels to genomic coordinates of all leading/lagging regions. The asymmetry between different strands was quantified by calculating the odds ratio of InDels occurring on one strand (for example, leading) versus the other strand (for example, lagging). P values were computed using binomial test or Χ2 test and corrected for multiple testing using the Benjamini–Hochberg method.
De novo signature extraction and decomposition of mutational signatures were performed using SigProfilerExtractor39 (v.1.1.18), along with SigProfilerMatrixGenerator59 (v.1.2.4). The recommended default settings (including 500 NMF replicates) were applied (https://github.com/AlexandrovLab/SigProfilerExtractor). Signatures were also extracted using Indel.signature.tools3 (v.2.4.4) with default settings (20 bootstraps, 500 repeats per bootstrap, matched clustering). The number of InDel signatures selected per channel set was determined by maximal drop in average silhouette width of clustered signatures. For extraction using MuSiCal8 (https://github.com/parklab/MuSiCal, v.1.0.0), the default hyperparameters included random initialization (init hyperparameter), the minimum volume nonnegative matrix factorization (MVNMF) algorithm (method hyperparameter), 20 MVNMF replicate runs (n_replicates hyperparameter) and between 10,000 and 1,000,000 MVNMF iterations per replicate run (min_iter and max_iter hyperparameters, respectively).
WGS data (v.8) for colorectal (n = 2,146), endometrial (n = 695), stomach (n = 181), bladder (n = 347), brain (CNS, n = 392), lung (n = 958) and skin cancers (n = 56) were considered in this study, subset from the curated 12,222 sample cohort previously described3. Indels were called with Strelka60 (v.2.4.7) using somatic calling mode.
We exploited the relationship between InDels and their associated 3′ sequence context to determine, for each InDel, the minimal InDel prefix that is maximally repetitive in the 3′ sequence context and within the InDel itself. In brief, for each prefix of the InDel, we identified the maximally repetitive substring in the associated suffix and 3′ context. This applies to all InDel variants that are left-aligned and parsimonious. We termed these partitions of the InDel and 3′ context ‘segmentations' and selected the segmentation that contains the smallest prefix that has maximum repetition in the 3′ sequence context and the InDel. Segmentation produced multiple values quantifying the repetitiveness of the prefix sequence (termed, ‘unit'). These values, along with the sequence context, may be used to group InDels into biologically relevant, nonoverlapping InDel subcategories or ‘channels'. See Supplementary Note for details.
Using the segmentation values for each InDel, we constructed a set of 476 nonoverlapping InDel channels. By surveying the InDel frequency distribution across all 476 channels in 17,253 tumors covering most cancer types from ICGC/TCGA, Hartwig and the GEL 100,000 Genomes Project, we discarded channels with no signal and consolidated those with low signal to reduce the total number of InDel channels to 89. The final 89-channel set was used for the experimental gene-edit dataset and the cancer WGS from the GEL 100,000 Genome Project considered in this study. Generally, channels may be grouped into six broad divisions—1 bp insertions, 1 bp deletions, ≥2 bp insertions, ≥2 bp deletions, ≥ 2 bp deletions with evidence of microhomology and complex InDels. Channels were constructed such that each InDel could only be unambiguously assigned to a single channel. A complete description of each channel and exemplar InDels are included in Supplementary Table 8. A description of the reasoning behind channel construction is presented in Supplementary Note.
Our approach to signature extraction was motivated by previous study3. We observed that hypermutator samples strongly influenced signature extraction using the standard β-divergence NMF model. We sought to filter out hypermutator samples from our initial extraction. For each tissue, we first removed samples with a total InDel burden <100, and then clustered sample profiles according to their cosine similarity (cosine distance, 1 − cosine similarity) using hierarchical clustering with complete linkage. Clusters of similar samples were determined by thresholding the resulting dendrogram such that the average silhouette width was maximized, and within-cluster variation was minimized.
To determine cluster-specific hypermutators, for each cluster, we fit the total burden per sample using a two-component Gaussian mixture model (mixtools61) compared to a one-component mixture model, using the Bayesian information criteria for model selection. Hypermutators were defined as the union of samples with a total burden more than third quartile + 1.5 × IQR, where quartiles were calculated over the total dataset, and samples with a greater than 50% probability of being generated by the higher burden Gaussian distribution. Normal and hypermutator clusters were then manually reviewed per tissue, and only normal clusters were used in primary extraction.
Signature extraction was performed per tissue as described, with an increased number of bootstraps (40) and repetitions per bootstrap (1,000), to increase final solution stability.
We sought to determine whether excess variation indicative of rare or unextracted signatures was present in sample catalogs using a published framework3. In refitting tissue-specific catalogs, hypermutator samples included, with signatures extracted from nonhypermutator samples using FitMS3, we observed profiles with lower InDel counts displayed higher degrees of error (as measured by total residual normalized by sample burden). Generally, error decreased logarithmically as InDel burden increased. Therefore, using a single threshold on fitting error to define samples with excess variation excluded a large proportion of samples.
To more accurately calibrate our expectation of fitting error, and therefore, our threshold for detecting excess variation, we performed a parametric bootstrapping procedure to generate a sample-specific expected error distribution. For each sample catalog, we constructed a multinomial distribution using the per-channel density from the normalized reconstructed profile produced by FitMS. Using this distribution, we simulated 10,000 sample profiles with a total burden equal to the sample burden, fit these profiles with FitMS and calculated the resulting error distribution.
Comparing the experimentally derived error distribution to the resulting null distribution allowed us to estimate an empirical P value. This procedure was repeated for all samples in the GEL cohort, and P values were corrected for multiple testing. To control the false discovery rate at 5%, samples with an adjusted P value less than 0.05 were selected for further analysis to determine rare signatures.
For each tissue, samples with excess variation were clustered using the residual signal after subtracting out FitMS reconstructed profiles. Hierarchical clustering with average linkage and Euclidean distance resulted in multiple clusters per tissue. A secondary round of signature extraction per cluster was performed using the primary tissue-specific signature set to initialize the signature matrix. An additional one to five rare signatures were determined per cluster, and the number of rare signatures was determined as the minimal value of n, such that rare signatures were not found to perfectly recapitulate cluster members or match common signatures. All extracted rare signatures across a tissue were subject to manual curation to identify recurrent patterns, and the rare signature exemplars that displayed minimal mixing with common signatures were selected. Using this consensus set of common and rare signatures per tissue, all samples in each catalog were refitted using FitMS to determine per-sample signature exposures.
We clustered InDel signatures from seven GEL cancer cohorts (111 tissue-specific InDS) using hierarchical clustering with average linkage and cosine distance and derived a set of consensus signatures following a published framework3. The associated tissue-specific signature to reference signature conversion matrix (Supplementary Tables 9–11) was then used to transform tissue-specific signature exposures to consensus signature (final InD) exposures for downstream analyses.
Variants in samples generated in previous studies46,52 were reclassified and analyzed using our refined InDel classification scheme. Experimental signatures were obtained via background subtraction and determined using a bootstrapping and cosine similarity-based framework previously described46. Consensus InDel signatures and all experimentally derived signatures were clustered using hierarchical clustering and cosine distance.
We trained PRRDetect, a multinomial elastic net regression model, on a subset of 571 GEL cancers confidently assigned as MMRd (n = 214), Pol-dys (n = 36), mixed MMRd/Pol-dys (n = 41) or PRR-proficient (negative controls, n = 280) based on manual curation of relevant driver mutations and/or supporting immunohistochemistry where possible. Samples with neither Pol-dys and/or MMRd were confirmed to lack driver mutations in key MMR genes (that is, MLH1, MSH2, MSH6 and PMS2), POLE, POLD1, and displayed no evidence of MSI associated with these abnormalities43.
To create our classifier, we explored a range of feature combinations as model inputs, including (1) summed exposures of SBS and InDel signatures related to PRR deficiency (MMRd, MMRd/Poly-dys, Poly-dys); (2) feature set (1) combined with TMB; (3) feature set (1) combined with total InDel/SNV ratio; (4) summed exposure of SBS signatures related to PRRd; (5) summed exposure of InD signatures related to PRRd. For each feature set, we constructed the model using either proportion (that is, normalized signature exposure) or the absolute values of the features (that is, raw mutation count contributed by each signature). In total, ten model structures were attempted (five sets of features × two normalizations; Supplementary Table 13).
For all models, the feature values were first log2 transformed, then z-score normalized using the formula \({x}^{{\prime} }=\frac{x-\mu }{\sigma }\). We used the implementation of multinomial elastic net regression (glmnet) in caret (https://topepo.github.io/caret/). In each training iteration, we first partitioned the cohort into 70% for training and 30% for testing, retaining relative proportions of MMRd, Pol-dys, mixed and negative categories across the training and test datasets. A ten-repeat tenfold cross-validation strategy was adopted within the 70% training group. A grid search approach was used to determine the best combination of two hyperparameters (that is, α, which acts as a balancing factor between a lasso and a ridge penalty; and λ, which defines the strength of the penalty), aiming to minimize the log loss. The model was then tested on the held-out 30% test set. We performed the 70:30 repartitioning ten times to assess the stability/robustness of the model (Fig. 4a). We then retrained the model on the entire cohort of 571 samples using a repeated tenfold cross-validation strategy as in the first round to obtain the final feature coefficients for individual models.
To identify the best-performing model, seven measures were defined—training accuracy of the final model, median accuracy on the test sets, s.d. of α, s.d. of λ, median coefficient s.d., median multiclass area under the curve (AUC) on the test set and training multiclass AUC of the final model (Supplementary Table 13). Eventually, PRRDetect was selected as the one having the following input variables: (1) summed exposures to MMRd-associated SBS 6, 15, 26, 44, 97; (2) summed exposures to Pol-dys-associated SBS 10a, 10d; (3) summed exposures to combined MMRd/Pol-dys SBS 14, 20; (4) summed exposures to MMRd-associated InD7, InD19; (5) summed exposures to Pol-dys InD14, InD15; (6) summed exposures to combined MMRd/Pol-dys InD16a, InD16b, InD20, InD21; and (7) total InDel to total SNV ratio, with proportional normalization of the first six features (Supplementary Table 14). The final PRRDetect was retrained using the abovementioned features on the entire curated cohort of 571 samples.
The model outputs a categorical distribution across the four PRRd subclasses (that is, MMRd, Pol-dys, MMRd/Pol-dys or Neg). A sample is PRR-proficient if the probability for the ‘negative' class is >0.5; otherwise, the positive class (MMRd, MMRd/Pol-dys or Pol-dys) with the highest probability is assigned.
We validated PRRDetect in an independent ICGC breast cohort (n = 504)44,45 and a subset of held-out samples from GEL (n = 847), for which the true PRRd labels were established based on immunohistochemistry staining of four MMR proteins (PMS2, MLH1, MSH2 and MSH6) and driver mutations. The final cohort consists of 1,351 samples, for which we also computed the MSIseq and MMRDetect prediction results. The ROC curves and their relative AUC values were calculated using R package ‘pROC'53. P values were calculated using the roc.test() function with bootstrap method with 10,000 resamples.
To survey the prevalence of PRRd in other cancer cohorts, we applied PRRDetect to two additional datasets not included in InD signature extraction and PRRDetect training—the ICGC/TGCA pan-cancer dataset33 and Hartwig Medical Foundation metastatic cancer cohort34 (n = 1,335), focusing on seven cancer types commonly enriched with samples with high InDel burdens. InDels from individual samples in these cohorts were processed to 89-channel profiles as was done for GEL cohort samples. For these datasets, we used published driver annotations as PRRd labels.
All comparisons were between biologically independent samples. No statistical method was used to predetermine sample size. No data were excluded from the analyses. The experiments were not randomized. The investigators were not blinded to allocation during experiments and outcome assessment. Further details are provided in the Reporting Summary.
Further information on research design is available in the Nature Portfolio Reporting Summary linked to this article.
Raw sequence files from the hTERT-RPE1 mutation accumulation experiment are deposited at the European Genome-Phenome Archive with accession EGAD50000000209. Mutation calls have been deposited at Mendeley (https://doi.org/10.17632/3k2tpx9ssr.2). RPE1 cells can be obtained directly from the authors. The curated data are available for general browsing from our reference mutational signatures website, Signal (https://signal.mutationalsignatures.com). All other data were previously published46,52.
Primary data from the 100,000 Genomes Project, which are held in a secure research environment, are available to registered users. See https://www.genomicsengland.co.uk/research for further information or contact research-network@genomicsengland.co.uk. ICGC/TCGA WGS data can be obtained from https://dcc.icgc.org/releases/PCAWG. Hartwig metastasis WGS data can be obtained from Hartwig Medical Foundation through standardized procedures and request forms that can be found at https://www.hartwigmedicalfoundation.nl/en/appyling-for-data/.
Mutagen signatures from human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS)52 can be accessed via https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/m7r4msjb4c/2. Human iPS knockout signatures can be obtained directly from https://doi.org/10.1038/s43018-021-00200-0 (ref. 46). The results of RPE1 experimental signatures can be browsed at https://signal.mutationalsignatures.com/explore/main/experimental/experiments?study=7. InD signatures of the seven cancer types are accessible at https://signal.mutationalsignatures.com/explore/main/cancer/signatures?mutationType=3&study=7. Source data are provided with this paper.
The R source code of PRRDetect is available via GitHub at https://github.com/Nik-Zainal-Group/PRRDetect and Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14906103 (ref. 62). InDel segmentation and signature classification script can be accessed via GitHub at https://github.com/Nik-Zainal-Group/indelsig.tools.lib and Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14906117 (ref. 63).
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G.C.C.K. is supported by the Sir Jeffrey Cheah Foundation. The work performed by S.N.-Z.'s laboratory was funded by the Cancer Research UK (CRUK) Advanced Clinician Scientist Award (C60100/A23916), Dr. Josef Steiner Cancer Research Award 2019, Basser Gray Prime Award 2020, CRUK Pioneer Award (C60100/A23433), CRUK Grand Challenge Awards (C60100/A25274 and CGCATF-2021/100013), CRUK Early Detection Project Award (C60100/A27815) and the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) Research Professorship (NIHR301627). This work was also supported by the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre (BRC-1215-20014). The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care. This research was made possible through access to data in the National Genomic Research Library, which is managed by Genomics England Limited (a wholly owned company of the Department of Health and Social Care). The National Genomic Research Library holds data provided by patients and collected by the NHS as part of their care and data collected as part of their participation in research. The National Genomic Research Library is funded by the National Institute for Health Research and NHS England. The Wellcome Trust, Cancer Research UK and the Medical Research Council have also funded research infrastructure. The 100,000 Genomes Project uses data provided by patients and collected by the National Health Service as part of their care and support.
These authors contributed equally: Gene Ching Chiek Koh, Arjun Scott Nanda.
Department of Genomic Medicine, School of Clinical Medicine, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
Gene Ching Chiek Koh, Arjun Scott Nanda, Giuseppe Rinaldi, Soraya Boushaki, Andrea Degasperi, Cherif Badja, Andrew Marcel Pregnall, Salome Jingchen Zhao, Lucia Chmelova, Daniella Black, Laura Heskin, João Dias, Jamie Young, Yasin Memari, Scott Shooter, Jan Czarnecki, Helen Ruth Davies, Xueqing Zou & Serena Nik-Zainal
Early Cancer Institute, Department of Oncology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
Gene Ching Chiek Koh, Arjun Scott Nanda, Giuseppe Rinaldi, Soraya Boushaki, Andrea Degasperi, Cherif Badja, Salome Jingchen Zhao, Lucia Chmelova, Daniella Black, Laura Heskin, João Dias, Jamie Young, Yasin Memari, Scott Shooter, Jan Czarnecki, Helen Ruth Davies, Xueqing Zou & Serena Nik-Zainal
School of Medical and Life Sciences, Sunway University, Sunway City, Malaysia
Gene Ching Chiek Koh
Genomics England, Queen Mary University of London, Dawson Hall, Charterhouse Square, London, UK
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G.C.C.K., A.S.N., X.Z. and S.N.-Z. conceived the project and designed the experiments. G.C.C.K., S.B., J.Y., C.B. and S.J.Z. performed gene editing and mutation accumulation experiments. G.C.C.K., A.S.N., G.R. and X.Z. designed and implemented computational analyses, with input from A.D., A.M.P., L.C., D.B., L.H., J.D., Y.M., S.S., J.C., M.B. and H.R.D. S.N.-Z. supervised the work. Data interpretation and write-up were provided by G.C.C.K., A.S.N., X.Z., G.R. and S.N.-Z., with inputs from all the other authors. All authors had the opportunity to edit the manuscript and approve the final manuscript.
Correspondence to
Serena Nik-Zainal.
A.D., A.S.N., G.C.C.K., G.R., H.R.D., X.Z. and S.N.-Z. hold patents or have submitted applications on clinical algorithms of mutational signatures: MMRDetect (PCT/EP2022/057387), HRDetect (PCT/EP2017/060294), clinical use of signatures (PCT/EP2017/060289), rearrangement signature methods (PCT/EP2017/060279), clinical predictor (PCT/EP2017/060298), hotspots for chromosomal rearrangements (PCT/EP2017/060298), InDel signature methods (PCT/EP2024/077959) and PRRDetect (PCT/EP2024/078030). All other authors declare no competing interests.
Nature Genetics thanks Geoff Macintyre and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Peer reviewer reports are available.
Publisher's note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
a, UMAP clustering of de novo COSMIC-83 InDel profiles of all gene-edit subclones (n = 37). UMAP, uniform manifold approximation and projection for dimension reduction. b, Cosine similarities between individual gene-edit subclones and the averaged InDel profile of background controls (d). c, Relative proportion of seven InDel mutation types of each gene-edit. Ins, insertion; Del. deletion; R, repeat; M, microhomology; C, cytosine; T, thymine. d, Aggregated InDel profile of hTERT-RPE1TP53-null background control. e, Cosine similarities among experimentally generated COSMIC-83 PRRd InDel signatures (Fig. 1d). f, Unsupervised clustering of experimentally generated COSMIC-83 PRRd InDel signatures with cosine distance. Dashed vertical line marks 0.1 cut-off.
a, De novo substitution burden, and average substitution fold-increase of CRISPR gene edits and unedited control (n = 2–5 subclones per gene edit; Supplementary Table 3). Red dashed line represents the mean substitution burden of control. b, Distinguishing substitution profiles of edited subclones from background controls. Light green error bars depict the mean ±3 s.d. of cosine similarities between n = 100 bootstrapped substitution profiles of unedited controls and the background profile aggregated from n = 7 unedited subclones. The x axis shows the substitution count in log scale. c, UMAP clustering of de novo substitution profiles of all subclones (n = 37). UMAP, uniform manifold approximation and projection for dimension reduction. d, Relative proportion of six substitution mutation types of each edit genotype. e, Substitution signatures associated with PRRd gene edits following background subtraction. f, Cosine similarities among experimentally generated PRRd substitution signatures in e. g, Cosine similarities between experimentally generated PRRd substitution signatures and cancer-derived SBS reference signatures (RefSig)3. h, Averaged SNV to InDel ratio of gene edits. Bar represents the averaged ratio for each genotype.
a, Aggregated COSMIC-83 InDel profile of ICGC samples, with (left, n = 3,323) and without (right, n = 3,287) hypermutator samples. b, Aggregated 89-channel InDel profile of ICGC samples, with (left, n = 3,323) and without (right, n = 3,287) hypermutator samples. c, Percentage of total InDels per channel for ICGC cohort, with COSMIC-83 (left) or 89-channel (right) format. d, Percentage of total InDels per channel for Hartwig cohort, with COSMIC-83 (left) or 89-channel (right) format. e, Aggregated 476-full-channel InDel profiles of ICGC, Hartwig and GEL cohorts. f, Final, consolidated 89-channel InDel profiles of aggregated samples from GEL cohort, with (left, n = 11,585) and without (right, n = 10,792) hypermutator samples.
There is no simple, direct 1-to-1 mapping between the methods. In general, the 89-channel taxonomy expands upon channels that had most of the signals, here 1 bp A/T InDels, into a larger array of channels, and condenses longer InDels and/or genome motifs infrequent in the genome (where signals were scant or nonexistent) into fewer InDel subcategories. NM, not mapped.
a, UMAP clustering of de novo 89-channel InDel profiles of gene-edit subclones (n = 37). UMAP, uniform manifold approximation and projection for dimension reduction. b, Aggregated 89-channel background InDel profile of hTERT-RPE1TP53-null control subclones (n = 7). c, Gini index of experimentally generated InDel signatures (n = 10) in COSMIC-83 versus 89-channel format. Two-tailed Wilcoxon signed-rank test, P = 0.001953. d, Cosine similarities among experimentally generated 89-channel PRRd InDel signatures (Fig. 2d). e, Unsupervised clustering of experimentally generated 89-channel PRRd InDel signatures using cosine distance. Dashed vertical line marks 0.1 cut-off.
a, Signature selection plot of de novo extraction by SigProfilerExtractor39 of n = 37 experimental samples in COSMIC-83 or 89-channel InDel catalogs. Suggested solutions are shaded in orange or purple for COSMIC-83 and 89-channel catalogs, respectively. b, Suggested de novo solution (two signatures) by SigProfilerExtractor for COSMIC-83 experimental cohort (n = 37). c, Suggested de novo solution (four signatures) by SigProfilerExtractor for 89-channel experimental cohort (n = 37). d, Signature selection plots of de novo extraction by signature.tools.lib3, SigProfilerExractor39 and MuSiCal8 of n = 52 ICGC colorectal cancers in COSMIC-83 versus 89-channel InDel catalogs. Suggested solutions are shaded in orange or purple for COSMIC-83 and 89-channel InDel catalogs, respectively. e, Selected de novo solution (five signatures) from signature.tools.lib for ICGC colorectal cancer COSMIC-83 catalogs. f, Selected de novo solution (eight signatures) from signature.tools.lib for ICGC colorectal cancer 89-channel catalogs. g, Suggested de novo solution (five signatures) by SigProfilerExtractor for ICGC colorectal cancer COSMIC-83 catalogs. h, Suggested de novo solution (six signatures) by SigProfilerExtractor for ICGC colorectal cancer 89-channel catalogs. Signatures from MuSiCal extraction are not shown.
Hierarchical clustering and dendrogram partitioning of n = 111 tissue-specific signatures into n = 40 distinct patterns using cosine distance (1 − cosine similarity) as distance metric, with a cut-off of 0.15. The 40 distinct patterns were manually reviewed, revised and inspected for mixed patterns to produce the final 37 consensus InDS (Fig. 3 and Supplementary Tables 9–11; Methods).
a, InDel signatures of exposures to environmental mutagens in human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSC). Data reanalyzed from previous study52. b, InDel signatures of DNA repair/replication gene knockouts in human induced pluripotent stem cells. Data reanalyzed from previous study46. c, Extended sequence context of 1 bp C deletions of InD9a showed TTCT/TTCA enrichment for APOBEC deamination. APOBEC, apolipoprotein B mRNA-editing enzyme, catalytic polypeptide. d, Proposed etiology for APOBEC-associated InD9a. APOBEC, apolipoprotein B mRNA-editing enzyme, catalytic polypeptide; TLS, translesion synthesis; UNG, Uracil-N-glycosylase.
Source data
Heatmap clustering of n = 26 experimentally generated signatures and 37 cancer-derived InDS. Experimentally generated signatures include n = 10 from the current study, n = 10 from the mutagen study52 (Extended Data Fig. 8a) and n = 6 from iPSC knockout study46 (Extended Data Fig. 8b). Putative sources (left) and etiologies (right) of the signatures are annotated if known. HRd, homologous recombination deficiency; PAH, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons; N-Slip, nascent strand slippage; T-Slip, template strand slippage; MMRd, mismatch repair deficiency.
a, Venn diagrams showing the concordance and discordance between different predictors in selected ICGC and Hartwig cohort (n = 1,335). b, PRRDetect prediction of ICGC and Hartwig seven cancer types (n = 1,335; Supplementary Table 17). c, PRRDetect prediction of GEL seven cancer types (n = 4,775; Supplementary Table 12).
Supplementary Fig. 1 and Supplementary Note.
Supplementary Table 1: CRISPR-edited RPE1 isogenic cellular models and their genotypes. Supplementary Table 2: CRISPR gene-editing guide RNAs, HDR donor templates and genotyping sequencing primers. Supplementary Table 3: WGS coverage, de novo mutation count, and SNV-to-InDel ratio of experimental subclones. Supplementary Table 4: Experimental gene-edit InDel mutation catalogs and signatures in COSMIC-83 and 89-channel formats. Supplementary Table 5: Experimental gene-edit single base substitution mutation catalogs and signatures. Supplementary Table 6: Replicative strand asymmetry analysis result. Supplementary Table 7: Full 476 InDel subtypes of redefined InDel taxonomy. Supplementary Table 8: InDel examples of redefined InDel classification of small insertions and deletions (<100 bp) for mutational signature analysis. Supplementary Table 9: Tissue-specific InDS of Genomics England seven cancer types (n = 4,775). Supplementary Table 10: Thirty-seven consensus InDS in numerical format. Supplementary Table 11: Conversion table from tissue-specific InDs to consensus InDs. Supplementary Table 12: PRRDetect of GEL samples (n = 4775). Supplementary Table 13: Performance metrics of attempted prediction models using different input parameters. Supplementary Table 14: PRRDetect feature coefficients. Supplementary Table 15: Performance metrics of different algorithms for predicting PRR dysfunction in the validation cohort (n = 1,351). Supplementary Table 16: PRRDetect of ICGC breast samples (n = 504). Supplementary Table 17: PRRDetect of ICGC and Hartwig selected samples (n = 1,335).
InDel signatures (89-channel) of mutagen exposures and isogenic knockouts in human induced pluripotent stem cells.
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Upgrades to electricity grids might not keep up with the demands of power-hungry data centres. Credit: Sean Gallup/Getty
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The electricity consumption of data centres is projected to more than double by 2030, according to a report from the International Energy Agency published today. The primary culprit? Artificial Intelligence (AI).
The report covers the current energy footprint for data centres and forecasts their future needs, which could help governments, companies, and local communities to plan infrastructure and AI deployment.
IEA's models project that data centres will use 945 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2030, roughly equivalent to the current annual electricity consumption of Japan. By comparison, data centres consumed 415 TWh in 2024, roughly 1.5% of the world's total electricity consumption (see ‘Global electricity growth').
Source: IEA. CC BY 4.0
The projections largely focus on data centres, which also run computing tasks other than AI. Although the agency estimated the proportion of servers in data centres devoted to AI. They found that servers for AI accounted for 24% of server electricity demand and 15% of total data centre energy demand in 2024.
Alex de Vries, a researcher at VU Amsterdam and the founder of Digiconomist, who was not involved with the report, thinks this is an underestimate. The report “is a bit vague when it comes to AI specifically,” he says.
Even with these uncertainties, “we should be mindful about how much energy is ultimately being consumed by all these data centers,” says de Vries. “Regardless of the exact number, we're talking several percentage of our global electricity consumption.”
The IEA report finds that the US, Europe, and China are collectively responsible for 85% of data centres' current energy consumption. Of the predicted growth in consumption, developing economies will account for around 5% by 2030, while advanced economies will account for more than 20% (see ‘Data-centre energy growth').
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Countries are building power plants and upgrading electricity grids to meet the forecasted energy demand for data centres. But the IEA estimates that 20% of planned centres could face delays being connected to the grid.
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Healthy nerve cells can be transplanted to treat Parkinson's disease, but they risk rejection by the recipient's immune system.Credit: Steve Gschmeissner/Science Photo Library
Human brain cells engineered to evade detection by the immune system have successfully restored muscle control in a rat model of Parkinson's disease1. The study is a step towards the development of a ‘universal' cell line that can be transplanted into anyone, to cure a raft of diseases without the need for anti-rejection drugs.
“It's a one-cell-fits-all proposal,” says Clare Parish, a stem-cell biologist at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health in Melbourne, Australia, and a co-author of the study.
The work, published today in Cell Stem Cell, builds on earlier efforts to ‘cloak' cells from the immune system. Cloaking is a key goal for cell-replacement therapies being tested for conditions ranging from type 2 diabetes and Parkinson's disease to heart failure and blindness. It would eliminate the need for immunosuppressant drugs, which increase the risk of infection and cancer, and cause tissue damage that ultimately shortens the life of a recipient.
To help cells to evade the immune system, the researchers created a cell line with eight genes altered to increase their activity so they acted as an immune invisibility cloak. All of the genes have been shown to assist the placenta and cancer cells in naturally evading immune surveillance. For example, mouse embryonic stem cells engineered with the same set of genes were able to evade detection when transplanted into mice2.
Instead of mouse embryonic cells, Parish and her team used human pluripotent stem cells, which can develop into most types of cell found in the body. After being engineered with the cloaking genes, the cells differentiated into nerve cells suitable for treating Parkinson's disease. The researchers injected the neurons into mice whose immune systems had been replaced with human immune cells, and the neurons were not rejected, suggesting that they were able to evade detection.
To test whether the neurons were functional, the researchers injected them into the brains of rats treated with a neurotoxin whose effects mimic the symptoms of Parkinson's disease. Twelve weeks after the transplant, the rats' muscle function had greatly improved.
Roger Barker, a neuroscientist at the University of Cambridge, UK, says the study demonstrates that the cells differentiate and behave normally. It's “a clever and useful approach of clear importance to the field,” he says.
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While seasoned organic chemists can often predict suitable catalysts for new reactions based on their past experiences in other catalytic reactions, developing this ability is costly, laborious and time-consuming. Therefore, replicating this remarkable expertize of human researchers through machine learning (ML) is compelling, albeit that it remains highly challenging. Herein, we apply a domain-adaptation-based transfer-learning (TL) approach to photocatalysis. Despite being different reaction types, the knowledge of the catalytic behavior of organic photosensitizers (OPSs) from photocatalytic cross-coupling reactions is successfully transferred to ML for a [2+2] cycloaddition reaction, improving the prediction of the photocatalytic activity compared with conventional ML approaches. Furthermore, a satisfactory predictive performance is achieved by using only ten training data points. This experimentally readily accessible small dataset can also be used to identify effective OPSs for alkene photoisomerization, thereby showcasing the potential benefits of TL in catalyst exploration.
Machine learning (ML) is gaining increasing attention in catalysis research as an efficient tool for catalyst exploration and design1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8. Although seasoned experts in organic synthesis can often predict effective catalysts, even for new reactions, by drawing on the knowledge gained from previous experiences with other reactions, imitating this ability of human researchers through ML would significantly save experimental efforts and time. Transfer learning (TL) is an ML technique where knowledge gained from one task or domain is applied to the improvement of the predictive performance of ML on a different but related task or domain9,10,11. While related concepts have been elegantly applied in catalysis research12,13,14,15,16,17, further development of TL methods in this field is required. It would be ideal if the acquired knowledge could be shared across different types of organic reactions, but the feasibility of this potentially promising protocol has yet to be sufficiently demonstrated. In particular, the effectiveness of TL in predicting the catalytic activity of photosensitizers as an attractive tool for organic chemists18,19,20 remains unclear.
Herein, we demonstrate the pivotal role of domain adaptation (DA)9,21,22,23, a TL technique that has been underestimated in catalysis research, in improving the predictive performance of ML for the estimation of the catalytic behavior of organic photosensitizers (OPSs) and in identifying promising OPSs for a specific reaction using relatively small datasets of seemingly distinct photoreactions (Fig. 1a). ML techniques have already been used for the prediction of photocatalytic behavior, including redox catalysis and energy transfer (EnT) in reactions such as hydrogen evolution24,25, singlet-oxygen generation26, and the nickel/photocatalytic synthesis of phenols27. However, the construction of regression models for an accurate prediction of the catalytic behavior of various π-conjugated organic molecules potentially serving as OPSs without using extensive training data remains challenging25,27. In contrast to these conventional ML approaches in photocatalysis, we hypothesized that sharing the knowledge of the catalytic behavior of OPSs, even in photoreactions seemingly distinct from a target photoreaction, could enhance the prediction accuracy if OPSs play a similar role in each reaction. Thus, we collected data on the catalytic behavior of OPSs for nickel/photocatalytic C–O, C–S, and C–N bond-forming reactions as well as a [2+2] cycloaddition reaction and assessed the effectiveness of sharing the as-acquired knowledge using TrAdaBoostR2, an instance-based DA method28. Transferring knowledge from the domain of photocatalytic cross-coupling reactions led to a more accurate prediction of the photocatalytic behavior in the target domain, i.e., the [2+2] cycloaddition. Moreover, our concept proved to be valid even when using only ten training data points, and this experimentally accessible small dataset of ten OPSs could be employed to propose promising OPSs in an alkene photoisomerization reaction through DA. The present study thus demonstrates that combining the existing database of catalysts with DA provides a promising tool for sharing knowledge across different types of reactions, such as the cross-coupling, cycloaddition, and alkene isomerization reactions, to discover effective catalysts, highlighting the potential utility of DA in assisting organic synthesis research.
a Research outline, including a description of photoreactions primarily used as the source and target domains and the prediction target. b TrAdaBoostR2 (TrAB)-based DA procedures applied in this work.
First, we examined the catalytic behavior of 100 OPSs in the photocatalytic [2+2] cycloaddition (henceforth referred to as CA) of 4-vinylbiphenyl (1), which has been reported as an EnT reaction29,30. Our OPS dataset consists of the 60 OPSs previously used in our study27, together with 40 newly prepared OPSs. In contrast to the previous set of 60 neutral OPSs containing electron-donor and -acceptor groups (D–A-type OPSs), the updated dataset includes not only D–A-type OPSs (e.g., OPS1), but also π–π*-type OPSs (e.g., OPS75), n–π*-type OPSs (e.g., OPS86), and cationic OPSs (e.g., OPS99). The OPSs used in this study are shown in Figs. S1 and S2. The investigation of the photocatalytic behavior of OPSs revealed that several D–A-type OPSs (OPS1, OPS7, OPS10, OPS11, OPS12, OPS13, OPS44, and OPS67) are effective, affording the desired product (2) in > 70% yield after 3 h in this photoreaction. In contrast, π–π*-type, n–π*-type, and cationic OPSs exhibited very low catalytic activity (Fig. 2).
The bar plot in the left panel shows the yields obtained for all 100 OPSs tested, while the right panel displays representative OPSs.
Descriptors for the 100 OPSs were generated using density functional theory (DFT) calculations and Python toolkits. The DFT-derived descriptor set, which is denoted as DFT descriptors or simply DFT in the context of ML, contains the HOMO (EHOMO) and LUMO (ELUMO) energy levels based on the optimized ground-state geometry calculated at the B3LYP-D3/6-31G(d) level. Additionally, the vertical excitation (absorption) energies of the lowest singlet (E(S1)) and triplet (E(T1)) excited states, the corresponding vertical singlet–triplet splitting (ΔEST = E(S1) – E(T1)), and the oscillator strengths of the lowest singlet excitation (f(S1)) were obtained from single-point quantum chemical calculations using time-dependent DFT (TD-DFT) with the Tamm–Dancoff approximation (TDA). The molecular geometries were prepared through the ground-state geometry optimizations at the B3LYP-D3/6-31G(d) level (for details, see the Computational details section in the Supplementary Information). The TD-DFT/TDA calculations for the S1 and T1 states were performed at the M06-2X/6-31+G(d) level with the PCM model for toluene solutions27,31. Furthermore, to clearly differentiate the change in properties between ground and excited states for various compounds including D–A-type and π–π*-type OPSs, the difference in dipole moments between these two states of OPSs (ΔDM) was calculated as a descriptor. ΔDM was determined by conducting single-point calculations for the ground and excited states at the PCM(toluene)-M06-2X/6-31+G(d) level. Furthermore, we employed four descriptor sets generated from SMILES of OPSs, including the RDKit descriptor (RDKit), the MACCSKeys (MK), the Mordred, and the Morgan fingerprint (MF). Since some of these descriptor sets consisted of over several hundred features, we also prepared descriptors reduced in dimension using principal component analysis (PCA), and the resulting descriptor sets contained 12 (RDKit_pca), 12 (MK_pca), nine (Mordred_pca), and 29 (MF_pca) features, respectively.
With the dataset for 100 OPSs in hand, we evaluated the predictive performance for an estimation of the catalytic activity of OPSs using random forest (RF) as an ML algorithm (Table 1). To mitigate the influence of variations in the partition pattern between training and test datasets on the predictive performance, we examined 100 different partition patterns (50 compounds (50%) for the training data, and 50 compounds (50%) for the test data) and compared the average (Avg R2), maximum (Max R2), and standard deviation (Std R2) of the R2 scores on the test set. Consequently, RF models employing descriptors obtained from SMILES yielded poor predictive performance, with Avg R2 values dropping below 0.25 (Table 1, entries 1–8). The DFT descriptors showed a marginal improvement in R2 scores, but an Avg R2 was only 0.27 with a Max R2 of 0.55 (Table 1, entry 9). Concatenating the DFT descriptors with RDKit_pca did not result in a good predictive performance (Table 1, entry 10; Avg R2 = 0.23), which stands in sharp contrast to our previous findings (for the investigation of other combinations, see Table S8)27. Moreover, alternative ML algorithms such as Lasso, support vector machine (SVM), and XGBoost (XGB) could not improve the R2 scores (Table 1, entries 11–13).
Although using large, well-qualified training datasets, e.g., high-throughput experiment datasets, provides excellent predictive performance1,32,33, collecting a vast amount of high-quality experimental data for target reactions may not always be practical for organic chemists. In contrast, the diversity of organic reactions, including photoreactions, could be advantageous in ML for organic synthesis because extracting relatively similar reactions from a previously constructed database containing various reactions and subsequently sharing the acquired knowledge can offer an alternative approach, i.e., TL, to enhance the predictive performance.
We then attempted to improve the performance of ML in predicting the catalytic behavior of OPSs in CA using data on other photocatalytic reactions. Previously, we developed an ipso-substitution of aryl halides with water for the synthesis of phenol derivatives catalyzed by an OPS and an inorganic nickel salt (OPS/Ni)27. Many cross-coupling reactions facilitated by photosensitizers and Ni catalysts, including our case, have been suggested to involve an EnT process to some extent20,34,35,36,37. The cross-coupling reaction is an apparently different type of organic transformation from CA. However, considering the potentially similar role of OPSs as EnT catalysts in these reaction systems, we hypothesized that knowledge transfer from cross-coupling reactions could effectively enhance the prediction of photocatalytic activity in CA. Therefore, we collected experimental data on the catalytic behavior of OPSs in the OPS/Ni-catalyzed synthesis of phenols using 4-bromobenzonitrile (3a; reaction time = 1.5 h: CO_a, 7.5 h: CO_b), 4-bromobiphenyl (3b, CO_c), methyl 4-bromo-3-methylbenzoate (3c, CO_d), and 4-chlorobenzonitrile (3 d, CO_e) (Fig. 3a). In addition, we diversified our dataset by collecting data on the catalytic behavior of OPSs in C–S bond and C–N bond-forming reactions with 3a (CS and CN, respectively)37,38. We also performed a Pearson correlation analysis to determine trends in the catalytic activity, i.e., the yield of each product (2, 4a–4c, 5, and 6) (Fig. 3b). Although the correlation coefficients between CA and CO_a, CO_b, CO_c, CO_d, CO_e, and CS, respectively, were moderate (0.52–0.64), CA and CN showed a relatively strong correlation (0.76).
a List of OPS/Ni-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions. b Pearson correlation analysis of the yield in each photoreaction.
First, we investigated the impact of simply increasing the data volume on prediction accuracy. To this end, we utilized the entire data from cross-coupling experiments comprising a total of 700 data points, as the training dataset (Fig. 6a, Method B). In subsequent investigations, we used one-hot encoding (OHE) to distinguish the types of reactions. The predictive performance of the Lasso, SVM, RF, and XGB models was evaluated using all the nine descriptor sets previously tested (Table 1). Although the prediction accuracy improved, the highest Avg R2 achieved was only 0.41 (XGB/MF_pca model). Next, we incorporated a dataset originally used for training in CA into the cross-coupling dataset, resulting in a combined training dataset of 750 data points (Fig. 6a, Method C). This approach was expected to serve as a simple TL model, facilitating the sharing of information among CA and others. Consequently, predictive performance improved further, with the best Avg R2 reaching 0.52 (XGB/DFT model). The detailed results of these ML investigations are provided in the Supplementary Information (Tables S11 and S12).
Meanwhile, we envisioned that using TL methods that more clearly distinguish between the source and target domains could further improve predictive performance. To achieve this, supervised DA, such as TrAdaBoostR2 (TrAB), was applied, using data on cross-coupling experiments as the source domain. In TrAB, the source and target domains are combined similarly to the aforementioned attempt (Fig. 6a, Method C), but this method decreases the weights of instances with large prediction errors in the source domain at each step of the boosting process, while those of instances with large errors in the target domain are increased (Fig. 1b). This approach enables more efficient knowledge transfer compared to simply combining the datasets, potentially leading to enhanced predictive performance for the target domain. An additional potential advantage of TrAB is its effectiveness even when using a smaller dataset as the source of knowledge than that used for deep-learning-based TL methods such as fine-tuning.
DA methods are broadly categorized into feature-based and instance-based approaches. While instance-based DA methods, including TrAB, aim to address differences in data distribution between the source and target domains by weighting or selecting samples, feature-based DA methods focus on aligning the feature distributions between source and target domains by transforming or mapping them into a shared feature space39. Therefore, in addition to TrAB, we tested the feature augmentation (FA) and correlation alignment (CORAL) as feature-based methods, as well as balanced weighting (BW) as an alternative option of instance-based DA. For the implementation of these DA models, we used the ADAPT library, which is an open-source Python toolkit40. After a brief investigation of the estimators of DA models and descriptors, we found that the combined use of light gradient boosting machine (LGBM) and the DFT descriptors outperformed other options (Tables S13 and S14).
When we employed data from all cross-coupling reactions as the source domain, the instance-based DA methods resulted in the substantial improvement compared with the others tested (Table 2, entries 1 and 4; TrAB: Avg R2 = 0.65, BW: Avg R2 = 0.63). In contrast, feature-based DA methods were less effective in enhancing prediction accuracy (Table 2, entries 2 and 3; CORAL: Avg R2 = 0.08, FA: Avg R2 = 0.55). For both source and target domains, the descriptors included DFT-based properties of OPSs and OHE-based reaction recognition, with the prediction target being the reaction yield, meaning that the input and output structures are very similar. Thus, although cross-coupling and cycloaddition reactions are different reaction types, our protocol is likely based on a homogeneous domain shift from the viewpoint of ML. In such cases, instance-based DA, which places greater emphasis on individual data points, could be more effective than feature-based DA. The difference in Avg R2 values between BW and TrAB was not substantial. However, TrAB iteratively and dynamically adjusts the weights of instances, enabling more efficient adaptation to the target characteristics. This likely contributes to the slightly improved predictive performance of TrAB.
Next, we examined the influence of the source domains on the predictive performance. We constructed new source domains based on the Pearson correlation coefficients of the entire dataset. The correlation coefficients of CO_a, CO_b, CO_c, CO_d, CO_e, CS, and CN with respect to CA are 0.59, 0.61, 0.61, 0.52, 0.63, 0.64, and 0.76, respectively. Accordingly, we designed S1 (CO_e, CS, CN), S2 (CN), and S3 (CS, CN) to include photoreaction datasets with high correlation coefficients, while S4 (CO_a, CO_d) and S5 (CO_a, CO_b, CO_c, CO_d) consisted of those with low correlation coefficients. The source domain, which consists of reactions with similar trends in catalytic behavior (S1), provided favorable results in improving the predictive performance (Table 2, entry 5; Avg R2 = 0.68). However, the predictive performance was not improved when using source domains that included a smaller number of data such as S2 and S3 (Table 2, entries 6 and 7; S2: Avg R2 = 0.50, S3: Avg R2 = 0.64). In addition, datasets with poor similarity in catalytic behavior were less effective as source domains (Table 2, entries 8 and 9; S4: Avg R2 = 0.49, S5: Avg R2 = 0.53). Therefore, both a high similarity of the tendency in the photocatalytic activity and data diversity are important features for providing effective source domains. The difference in predictive performance associated with the correlation coefficient was particularly pronounced when the data size of the source domain was small, as observed in the comparison between S3 and S4 (S3: Avg R2 = 0.64, S4: Avg R2 = 0.49). Meanwhile, despite the contamination of less useful datasets such as those from CO_a and CO_d, the decline in predictive performance was mitigated when the source domain contained all cross-coupling data (Avg R2 = 0.65). As mentioned earlier, TrAB decreases the weights of less useful instances in the source domain. Given this mechanism, it is reasonable that a source domain comprising diverse data would be more tolerant of the inclusion of ineffective data, aligning well with our findings discussed above.
To further enhance the prediction accuracy, we revised the descriptors using S1 as the source domain. First, we eliminated ELUMO and f(S1), which were found to deteriorate the predictive performance. Next, we used Featuretools, an open-source Python toolkit for feature engineering, to design a more effective descriptor set41. We converted DFT-derived descriptors into percentiles, i.e., P(EHOMO), P(E(S1)), P(E(T1)), P(ΔEST), and P(ΔDM). Subsequently, we performed multiplication, division, addition, and subtraction operations on pairs of these percentile descriptors, thereby generating 50 additional descriptors. After assessing the effectiveness of each descriptor, we identified P(E(S1)) * P(E(T1)), P(ΔDM) * P(E(S1)), P(ΔDM) * P(EHOMO), P(E(S1)) + P(EHOMO), P(ΔEST) − P(E(S1)), and P(ΔEST) / P(EHOMO) as effective descriptors. The new descriptor set, which is denoted as DFT_FE, led to an Avg R2 of 0.74 and a Max R2 of 0.88 (Table 2, entry 10). Fig. 4a, b show violin plots illustrating the distribution of R2 scores and an example of 2D scattering plots depicting the relationship between experimental and predicted yields, respectively, which clearly demonstrate the improvement in the predictive performance when employing the DA method. It is worth noting that compared with conventional RF models with the DFT descriptors (Table 1, entry 9), the predictive performance of the constructed TrAB models was improved in all 100 runs (Table S19) and the influence of training data, i.e., Std R2, became small (TrAB/DFT_FE: 0.09, RF/DFT: 0.15). We have previously clarified that unlike the cycloaddition reactions, OPS/Ni-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions may involve not only an EnT process but also oxidative- and reductive-quenching processes27, which underscores that the roles of OPSs in these reactions are not identical. Nevertheless, a knowledge transfer from substitution-type organic transformation (source domain) to addition reaction (target domain) was successfully achieved by combining various types of cross-coupling reactions as the source domain.
a Violin plots showing the distribution of R2 scores. b Examples of plots for experimental/predicted yields. c Influence of the number of training data on the predictive performance. d TrAB using ten OPSs as the training dataset.
Furthermore, we examined the robustness of the models regarding the number of data points in the training sets. When the size of the training data in the target domain was reduced to 40, 30, or 20, the decline in R2 scores and the variability in predictive performance based on the used training data decreased considerably in the TrAB model (Fig. 4c), thus demonstrating higher robustness than conventional approaches. Considering the robustness of the models constructed through TrAB, we conducted DA using ten OPSs as training data in the target domain (Fig. 4d). In this survey, histogram-based gradient boosting (HGB) was found to be the most effective estimator. Ten OPSs for training data were selected on the basis of the predictive performance from 100 partition patterns, identifying OPS5, OPS9, OPS20, OPS23, OPS27, OPS31, OPS34, OPS44, OPS59, and OPS83 as the most effective. The use of this training set achieved an R2 score on the test set of 0.73 when combined with DFT_FE, and the detailed results of this preliminary investigation are described in the Supplementary Information (Tables S23 and S24). Following additional feature engineering, a new descriptor set, referred to as DFT_FE2, was developed, resulting in an improved R2 score of 0.83. DFT_FE2 consists of EHOMO, E(S1), E(T1), f(S1), ΔDM, P(ΔDM) * P(E(S1)), P(ΔDM) * P(ΔEST), P(ΔEST) * P(f(S1)), P(ΔDM) + P(ΔEST), P(ΔEST) + P(E(S1)), P(ΔDM) – P(f(S1)), and P(f(S1)) – P(EHOMO). The yields of 2 obtained using five OPSs out of the seven OPSs providing more than 70% yield of product 2 were accurately predicted. In contrast, OPS13 and OPS67, which exhibited relatively poor photocatalytic activity in other reactions but showed high activity in CA, resulted in inaccurate predictions.
Although the use of the above-mentioned ten OPSs resulted in satisfactory predictive performance, the learning curve obtained from the evaluation of 100 different training-test splits highlighted the difficulty of ensuring generalization ability when using only ten OPSs as a training set. In the TrAB/DFT_FE2 model trained on ten data points, the Max R2 value was not significantly different from cases using a larger training dataset (50–20 data points: 0.87–0.82, ten data points: 0.83), but the Avg R2 value declined substantially (50–20 data points: 0.71–0.62, ten data points: 0.54) (Fig. S5 and Table S22). These findings indicate that, even in a TL-based approach, careful selection of appropriate training data is essential for achieving good predictive performance with such a limited training dataset. While this approach might not be ideal from a data science perspective, identifying an experimentally accessible small training dataset that is useful for ML-based screening can be a practical strategy in organic chemistry.
Given the limitations of TL using extremely small training datasets mentioned above, we further examined whether this TL strategy could still be effective by applying it to the prediction of potent OPSs in another photoreaction involving an EnT pathway. We tested the catalytic activity of the aforementioned ten OPSs (OPS5, OPS9, OPS20, OPS23, OPS27, OPS31, OPS34, OPS44, OPS59, and OPS83) in the photocatalytic (E)- to (Z)-isomerization of trans-stilbene (7), which involves an EnT pathway42, and attempted to predict the top five OPSs through DA (Fig. 5). A correlation analysis revealed that the catalytic activity tendencies among the ten OPSs experimentally tested in the alkene photoisomerization were similar (Pearson correlation coefficient ≥ 0.5) to those in CO_e, CS, CN, and CA. Consequently, two source domains were prepared: one consisting of the combined data of only cross-coupling reactions (CO_e, CS, and CN; denoted as S1) and the other of the combined data of cross-coupling and cycloaddition reactions (CS, CN, and CA; denoted as S6). The photocatalytic behavior of the remaining 90 OPSs was then predicted using these two source domains and DFT_FE2 as the descriptor set. In both cases, OPS1, OPS7, OPS11, and OPS12 were selected, and they exhibited remarkably high catalytic activity (91%–96%). As the last remaining top performers, OPS10 and OPS67 were selected when using the source domains S1 and S6, respectively, affording cis-stilbene (7') in 95% and 84% yields. Overall, the selected OPSs have similar structures, i.e., they are all cyanoarene-based compounds that bear carbazolyl groups or diarylamino groups. Although the ML model constructed with S1 showed larger errors between experimental and predicted yields than that constructed with S6 (S1: MAE = 8.4, S6: MAE = 3.8), all the proposed OPSs afforded 7' in yields of > 90%. It is noteworthy that these OPSs (OPS1, OPS7, OPS10, OPS11, OPS12, and OPS67) were still identified as top performers even when using a training dataset of eight OPSs excluding the highly active OPS9 and OPS44, while the predictions were less accurate (Figs. S14 and S15; S1: MAE = 14.8, S6: MAE = 9.6).
MAE Mean absolute error.
Meanwhile, the TrAB/DFT_FE model proposed OPS24, OPS25, OPS32, and OPS36 as top performers, which were not ranked among the top five OPSs with DFT_FE2. However, these OPSs gave unsatisfactory experimental yields of 7' (OPS24:16%, OPS25: 31%, OPS32: 71%, OPS36: 77%). Moreover, when using DFT_FE, the errors between experimental and predicted yields were much larger (S1: MAE = 30.1, S6: MAE = 10.0) than those obtained with DFT_FE2. While DFT_FE2 underperformed DFT_FE in terms of generalization ability (Fig. S5 and Table S22), it proved useful in selecting superior OPSs for the specific task (CA): DFT_FE2 delivered better results in the more practical catalyst exploration, utilizing the experimentally accessible number of OPSs.
When the RF model with the DFT descriptors was used to predict the top five OPSs using the same ten OPSs as a training set, OPS41, OPS43, OPS63, OPS64, and OPS65 were selected. Unfortunately, these OPSs were ineffective (1%–21%), and the errors between experimental and predicted yields were large (MAE = 66.6). In addition, although this alkene photoisomerization is considered to involve an EnT process from the photoexcited OPS to alkene 7, the RF model selected wrong answers, OPSs with strong reducing properties38,43, as was confirmed by feature-importance and SHAP analyzes (for the SHAP analysis, see Fig. S19b). It is worth noting that such a critical misunderstanding in the selection of OPSs using the simple RF model could be prevented by sharing the knowledge, namely by using a DA-based TL strategy, even among seemingly different photoreactions, allowing the successful identification of OPSs with very high catalytic activity.
To evaluate the applicability and limitations of the DA strategy (Fig. 6), we assessed the predictive performance for each cross-coupling reaction (CO_a, CO_b, CO_c, CO_d, CO_e, CS, and CN). First, we compared the performance of TrAB with that of RF without the source-domain dataset (Fig. 6a, Method A), both using the DFT descriptors. In TrAB, the source domain consisted of either all data from photoreactions except for the target reaction or data from three photoreactions with high correlation coefficients to the target. We observed that the DA competence of these source domains was consistently superior to that of the source domain consisting of three photoreactions with trends in catalytic activity dissimilar to each target (Table S28). In all cases, Method A significantly underperformed TrAB in the prediction accuracy. While the TrAB/DFT model consistently delivered moderate to high prediction accuracy in CO_a, CO_b, CO_c, CO_d, CO_e, and CN (TrAB: Avg R2 = 0.64–0.85, Method A: Avg R2 = 0.26–0.49), its predictive performance was poor for CS (Avg R2 = 0.43). Method A also showed the extremely poor predictive performance for CS (Avg R2 = 0.07), suggesting that DA may not always provide sufficient improvements, particularly for tasks with inherently elusive characteristics, such as CS.
a Comparison of predictive performance among TrAB and other methods when datasets of cross-coupling reactions were used as target domains. The RF/DFT model was applied in Method A, while the XGB/DFT model was used in Methods B and C. b Comparison of prediction accuracy between data included in the source domain and those excluded from the source domain (target: CA, source domain: S1, descriptor set: DFT_FE).
Next, we tested XGB models trained on 700 data points from the photoreactions excluding the target (Fig. 6a, Method B), as well as on a dataset of 750 data points, in which the aforementioned 700 data points were combined with the training dataset of the target reaction (Fig. 6a, Method C). These XGB models were also combined with the DFT descriptors. Compared to the predictive performance of TrAB, that of Method B was inferior in all cases (Method B: Avg R2 = 0.16–0.67), while it was comparable when CS, for which TrAB also demonstrated the insufficient performance, was the target (TrAB: Avg R2 = 0.44, Method B: Avg R2 = 0.42). The primary difference between Method C and TrAB lies in the ability of TrAB to apply sample weighting (Fig. 1b), which more effectively differentiates the source and target domains. In the case of C–O bond-forming reactions where the constructed database contains a sufficient number of reactions with tendencies in photocatalytic activity comparable to the target, TrAB consistently delivered favorable results (CO_a: Avg R2 = 0.78, CO_b: Avg R2 = 0.76, CO_c: Avg R2 = 0.85, CO_d: Avg R2 = 0.72, CO_e: Avg R2 = 0.80). In contrast, although Method C performed well for CO_a, CO_b, and CO_c (CO_a: Avg R2 = 0.74, CO_b: Avg R2 = 0.72, CO_c: Avg R2 = 0.77), its predictive performance fell significantly short of TrAB for CO_d and CO_e (CO_d: Avg R2 = 0.42, CO_e: Avg R2 = 0.65). Additionally, Method C showed limited effectiveness for CS and CN, with its performance being comparable to, or even worse than, Method B, which did not utilize training data from the target (Method B/CS: Avg R2 = 0.42, Method B/CN: Avg R2 = 0.45, Method C/CS: Avg R2 = 0.31, Method C/CN: Avg R2 = 0.48). Overall, while Method C demonstrated good predictive performance in some instances, it never outperformed TrAB in any scenario. Moreover, TrAB consistently exhibited more stable and higher performance than the others in all cases, effectively addressing the instability observed in approaches that relied simply on the increased data volume.
Subsequently, we evaluated the predictive performance for OPSs that were not included in the source domain (Fig. 6b). Extrapolative predictions have been a persistent challenge in ML applications for catalytic reactions. For instance, in ML research on C–N bond-forming reactions conducted by Dreher and Doyle1, successful extrapolative predictions were achieved for isoxazole additives, whereas those for aryl halides proved to be highly challenging. Similarly, Zhang and Hong developed a graph neural network-based approach, demonstrating improved performance for the same task44. Nevertheless, extrapolative predictions for aryl halides and bases remained challenging even in this approach. Following this context, we randomly excluded 30 OPSs from the source-domain datasets while retaining them in the target-domain dataset, to assess the performance of our proposed strategy under similar extrapolation conditions. In this investigation, CA was selected as the target, with DFT_FE and S1 employed as the descriptor set and the source domain, respectively. Consequently, the predictive performance for OPSs included in the source domain was satisfactory (Avg R2 = 0.76), whereas it was significantly lower for those excluded from the source domain (Avg R2 = 0.28). Similar trends were observed even when patterns of OPSs excluded from the source domain were different (Tables S29–S48). These results indicate that the success of this strategy relies heavily on the coverage of OPSs provided by the experimental database used for the source domain. Therefore, continuous efforts by organic chemists to expand and refine the database are essential for further strengthening the proposed DA-based TL strategy.
The improvements in prediction accuracy observed in this study were likely due to the successful construction of source-domain datasets with trends in photocatalytic activity similar to the target reaction. The photocatalytic cross-coupling, cycloaddition, and alkene isomerization reactions utilized in our study are considered to involve EnT processes, resulting in this similarity in catalytic activity trends. Thus, first and foremost, constructing an appropriate database that accounts for reaction mechanisms is essential for establishing an effective source domain.
As an alternative approach for selecting source-domain datasets, we found that a simple metric, i.e., the Pearson correlation coefficient, could be used to differentiate between effective and ineffective datasets to some extent. This is derived from the observation that effective source-domain datasets generally exhibited higher correlation coefficients to the target reaction than ineffective datasets (Table 2 and S28). Notably, this approach is applicable even with limited knowledge of the reactions. For clarity, we primarily used the source domain constructed based on the correlation coefficients of the entire dataset, but this metric-based approach also proved effective when the source domain was constructed using only the correlation coefficients among OPSs in the training data (Table S21 and Figs. S8, S9, and S16), which aligns more closely with practical scenarios. However, the difference in correlation coefficients was not always sufficient to fully distinguish between effective and ineffective datasets. Moreover, in several cases, the DA competence of a source domain comprising all photoreactions other than the target was comparable to, or even outperformed, that of a source domain consisting solely of selected photoreactions biased toward trends in photocatalytic activity similar to the target (Table 2 and S28).
Therefore, drawing definitive conclusions about the optimal method for selecting source-domain datasets based solely on our observations remains challenging, while our findings offer helpful insights into the criteria for selecting the source-domain datasets. A viable approach to addressing this issue is to construct a source domain comprising more diverse photoreactions with various substrate–product examples, taking into account the ability of TraAdaBoostR2 to mitigate the influence of uninformative data in the source domain. This approach is particularly effective when the source-domain datasets are appropriately selected based on organic-chemistry insights or validated using metrics such as the correlation coefficient. Nonetheless, future studies need to investigate whether such a sample-weighting mechanism would remain effective when the source domain includes reactions with trends in catalytic activity significantly different from those of the target EnT reaction, such as photoredox reactions.
Through a combination of experimental and computational investigations, we have demonstrated how DA-based TL can be effectively employed for the prediction of the catalytic behavior of OPSs. Compared with conventional approaches, e.g., the RF model with the DFT-derived descriptor set, the present TrAdaBoostR2-based DA strategy enhances the predictive performance. Specifically, it improved the average R2 score from 0.27 to 0.74, the maximum R2 score from 0.55 to 0.88, and the standard deviation of R2 scores from 0.15 to 0.09 when predicting the photocatalytic activity of OPSs in the [2+2] cycloaddition using data obtained from OPS/Ni-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions, which are organic transformations that are apparently different from the target reaction. Furthermore, our study showcased that the use of only ten OPSs as training data in the target domain resulted in satisfactory predictive performance (R2 = 0.83), and this experimentally readily accessible small dataset proved instrumental in proposing effective OPSs in the alkene photoisomerization. Meanwhile, although our approach also demonstrated stable performance even when targeting photocatalytic cross-coupling reactions, it does not appear to be well-suited for predicting OPSs that are not included in the source domain. Our results not only illustrate that constructing appropriate databases informed by organic-chemistry knowledge can strengthen ML-driven catalyst exploration even for newly tested reactions, but also set a precedent for more effectively applying ML in other areas where data scarcity is a barrier. Further investigations to assess the applicability of the DA-based TL method to a broader range of photoreactions, including photoredox reactions, are currently in progress in our laboratory.
4-Vinylbiphenyl 1 (180.3 mg, 1.00 mmol), a photosensitizer (2.5 μmol, 0.25 mol%), and CH2Cl2 (1 mL) were added to a test tube under air at room temperature. After the mixture was degassed by three freeze-pump-thaw cycles, the test tube was put in PhotoRedOx Box and the reaction was carried out under visible light irradiation (λ = 450 nm) for 3 h at room temperature. The solvent was evaporated and the yield was determined by 1H NMR spectroscopy with 1,3,5-trimethoxybenzene as an internal standard.
A substrate (3a–3d, 0.500 mmol), DABCO (84.1 mg, 0.750 mmol, 1.5 equiv.), a photosensitizer (2.5 μmol, 0.5 mol%), H2O (72.1 μL, 4.00 mmol, 8 equiv.), and NiBr2•DME in NMP or DMI (5 mM, 2 mL, 2 mol%) were added to a test tube under air at room temperature. After the mixture was degassed by three freeze-pump-thaw cycles, the test tube was put in PhotoRedOx Box and the reaction was carried out under visible light irradiation (λ = 450 nm) for 1.5 h–24 h at room temperature. Water (15 mL) was added and the mixture was extracted with Et2O (15 mL × 3). The organic phase was dried over Na2SO4, filtered, and evaporated. The yield was determined by 1H NMR spectroscopy with 1,3,5-trimethoxybenzene as an internal standard.
4-Bromobenzonitrile 3a (91.0 mg, 0.500 mmol), a photosensitizer (2.5 μmol, 0.5 mol%), 1-octanethiol (174 μL, 0.84 g/mL, 0.999 mmol, 2 equiv.), pyridine (80.7 μL, 0.98 g/mL, 1.00 mmol, 2 equiv.), and NiBr2•DME in DMA (5 mM, 2 mL, 2 mol%) were added to a test tube under air at room temperature. After the mixture was degassed by three freeze-pump-thaw cycles, the test tube was put in PhotoRedOx Box and the reaction was carried out under visible light irradiation (λ = 450 nm) for 0.5 h at room temperature. Water (15 mL) was added and the mixture was extracted with Et2O (15 mL x 3). The organic phase was dried over Na2SO4, filtered, and evaporated. The yield was determined by 1H NMR spectroscopy with 1,3,5-trimethoxybenzene as an internal standard.
4-Bromobenzonitrile 3a (91.0 mg, 0.500 mmol), a photosensitizer (2.5 μmol, 0.5 mol%), pyrrolidine (145 μL, 0.86 g/mL, 1.75 mmol, 3.5 equiv.), and NiBr2•DME in NMP (5 mM, 2 mL, 2 mol%) were added to a test tube under air at room temperature. After the mixture was degassed by three freeze-pump-thaw cycles, the test tube was put in PhotoRedOx Box and the reaction was carried out under visible light irradiation (λ = 450 nm) for 3 min at room temperature. Water (15 mL) was added and the mixture was extracted with Et2O (15 mL x 3). The organic phase was dried over Na2SO4, filtered, and evaporated. The yield was determined by 1H NMR spectroscopy with 1,3,5-trimethoxybenzene as an internal standard.
In the performance comparison, 10–50% of the entire dataset was used for training, while the remaining data was used for testing. To construct domain-adaptation-based prediction models, we tested feature augmentation, correlation alignment, balanced weighting, and TraAdaBoostR2. These models were implemented using the ADAPT library40. Additionally, we evaluated prediction models based on Lasso, support vector machine, random forest, and XGBoost. To mitigate the impact of variations in the splitting pattern between the training and test datasets on predictive performance, we performed 100 different training-test splits and compared the average, maximum, and standard deviation of the R2 scores.
First, the catalytic activity of ten organic photosensitizers (OPS5, OPS9, OPS20, OPS23, OPS27, OPS31, OPS34, OPS44, OPS59, and OPS83) was investigated in alkene isomerization. Two source domains, consisting of photoreactions that exhibit catalytic activity trends similar to this reaction, were constructed (S1: CO_e, CS, and CN, S6: CS, CN, and CA). Using the above-mentioned ten photosensitizers as the training dataset and each of the prepared source domains, we constructed TraAdaBoostR2-based models to predict the catalytic activity of the remaining 90 photosensitizers. The catalytic activity of the predicted top five performers was then experimentally tested. The experimental procedures for alkene photoisomerization are described in the following section.
trans-Stilbene 7 (90.1 mg, 0.500 mmol), a photosensitizer (2.5 μmol, 0.5 mol%), and CH2Cl2 (2 mL) were added to a test tube under air at room temperature. After the mixture was degassed by three freeze-pump-thaw cycles, the test tube was put in PhotoRedOx Box and the reaction was carried out under visible light irradiation (λ = 450 nm) for 0.5 h at room temperature. The solvent was evaporated and the yield was determined by 1H NMR spectroscopy with 1,3,5-trimethoxybenzene as an internal standard.
The data supporting the findings of this study are available within the Supplementary Information, and a file summarizing SMILES, DFT-based properties and yields of OPSs are available at the GitHub repository (https://github.com/Naoki-Noto/P2-20231212/tree/main/data) and Zenodo45. All data are available from the corresponding author upon request. Source data are provided with this paper.
All codes necessary for the research are available at the GitHub repository (https://github.com/Naoki-Noto/P2-20231212) and Zenodo45.
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This research was supported by the JSPS/MEXT Grants-in-aid for Transformative Research Areas (A) Digi-TOS (22H05356 [N.N.], 21H05221 [R.Kojima]), the JSPS/MEXT Grants-in-aid for Early-Career Scientists (23K13744 [N.N.]), the JSPS/MEXT Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research(A) (24H00449 [T.Y.]), the JSPS/MEXT Grants-in-aid for: Transformative Research Areas (A) Green Catalysis Science, International Leading Research, and Specially Promoted Research, KAKENHI (23H04904, 22K21346, and 23H05404 [S.S.]), the JST CREST (JPMJCR22L2 [S.S.]), and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) within the IRTG 2678 (GRK 2678 − 437785492 [T.R.]).
Integrated Research Consortium on Chemical Sciences (IRCCS), Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan
Naoki Noto & Susumu Saito
Graduate School of Science, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan
Ryuga Kunisada, Manami Hayashi, Takeshi Yanai & Susumu Saito
Organic Chemistry Institute, University of Münster, Münster, Germany
Tabea Rohlfs & Olga García Mancheño
Department of Biomedical Data Intelligence, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
Ryosuke Kojima
Institute of Transformative Bio-Molecules (WPI-ITbM), Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan
Takeshi Yanai
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N.N. primarily performed computational and experimental studies, receiving advice from M.H., R.Kojima, O.G.M., T.Y, and S.S. on aspects of machine learning, quantum chemical calculations, and experimental design. R.Kunisada and T.R. provided experimental support. The work was directed by N.N. and supervised by S.S.
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Heavy drinkers who have eight or more alcoholic drinks per week have an increased risk of brain lesions called hyaline arteriolosclerosis, signs of brain injury that are associated with memory and thinking problems, according to a study published on April 9, 2025, online in Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study does not prove that heavy drinking causes brain injury; it only shows an association.
Hyaline arteriolosclerosis is a condition that causes the small blood vessels to narrow, becoming thick and stiff. This makes it harder for blood to flow, which can damage the brain over time. It appears as lesions, areas of damaged tissue in the brain.
"Heavy alcohol consumption is a major global health concern linked to increased health problems and death," said study author Alberto Fernando Oliveira Justo, PhD, of University of Sao Paulo Medical School in Brazil. "We looked at how alcohol affects the brain as people get older. Our research shows that heavy alcohol consumption is damaging to the brain, which can lead to memory and thinking problems."
The study included 1,781 people who had an average age of 75 at death. All had brain autopsies.
Researchers examined brain tissue to look for signs of brain injury including tau tangles and hyaline arteriolosclerosis. They also measured brain weight and the height of each participant.
Family members answered questions about participants' alcohol consumption.
Researchers then divided the participants into four groups: 965 people who never drank, 319 moderate drinkers who had seven or fewer drinks per week; 129 heavy drinkers who had eight or more drinks per week; and 368 former heavy drinkers. Researchers defined one drink as having 14 grams of alcohol, which is about 350 milliliters (ml) of beer, 150 ml of wine or 45 ml of distilled spirits.
Of those who never drank, 40% had vascular brain lesions. Of the moderate drinkers, 45% had vascular brain lesions. Of the heavy drinkers, 44% had vascular brain lesions. Of the former heavy drinkers, 50% had vascular brain lesions.
After adjusting for factors that could affect brain health such as age at death, smoking and physical activity, heavy drinkers had 133% higher odds of having vascular brain lesions compared to those who never drank, former heavy drinkers had 89% higher odds and moderate drinkers, 60%.
Researchers also found heavy and former heavy drinkers had higher odds of developing tau tangles, a biomarker associated with Alzheimer's disease, with 41% and 31% higher odds, respectively.
Former heavy drinking was associated with a lower brain mass ratio, a smaller proportion of brain mass compared to body mass, and worse cognitive abilities. No link was found between moderate or heavy drinking and brain mass ratio or cognitive abilities.
Justo noted that, in addition to brain injuries, impaired cognitive abilities were observed only in former drinkers.
Researchers also found that heavy drinkers died an average of 13 years earlier than those who never drank.
"We found heavy drinking is directly linked to signs of injury in the brain, and this can cause long-term effects on brain health, which may impact memory and thinking abilities," said Justo. "Understanding these effects is crucial for public health awareness and continuing to implement preventive measures to reduce heavy drinking."
A limitation of the study was that it did not look at participants before death and did not have information on the duration of alcohol consumption and cognitive abilities.
The study was supported by The São Paulo Research Foundation.
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Why not re-write the code for x86 CPUs?
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Last month, a team of Google security researchers released a tool that can modify microcode of AMD's processors based on the Zen microarchitecture, the Zentool. While this is a security vulnerability, for some, this is an opportunity; Members of the Chinese Jiachen Project are running a contest with an aim to develop a microcode for AMD's modern Zen-based CPU to make them execute RISC-V programs natively. The ultimate goal could be building an ultimate RISC-V CPU using already available silicon.
x86 is a complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) developed some 48 years ago. However, internally, modern x86 cores rely on proprietary engines running a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) ISA to handle complicated instructions. The internal RISC ISAs are not documented, but they should generally be similar to well-known RISC ISAs, such as Arm or RISC-V. CPU microcode is a low-level layer that translates complex x86 CISC instructions into simple RISC-like internal instructions the CPU hardware executes. CPU microcode is only supposed be modifiable by CPU vendor, but sometimes this is not the case and apparently some parts of AMD's Zen 1/2/3/4 microcode can be changed using the Zentool.
The Jianchen Project members want to find someone, who can modify AMD's Zen CPU microcode on a modern processor — say, an EPYC 9004-series — to execute RISC-V binaries. The patch is expected to either enable direct execution of RISC-V programs or significantly boost their runtime speed compared to emulation using the same hardware. The work must be tested using RISC-V versions of benchmarks like Coremark or Dhrystone. A complete submission includes binaries or source code, configuration files, dependencies, and test instructions. If only binaries are submitted before the deadline on June 6, identical source code must be added via pull request later. The winner will get ¥20,000 (approximately $2,735).
AMD's EPYC 9004-series and similar processors offer performance and core counts not achievable on currently available RISC-V-based processors, so executing proprietary RISC-V programs on EPYCs is a plausible idea. However, microcode is designed to fix internal bugs rather than replace the front-end ISA completely and it is even unclear whether the microcode can be completely re-written, people over at Ycombinator noted.
Back in the mid-2010s, AMD planned to offer both x86-64 and Armv8-A Zen CPUs (something recently recalled by Mike Clarke, AMD's chief architect), so it is highly likely that there was a microcode for the Zen 1 microarchitecture that supported an Aarch64 front-end ISA. That said, Zen 1 CPUs could feature multiple microcode layer 'slots,' one supporting x86-64 and another Aarch64. We doubt this is the case though as modern CPUs have very thorough hardware performance optimizations that include hardwire optimizations between the microcode and the rest of the core. AMD has hardly ever developed a microcode that supports Aarch64 or RISC-V for Zen 2/3/4 processors and therefore the microcode layer of these CPUs is strictly x86-64 and there is hardly enough microcode space for re-writing them from scratch.
"This is not achievable," one commenter named Monocasa wrote. "There is not enough rewritable microcode to do this even as a super slow hack. And even if all of the microcode were rewritable, microcode is kind of a fallback pathway on modern x86 cores with the fast path being hardwired decode for x86 instructions. And even if that were not the case the microcode decode and jump is itself hardwired for x86 instruction formats. And even if that were not the case the micro-ops are very non-RISC."
One commenter criticized the contest format, suggesting it is a way to get complex work done for less than $3,000 pay.
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
In general, while the concept of re-writable microcode is an interesting one and stimulates discussion about alternative CPU designs, multi-ISA support, and low-level optimization, it does not look like the contest will achieve the stated goal. Perhaps, re-writing (or rather re-compiling) a RISC-V program or two for x86 CPUs makes more sense?
Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom's Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.
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Just one day after TechCrunch revealed that Jeff Bezos is backing a secretive EV startup called Slate Auto, an early version of the company's low-cost electric pickup truck was spotted in the wild.
Reddit user u/discostranger09 posted a photo to the r/whatisthiscar subreddit on Wednesday of a small, dark gray, two-seater pickup truck on a flatbed. The user said it was being offloaded from a container outside their office in the Los Angeles area. The photo was first reported by automotive outlets Carscoops and The Autopian.
The truck pictured is, in fact, the one Slate Auto has been working on, according to a person with direct knowledge of Slate Auto's vehicle design who spoke on the condition of anonymity. This person, whose identity is known to TechCrunch, said the truck is likely one of the concept vehicles the startup has created to show to potential investors — including the controlling owner of the LA Dodgers — at its design studio in Long Beach, California.
The truck is simply styled, with a grille that somewhat resembles the one on the modern-day Ford Bronco Sport. It also looks a bit like a smaller, simplified Rivian R1T — which is interesting considering that Slate's head of exterior design had a short stint at Rivian before coming to the secretive startup.
But there are no dramatic flourishes, and that's by design.
As TechCrunch exclusively reported earlier this week, the young company is attempting to build a business around the truck that involves selling it at a low price of around $25,000. Slate plans to upsell customers on customization and accessories of a wide variety. The company has filed for a trademark on the phrase “WE BUILT IT. YOU MAKE IT” and has mentioned something that sounds like a customization program called “Slate University” in job listings.
Another Slate trademark that has not yet been reported is for the phrase “Blank Slate.” That is one way that the company may refer to the base model of the truck before a customer chooses any customization options, according to the person familiar with the matter. It is unclear if the company has settled on a name for the truck, despite being a few weeks away from coming out of stealth. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Google to embrace Anthropic's standard for connecting AI models to data
Solid, which claimed to be the ‘AWS of fintech,' files for bankruptcy after raising nearly $81M in funding
Meta whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams says company targeted ads at teens based on their ‘emotional state'
Ilya Sutskever taps Google Cloud to power his AI startup's research
Anthropic rolls out a $200-per-month Claude subscription
Artisan, the ‘stop hiring humans' AI agent startup, raises $25M — and is still hiring humans
Governments identify dozens of Android apps bundled with spyware
© 2025 Yahoo.
ChatGPT is getting a little upgrade that is sure to be as cool as its controversial. With the flip of a toggle the AI will be able to reference past conversations. That's crucial if you're working on a big project across multiple chats, or just looking for a more realistic conversation for a Her-like companion.
It's also going to be a little alarming, because that's just more data someone can access if they get your log in or otherwise access your account. But its not unusual either. Both Google and Anthropic already provide similar features for paying customers. In this case OpenAI is just catching up with competitors.
Until today if you were having a conversation with a GPT model what you said stayed in that chat. If you told it you love the color yellow it couldn't remember that when you opened a new chat and asked it about your favorite color. The only way around that was to toggle on a “Reference saved memories” button and then tell ChatGPT not to forget you love the color yellow.
Starting today, if you're a ChatGPT Plus or Pro user, you can click a whole new toggle in the same preferences window to “Reference chat history.” Then you can just talk to ChatGPT like usual and it will be able to remember and reference those conversations in future conversations.
I've been using this ability in Anthropic's Claude and Google's Gemini for a while and I've always been throughly pleased with how magical it feels to just have the AI remember all the little things about me–particularly as I was blessed with the family curse of a goldfish memory. When I had a whole conversation with Claude about some new professional plans and then opened a new chat to start brainstorming it immediately knew why I was brainstorming and was quick to help.
But I'd love to see finer control over how these AI access conversations. Right now ChatGPT offers temporary windows that don't save any of your conversations–essentially the AI version of an incognito browser window. But the button for it is off to the side and easy to miss.
There's also the constant inescapable feeling you're giving the AI a lot of details about yourself and your life that you probably shouldn't. I've had those feelings before. Like when I first used Gmail in the 2000s to email saucy fanfiction, and when I uploaded every single one of the photos on my phone to the cloud. The feeling never goes away, but as I've used AI more I've found the benefit to me personally outweighs the enormous privacy risks. Will that potentially bite me in the ass later? Unclear. When I asked an instance of ChatGPT 4o it said “Honestly, that totally depends on what you're hoping to get out of this.” Nice to see it and I are on the same page.
This new feature will be available to ChatGPT Plus and Pro users starting today except in the UK, EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland. (Not surprising given how much more the EU cares about data retention policies.) The new and improved memory will roll out to Enterprise, Edu, and Team users at a later date. To see if you've recieved it keep your eyes peeled for a popup in ChatGPT titled “Introducing new, improved memory” or check in the Settings under Personalization for the new toggle.
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The judge did not take kindly to the stunt.
Linda McMahon might need new reading glasses.
The Bank of England warned that AI bots could converge on similar trading strategies, exacerbating downturns or bubbles.
U.S. tariff threats could fuel maple syrup fraud, but AI could help navigate this sticky situation.
Prepare to be under surveillance.
The company says the ban is a violation of its First Amendment rights.
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Among our top picks for gadgets under $30, these Occer compact binoculars are a necessity for anyone who wishes to enjoy the great outdoors or simply get some quality time with friends and family.
Currently available on Amazon for $35, these binoculars are an even better deal when you add in a 10% coupon which brings the price below $30. With more than 10,000 units sold within the past month, this item has resonated with families and outdoor enthusiasts universally.
See at Amazon
The Occer binoculars are designed to deliver robust performance in a lightweight and ultra portable package. They offer 12x magnification and a 25mm objective lens which offers a wide field of view of 273ft/1000yds. This makes them ideal for activities like bird watching, sporting events or sightseeing. They are equipped with high-quality FMC Broadband Coating and a BaK-4 prism for sharp and bright images with minimal distortion.
The fold-down eyecups are set so that glasses users can move closer to the lens for comfortable viewing. For those not wearing glasses, dropping the eyecups provides a sharper image. The eye relief is long and the large 15mm eyepieces offer an easy-to-view comfort, even with sunglasses or eye glasses on.
What's more, these binoculars are extremely light and convenient to carry, easily fitting in your pocket or handbag. The ABS plastic casing is reinforced with rubber armor for grip protection and durability. While not completely waterproof, the binoculars are splash-proof against light splashing and moisture and can be used in most outdoor environments.
With more than 31,000 reviews on Amazon, these binoculars have achieved an impressive average review rating of 4.4 stars (out of 5). Whether you're an avid birdwatcher or simply looking for a fun gadget during outdoor adventures, these binoculars won't disappoint. At under $30 (with the coupon), they're a steal for anyone seeking high-quality optics at a reasonable price point.
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The cuts that Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency made at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in February “disproportionately affected” employees working on vehicle automation safety, according to The Financial Times.
That division was formed in 2023 and therefore included a number of staffers who were still in their initial probationary hiring period, which could have led to their firings, according to the report. About 30 people total were let go. But one of the workers who was fired, who is not named in the story, told the outlet that the DOGE cuts would “certainly weaken NHTSA's ability to understand self-driving technologies.”
The cuts came just a few months ahead of Tesla launching its first-ever robotaxi service in Austin. Musk has claimed that his company will launch similar services in California and potentially other states by the end of the year — the latest in a long line of yet-unfilled promises about automated vehicle technology that the world's richest man has made.
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The world's largest particle collider is set to get a brand new toy, named for the oldest guy in the Bible.
The toy–a detector, actually—is called MATHUSLA. Researchers submitted a conceptual design report for the detector's design to the preprint server arXiv on March 26, where it's now hosted.
“MATHUSLA” is a merciful and incredibly forced acronym for the MAssive Timing Hodoscope for Ultra-Stable neutraL pArticles. The acronym is a reference to Methuselah, a biblical figure who lived nearly 1,000 years. Why the name? Because the hodoscope would seek out especially long-lived particles in the Large Hadron Collider, which have so far escaped detection amid the collider's subatomic fireworks show.
The LHC achieved one of its main goals over a decade ago, with the observation of a Higgs boson in 2012. Since then, particle physicists have been pondering how the gigantic, costly collider can yield further insights into the fundamental building blocks and interactions of classical physics.
The LHC is set to be upgraded into the High-Luminosity LHC, which will increase the facility's luminosity by a factor of ten and increase the number of Higgs bosons CERN physicists will be able to study. That upgrade is expected to be completed by 2029, and MATHUSLA is proposed to work alongside the improved version of the world-famous collider.
The fundamental design of the detector is thus: a massive box, 131 feet (40 meters) on each side and 36 feet (11 m) tall. The box would be filled with detectors that would sniff out long-lived particles that elude the LHC's main detectors.
The new detector's approximate cost, according to the report, is $44.5 million (€40 million). Is it cheap? Nope. Yet it's designed to be cost-effective: smaller than earlier proposals, but still big enough to be game-changing.
Late last month, CERN outlined a feasibility study for the Future Circular Collider (FCC), the could-be successor to the LHC. The $17 billion FCC would be three times the size of the LHC, buried twice as deep underground, and would begin operations before 2050—though it wouldn't be completed before the end of the century.
It's One Particle Accelerator, Michael. What Could It Cost—$17 Billion?
MATHUSLA would offer results sooner. Physicists' hope is to have MATHUSLA ready to ride alongside the HL-LHC, which is slated to begin full-throttle operations in the 2030s.
As long as the detector's name doesn't become a punchline for the time it takes for it to become a reality, there's a new opportunity for physicists to find physics at the brink of our current understanding.
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CERN says its Future Circular Collider has no technical hurdles—though the expected costs are exorbitant.
Brookhaven National Laboratory's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider kicked off its final year of operations this week, marking a quarter century of discoveries in particle physics.
The staggeringly energetic neutrino likely came from beyond our galaxy, and physicists have two main suspects.
A unique property of quantum systems is on display in one of the LHC's standard particle production methods.
M87 was the first black hole to be imaged, and now it's revealing details of how some elementary particles are accelerated by the universe's most extreme environments.
Axions—a popular dark matter candidate—may be floating around dense stellar remnants in a haze, and even be detectable to some telescopes.
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Manufacturers are trying to stay one step ahead of impending market changes.
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Reports from multiple data acquisition experts indicate that PC shipments increased globally during Q1 2025. This is most likely in response to the U.S. tariffs that have shaken the market across all industries. Data shared by Canalys reflects that shipments for desktops, laptops, and workstations moved 62.7 million units so far this year, which is a total increase of 9.4%.
We also found similar data from the International Data Corporation (IDC) website. It's important to note that each source calculates percentage increases using different metrics, but the number of units reported is almost identical. According to IDC, PC shipments increased by just 4.9% for a total of 63.2 million total units shipped during Q1.
We must stress that these changes are most likely due to responses to early tariff announcements. In an effort to get ahead of impending market challenges, many mainstream manufacturers are moving as much stock as possible to avoid tariff price increases for themselves and their consumers. As such, this is not likely to be a long-term trend but rather a fluctuation in response to the current political climate.
Canalys shared additional information, breaking down the data by different PC types. More specifically, desktop and desktop workstation shipments increased 8% over last year to 13.3 million units. Notebooks and other mobile workstation shipments surged 10% to 49.4 million units. This data reflects trends in the overall market that will likely change significantly as the year progresses.
Another factor weighing in on the changing PC market is the impending Windows 10 End of Support date. Users have until October 14th, 2025, to upgrade their machine to Windows 11. For many users, this means updating their PC with compatible hardware or purchasing a new PC entirely.
We're not entirely sure how sales will shake out throughout 2025, but many factors will surely cause a stir. We'll keep an eye out for significant changes throughout each quarter, so check back regularly to see how both tariffs and Windows 10 End of Support are playing out for both corporate entities and end users.
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WhatsApp has announced a slew of new updates across chats, calls, and channels designed to enhance the messaging and calling experience for users as it continues to compete with popular services like Telegram and Discord.
Among the most notable additions is an “Online” indicator that appears at the top of a group chat to show you how many people are currently around to chat.
Another new group chat feature will allow you to highlight certain notifications, as you can now use a newly added “Notify for” setting and select “Highlights” to limit notifications for @mentions, replies, and messages from saved contacts or “All” to receive all notifications.
Another feature offers the option to scan and send documents on an iPhone. To access this, users select “scan document” from the attachment options and then follow the steps to scan, crop, and save the document.
Also, iPhone users can now set WhatsApp as their default messaging and calling app. Plus, iPhone users can now pinch to zoom in during video calls.
As for video calls, WhatsApp says it upgraded its technology to make video calls more reliable and of higher quality, which should lead to reduced dropped calls and video freezing. The app's improved bandwidth detection should also allow for more HD-quality video calls.
While WhatsApp has allowed users to create events in group chats for some time now, it's now rolling out the ability to create an event in 1:1 conversations. Plus, the events feature is getting updated with the ability to RSVP as “maybe,” invite a plus one, add an end date and time, and pin events so they're easier to find.
In addition, you can now add someone to an ongoing 1:1 call from a chat thread by tapping the call icon at the top of your screen and then selecting “Add to call.”
Channels are also getting three updates, as admins can now record and share short videos with followers and share unique QR codes that link directly to their channel. Plus, you can now get a written summary of voice message updates from channels to get yourself up to speed when you're on the go and unable to read individual messages.
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Consumer News Reporter
Aisha is a consumer news reporter at TechCrunch. Prior to joining the publication in 2021, she was a telecom reporter at MobileSyrup. Aisha holds an honours bachelor's degree from University of Toronto and a master's degree in journalism from Western University.
Google to embrace Anthropic's standard for connecting AI models to data
Solid, which claimed to be the ‘AWS of fintech,' files for bankruptcy after raising nearly $81M in funding
Ilya Sutskever taps Google Cloud to power his AI startup's research
Anthropic rolls out a $200-per-month Claude subscription
Artisan, the ‘stop hiring humans' AI agent startup, raises $25M — and is still hiring humans
Governments identify dozens of Android apps bundled with spyware
Inside the EV startup secretly backed by Jeff Bezos
© 2025 Yahoo.
What kind of latency/throughput are people getting from R2? Does it benefit from parallelism in the same way s3 does?[0]: https://developers.cloudflare.com/r2/pricing/#class-a-operat...
[0]: https://developers.cloudflare.com/r2/pricing/#class-a-operat...
reply
Not sure about now, but upload speeds were very inconsistent when we tested it a year or so ago.
reply
reply
reply
I tried looking for that thread again and I only found the exact opposite comment from the Cloudflare founder:>Not abuse. Thanks for being a customer. Bandwidth at scale is effectively free.[0]I distinctly remember such a thread though.Edit: I did find these but neither are what I remember:https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42263554https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33337183[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38124676
>Not abuse. Thanks for being a customer. Bandwidth at scale is effectively free.[0]I distinctly remember such a thread though.Edit: I did find these but neither are what I remember:https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42263554https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33337183[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38124676
I distinctly remember such a thread though.Edit: I did find these but neither are what I remember:https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42263554https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33337183[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38124676
Edit: I did find these but neither are what I remember:https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42263554https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33337183[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38124676
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42263554https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33337183[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38124676
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33337183[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38124676
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38124676
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AI labs like OpenAI claim that their so-called “reasoning” AI models, which can “think” through problems step by step, are more capable than their non-reasoning counterparts in specific domains, such as physics. But while this generally appears to be the case, reasoning models are also much more expensive to benchmark, making it difficult to independently verify these claims.
According to data from Artificial Analysis, a third-party AI testing outfit, it costs $2,767.05 to evaluate OpenAI's o1 reasoning model across a suite of seven popular AI benchmarks: MMLU-Pro, GPQA Diamond, Humanity's Last Exam, LiveCodeBench, SciCode, AIME 2024, and MATH-500.
Benchmarking Anthropic's recent Claude 3.7 Sonnet, a “hybrid” reasoning model, on the same set of tests cost $1,485.35, while testing OpenAI's o3-mini-high cost $344.59, per Artificial Analysis.
Some reasoning models are cheaper to benchmark than others. Artificial Analysis spent $141.22 evaluating OpenAI's o1-mini, for example. But on average, they tend to be pricey. All told, Artificial Analysis has spent roughly $5,200 evaluating around a dozen reasoning models, close to twice the amount the firm spent analyzing over 80 non-reasoning models ($2,400).
OpenAI's non-reasoning GPT-4o model, released in May 2024, cost Artificial Analysis just $108.85 to evaluate, while Claude 3.6 Sonnet — Claude 3.7 Sonnet's non-reasoning predecessor — cost $81.41.
Artificial Analysis co-founder George Cameron told TechCrunch that the organization plans to increase its benchmarking spend as more AI labs develop reasoning models.
“At Artificial Analysis, we run hundreds of evaluations monthly and devote a significant budget to these,” Cameron said. “We are planning for this spend to increase as models are more frequently released.”
Artificial Analysis isn't the only outfit of its kind that's dealing with rising AI benchmarking costs.
Ross Taylor, the CEO of AI startup General Reasoning, said he recently spent $580 evaluating Claude 3.7 Sonnet on around 3,700 unique prompts. Taylor estimates a single run-through of MMLU Pro, a question set designed to benchmark a model's language comprehension skills, would have cost more than $1,800.
“We're moving to a world where a lab reports x% on a benchmark where they spend y amount of compute, but where resources for academics are << y,” said Taylor in a recent post on X. “[N]o one is going to be able to reproduce the results.”
Why are reasoning models so expensive to test? Mainly because they generate a lot of tokens. Tokens represent bits of raw text, such as the word “fantastic” split into the syllables “fan,” “tas,” and “tic.” According to Artificial Analysis, OpenAI's o1 generated over 44 million tokens during the firm's benchmarking tests, around eight times the amount GPT-4o generated.
The vast majority of AI companies charge for model usage by the token, so you can see how this cost can add up.
Modern benchmarks also tend to elicit a lot of tokens from models because they contain questions involving complex, multi-step tasks, according to Jean-Stanislas Denain, a senior researcher at Epoch AI, which develops its own model benchmarks.
“[Today's] benchmarks are more complex [even though] the number of questions per benchmark has overall decreased,” Denain told TechCrunch. “They often attempt to evaluate models' ability to do real-world tasks, such as write and execute code, browse the internet, and use computers.”
Denain added that the most expensive models have gotten more expensive per token over time. For example, Anthropic's Claude 3 Opus was the priciest model when it was released in May 2024, costing $75 per million output tokens. OpenAI's GPT-4.5 and o1-pro, both of which launched earlier this year, cost $150 per million output tokens and $600 per million output tokens, respectively.
“[S]ince models have gotten better over time, it's still true that the cost to reach a given level of performance has greatly decreased over time,” Denain said. “But if you want to evaluate the best largest models at any point in time, you're still paying more.”
Many AI labs, including OpenAI, give benchmarking organizations free or subsidized access to their models for testing purposes. But this colors the results, some experts say — even if there's no evidence of manipulation, the mere suggestion of an AI lab's involvement threatens to harm the integrity of the evaluation scoring.
“From [a] scientific point of view, if you publish a result that no one can replicate with the same model, is it even science anymore?” wrote Taylor in a follow-up post on X. “(Was it ever science, lol)”.
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Google to embrace Anthropic's standard for connecting AI models to data
Solid, which claimed to be the ‘AWS of fintech,' files for bankruptcy after raising nearly $81M in funding
Ilya Sutskever taps Google Cloud to power his AI startup's research
Anthropic rolls out a $200-per-month Claude subscription
Artisan, the ‘stop hiring humans' AI agent startup, raises $25M — and is still hiring humans
Governments identify dozens of Android apps bundled with spyware
Inside the EV startup secretly backed by Jeff Bezos
© 2025 Yahoo.
At the last minute, the Social Security Administration has announced it won't be cutting phone services for seniors—a policy it had previously claimed would go into effect on Monday. Now, the agency has shifted its position, claiming it will “allow all claim types to be completed over the telephone.”
“Telephone remains a viable option to the public,” the agency said in an email to Gizmodo, claiming that the “anti-fraud team implemented new technological capabilities” that made phone service possible again.
When reached for comment by Gizmodo, White House spokesperson Liz Huston said the following: “President Trump has repeatedly promised to protect social security and uproot waste, fraud and abuse across the federal government. The Social Security anti-fraud team has worked around the clock in person to improve technological capabilities and they are now able to identify fraud on claims filed over the telephone. Under President Trump's leadership, the Social Security Administration is taking bold steps to transform how they serve the public – improving frontline customer service, modernizing their technology, protecting beneficiaries and securing the integrity of their programs.”
Additionally, the government claimed that beginning on April 14th, all SS claims can be completed over the phone. According to the White House, new software has been installed that allows the SSA to perform anti-fraud checks on retirees' accounts. People who are flagged by this new system will still be required to undergo an in-person ID proofing check. There will be no disruptions to service, the government claimed.
The announcement earlier this year that SSA would nix its phone operations spurred much public outcry, as it would have potentially forced millions of seniors to visit dwindling field offices to collect retirement benefits. The agency subsequently backtracked slightly, claiming it would maintain phone services for retirees with disabilities. The chaos at the agency, as well as its recent unpopular policy shifts, have largely been blamed on Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency. Recent protest movements—specifically the “Hand's Off” protests—linked DOGE's influence and the newly created dysfunction at the agency.
Earlier this year, DOGE announced lease terminations for dozens of SSA field offices across the country. Those closures, paired with the agency's attempt to nix phone services, could have seriously hampered retirees' ability to get in-person help with their benefits. As Reuters points out:
Just because the agency says it will maintain phone services doesn't mean the program isn't still in trouble. Critics maintain that changes ushered in under DOGE still pose a threat to the retirement system's integrity. Indeed, according to recent reports from the Washington Post, DOGE has sought major layoffs at the SSA, which already has a historically small workforce. And last week, many retirees were wrongly informed they would no longer receive benefits. DOGE has also announced other unpopular initiatives, such as its mission to re-write the SSA's “entire codebase” in a matter of months—a move that critics worry could lead to serious digital dysfunction.
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An audit of DOGE's handling of data at federal agencies is reportedly underway.
Tesla's presentation last year for a Cybercab gave sci-fi dystopia vibes that drew concern from Alcon Entertainment.
What seems at first like a logical move to modernize the government's archives may in fact be an ill-advised decision.
Navarro said Musk wasn't a manufacturer of cars, just an "assembler."
Our reality just keeps getting stupider.
The Social Security Administration has been a target of Elon Musk over unproven allegations of rampant fraud.
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Secretary of Education Linda McMahon is currently working to shut down the Department of Education at the behest of President Donald Trump, leaving her plenty of time to talk on panels about the future of schools—or lack of a future, as it were. McMahon's appearance at the ASU+GSV Summit in San Diego this week included a rather amusing mix-up. McMahon repeatedly referred to AI by the name “A1.” Yes, just like the steak sauce.
The video of the conference was livestreamed on YouTube, where you can hear it for yourself.
“I heard, I think it was a letter or a report that I heard this morning, I wish I could remember the source, but that there is a school system that's going to start making sure that first graders or even pre-k's have A1 teaching every year, starting that far down in the grades,” McMahon said.
And just in case it seemed like McMahon had misspoken once, she said A1 again, all while calling kids “sponges.”
“And that's just a wonderful thing. Kids are sponges. They just absorb everything,” McMahon continued. “So it wasn't all that long ago that we're going to have internet in our schools. Now, okay, let's see A1 and how can that be helpful? How can it be helpful in one-on-one instruction? How can it be helpful in absorbing more information for those fast learners? It can be more one-on-one directed. And those are the kinds of things and innovations that I want to see continue to develop.”
The most confusing part about her mistake is that McMahon, who's 76 years old, refers to AI other times, including just before you can hear her repeatedly say A1. Does Secretary McMahon know about some kind of special AI technology that goes by the name A1? It's entirely possible, but Gizmodo was unable to get an answer from the Department of Education via email.
McMahon has a net worth of roughly $3.2 billion and took the job of Education Secretary with the explicit goal of destroying the department. McMahon was asked about why she was dismantling the agency, and her response was that the country didn't always have a Department of Education and that Americans need to get more “innovative” and “creative” when it comes to educating kids.
The power to properly eliminate the department actually rests with Congress, so Trump and McMahon have obliterated it only as far as they can. Republicans in the Senate have introduced a bill to formally close the agency, but it's still not clear how that legislation will fare. Hopefully, they figure out the difference between AI and A1 while they work to erase public education in the United States.
AIArtificial intelligenceDepartment of EducationDonald TrumpEducation SecretaryLinda McMahon
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A new update gives ChatGPT a powerful ability that will make privacy wonks furious and AI users lives easier.
The Bank of England warned that AI bots could converge on similar trading strategies, exacerbating downturns or bubbles.
Tariffs on China will be raised to 125%, according to the mad king.
The internet's small business owners are coming to understand what Trump's tariffs mean for their bottom line.
"They don't want to do gidgets and widgets and wadgets."
Navarro said Musk wasn't a manufacturer of cars, just an "assembler."
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Someone else's buyer's remorse can save you hundreds.
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A few Redditors have shared how they were able to score RTX 50 series GPUs at a significant discount despite Nvidia declaring a shortage, massive scalping (even at the system integrator level), and inflated prices. PC Gamer spotted one post from a person saying they bought a PNY RTX 5080 for $895.99 in Walmart after seeing it in the PC section as a return. The MSRP for this GPU is $1,279.99 — saving $384, or nearly 30% off the original price.
This is cheaper than the $1,199.99 price on Newegg for the same card (which is out of stock at the time of writing) and significantly more affordable than the $1,750 some sellers are asking on Amazon.
You may think that this was a one-off event, but another Redditor shared their Walmart experience. When they went to their local store, they found a completely sealed PNY RTX 5070 in the PC components cabinet, again sold as a returned product. It was priced at $515, which is even lower than the $549 MSRP of the GPU.
We checked Newegg and Amazon and found the graphics card selling at $549.99 for the former (but out of stock at the time of writing), while sellers at the latter site priced it at $829.99 or higher.
Walmart has a 30-day return policy for most electronics, so these GPUs likely haven't been used much, if at all. Some employees say that these graphics cards are sold online only, and a few people would just walk into their stores and return the items. But whether the GPUs have been opened or not, they must mark them down and put them in the returns section.
If you happen to be near Walmart, searching their return sections for bargains like this is one way you can score a deal on such a “rare” resource. Of course, there's no guarantee that there's going to be such markdown products available at your local store, so it's down to luck if you get one.
Furthermore, buying returns and open-box items comes with a few downsides. For example, it doesn't have a store warranty, so you'll have to deal directly with the AIB if you run into trouble. Aside from that, there's an off chance that someone switched the cards inside, and you'll end up getting scammed instead.
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Still, these returns are a great way of getting a GPU at a discount if you're lucky enough. It could be that the original buyer had buyer's remorse and didn't actually need a new GPU, or somebody bought it for their special someone, but that person already has a better one installed. But no matter the reason, one person's return can be another one's bargain.
Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He's been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he's been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics.
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What about the whole AI diffusion rule?
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The U.S. government has pulled back from its plan to block Nvidia's H20 HGX GPU exports to China, following a meeting between the U.S. President Donald Trump and Nvidia's chief executive Jensen Huang at a $1 million-a-head dinner. During the tête-à-tête Huang vowed to invest in domestic AI infrastructure, reports NPR. The Trump administration reportedly planned to ban sales of Nvidia's H20 HGX GPUs to China starting this week, but changed its mind.
The U.S. had spent months preparing new restrictions on shipments of H20 HGX GPUs — the highest-performing AI GPUs still permitted for sale in China — and those measures were set to take effect as early as this week, according to NPR, which cites two sources. The change in course followed a dinner at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort, which Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang attended, reportedly at a $1 million admission fee. Shortly afterward, the company reportedly promised to pour more money into U.S.-based AI data centers, a move that helped ease concerns from the administration.
As it turns out, the Trump administration planned to ban shipments of Nvidia's H20 to China even ahead of May 15, when the Biden administration's AI Diffusion Rule is set to come into effect and prohibit sales of all American AI processors to Chinese entities. Under the new AI Diffusion Rule, China is effectively blocked from getting American processors as license exceptions that take into account limited performance or limited quantities will not apply to high-risk countries, including China.
Nvidia tailored its H20 GPU to specifically fit into total processing performance (TPP) metric allowed for exports to China. The AI Diffusion Rule introduces the low processing performance (LPP) exception that allows American companies to ship a limited number of GPUs that meet TPP thresholds to customers in the so-called Tier 2 countries (outside of the U.S. and its 18 allies) without a license.
However, China cannot use LPP to legally obtain even minimal amounts of advanced U.S. AI processors as all AI processor exports to China require a license, and the default position is to deny them, making it extremely difficult for Chinese firms to legally acquire advanced AI hardware from the U.S.
For Nvidia, this is a major problem, as it reportedly sold $16 billion worth H20 GPUs to China entities in the first quarter of calendar 2025. However, it is unclear whether Nvidia is now allowed to sell H20 till May 15, or after May 15 too. If the latter is the case, we can only wonder whether to enable H20 exports to China the Trump administration will have to alter the Biden administration's AI diffusion rule, axe it altogether, or grant Nvidia export licenses to sell to big customers.
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Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom's Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.
Tom's Hardware is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.
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In today's saturated tech landscape, it's intimidating to choose the ideal wireless earbuds. With a multitude of choices offering noise cancellation, longer battery life, and ergonomic designs, it's easy to get lost in the sea of options.
What if, though, you could snag a pair of highly rated earbuds for a fraction of the price? Instead of shelling out $150—or even $200—what if you had to pay just $20? Is that too good to be true? As hard as it is to believe, this incredible deal is real, and it's taking Amazon by storm.
These 2025 earbuds are on sale now for a whopping 88% off their normal price: With such a huge discount, you might wonder if it's a pricing mistake but don't worry, this offer is genuine. For a mere $19, you're getting earbuds that are loaded with premium features that could easily compete with much pricier models. From their three-dimensional stereo sound and deep bass to their ergonomic fit and waterproof construction, these earbuds are built to “wow”.
See at Amazon
What sets these earbuds apart is not just their cost but their sterling reputation among consumers: With an average rating of 4.8 out of 5 stars from over 600 reviews (and they just got released), they've captured the trust and appreciation of a lot of customers. This very high rating is not easily achieved in the competitive world of audio equipment and it speaks volumes about their quality and reliability. In the past month, over 10,000 people bought these wireless earbuds!
The extended battery life of these earbuds is strong point: On a single charge, they deliver up to 9 hours of playback time which can be extended to a whopping 48 hours with the LED display charging case. This makes them perfect for long commutes, travel days or marathon listening sessions. The charging case even features a digital display so you can monitor battery levels in real time.
Connectivity is also seamless through Bluetooth 5.3 technology which provides ultra-low latency and rock-solid device pairing up to 33 feet. Whether you're pairing them with an iPhone, Android smartphone or a tablet, these earbuds stay connected hitch-free. At a feather-light 0.13 ounces per earbud and with three sizes of silicone ear tips, they fit securely while minimizing pressure on your ears.
These earbuds have an IPX7 waterproof rating, which makes them ideal for running or working out. Combined with easy touch controls for convenient music and call control, they offer both form and function.
At just $19—down from $150—you're getting a deal that feels almost unreal. But it's very real.
See at Amazon
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Storage could get significantly more expensive due to tariffs.
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The recently imposed U.S. import duties are designed to affect the vast majority of industries, and the data storage industry is certainly not an exception. Because the underlying technologies of hard disk drives, solid-state drives, tape drives, and storage arrays are so different, the effects of tariffs could be diverse on all of them. However, it looks like HDD and SSD makers will suffer the most despite Trump's 90-day suspension of country-specific tariffs starting April 10, whereas producers of tapes will rejoice, notes Blocks & Files.
We are going to start with hard drives, as these are arguably the most technologically advanced storage devices with the most complex supply chain these days. There are three HDD makers: Seagate, Toshiba, and Western Digital.
Seagate's HDD operation involves product development in the U.S. and Singapore; head manufacturing in the United States and Northern Ireland; substrate production in Malaysia; media fabrication in Singapore or Japan (when Seagate sourced platters from Showa Denko); and drive and subassembly manufacturing in China and Thailand.
Toshiba's HDD supply chain involves R&D and high-value component manufacturing in Japan (as the company usually uses media from Showa Denko), with mass assembly and component integration primarily based in China, the Philippines, and Japan (high-end HDDs).
Western Digital develops its HDDs in the U.S. and Japan. Media substrates are produced in Malaysia, but the actual media manufacturing occurs in China or Japan (when Western Digital sources from Showa). Head wafers are processed in the U.S., but the final head-gimbal assembly takes place in the Philippines and Thailand. Actual HDDs are built in Malaysia and Thailand.
Although Seagate, Toshiba, and Western Digital have different supply chains, their setups are subject to risks of substantial U.S. import tariffs, particularly on drives produced in China (124%), Malaysia (24%), the Philippines (17%), and Thailand (36%). Perhaps, if Toshiba shifts more production to the Philippines, it can avoid paying extremely high tariffs in the U.S., but the situation for Seagate is more complicated as a significant portion of Seagate's drives are built in China. Keeping in mind that HDDs are assembled in cleanrooms, moving their assembly away from China or Thailand quickly will be expensive and complicated.
Considering the diverse supply chains of all three makers, it is likely that U.S. customs will charge import tariffs based on where the final HDDs are assembled. Seagate and Western Digital will likely increase their operations in the U.S. to prove that there is 20% of American content in their drives to cut down duties, though it remains to be seen whether they succeed.
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With SSDs, the situation is a bit different. There are only six companies in the world that produced 3D NAND memory in high-volume — Kioxia, Micron, Sandisk, Samsung, SK hynix, and YMTC — but there are dozens of SSD makers, most of which conduct operations in China and other countries with low labor costs.
Micron, Kioxia, and Sandisk are the only big makers of 3D NAND, which do not have wafer fabrication capacity in China. However, these companies use their Chinese facilities to test and package their flash memory. Under U.S. Customs law, the 'country of origin' is generally determined by the location of the last substantial transformation, the point where the product undergoes a major change. So, if a 3D NAND wafer is fabricated in Japan or Singapore but diced, tested, and packaged in China, the origin of flash is very likely to be considered China.
For now, this is not a problem as memory is now relieved from tariffs. However, Micron, Kioxia, and Sandisk produce SSDs in China and drives are considered 'finished goods' and are therefore dutiable. Hence, to avoid punitive tariffs from the U.S. government, these companies will have to start making their drives elsewhere to remain competitive in the U.S. This applies to third-party SSD makers too. Fortunately, it is relatively easy to establish assembly of SSDs as it does not require cleanrooms used to make 3D NAND memory or assemble HDDs.
The lion's share of Samsung's and SK hynix's 3D NAND is made in South Korea, but they also have 3D NAND production capacity in China, mostly to serve local demand for flash memory and SSDs. However, retail SSDs from Samsung and SK hynix are assembled in South Korea, so the U.S. Customs will likely deem them as Korean products subject to a 25% import tariff (a 15% country-specific tariff is suspended for 90 days effective April 10).
For obvious reasons, 3D NAND companies will unlikely ship products containing 3D NAND memory from China to the U.S. to avoid tariffs once semiconductors are slapped with import duties. However, it remains to be seen what SK Hynix's subsidiary Solidigm will do, considering the fact that it exclusively uses memory produced at the company's Dalian facility (which used to belong to Intel). If the U.S. government decides to impose prohibitive tariffs on 3D NAND chips made in China, Solidigm will be in trouble. The same applies to Micron, Kioxia, and Sandisk.
To avoid punitive country-specific tariffs when shipping SSDs to the U.S. once the country-specific tariffs are re-instated in 90 days following the April 9 pause, makers of SSDs will have to either assemble them in countries that are not subject to such import duties (e.g., those protected under the USMCA, such as Canada or Mexico), or will have to build them in the U.S. This will not relieve 3D NAND makers (or their customers) from paying import duties on memory and controller chips once they are imposed though. However, unlike makers of HDDs, SSD producers can change the origin of their products relatively easily.
Tape drives and optical discs see different effects. IBM builds LTO tape drives in Arizona and escapes tariffs, aside from imported parts. Japan's Fujifilm makes tape in Massachusetts, so it is also safe, but Sony produces them in Japan, so it must deal with a 24% charge on tapes brought to the U.S.
Blu-ray and DVD discs are manufactured in China, India, Japan, and Taiwan. Each country's specific rate will apply when shipping these items to the U.S. and it is unlikely that anyone will relocate production of discs to America. What remains to be seen is how tariffs affect pre-recorded discs with games and movies.
Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom's Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.
Tom's Hardware is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.
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The paper this breathless article is based on Massive Outbreak of Red Sprites in South Asia Observed from the Tibetan Plateau[1] really doesn't support the title.[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24387986[1]: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00376-024-4143-5
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24387986[1]: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00376-024-4143-5
[1]: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00376-024-4143-5
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The development of new antibiotics to treat superbugs and other bacterial infections is a global priority, with the rate of infections that cannot be treated with current antibiotics rising and presenting one of the biggest threats to human health.
In line with that, new research has shown a daily dose of epidermicin NI01 – an antibiotic compound developed by University of Plymouth spinout company Amprologix – is as effective at removing Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) as the current standard of care.
The results were achieved through a robust skin MRSA infection model, and those behind the research say it justifies further pre-clinical development. In particular, they plan to advance tests exploring whether the compound can be incorporated within gel-type therapies that can be applied to the skin.
Such treatments could be used to treat skin infections caused by MRSA and other bacteria on everything from accidental cuts to surgical wounds, preventing the need for prolonged courses of current antibiotics.
Professor Mathew Upton, Professor of Medical Microbiology at the University of Plymouth and Chief Scientific Officer at Amprologix, will present the latest findings at ESCMID Global 2025, the Congress of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases.
Running from April 11-15, and taking place in Vienna, it will be attended by an audience of leading experts in infectious diseases and clinical microbiology.
At the moment, there are antibiotics that can be used to treat skin infections caused by MRSA and other Staphylococcus strains, but these can come with a number of unpleasant side effects. There is also increased resistance to these treatments in many bacteria, meaning that therapies can fail. Our intention would be to continue to use these standard treatments for the more serious MRSA/Staphylococcus infections, like those in the bloodstream, but to develop other ways of treating more superficial infections, for example on the skin. The results we have achieved so far in our tests are very encouraging. They are a clear sign that epidermicin NI01 has the potential to be an effective treatment in this setting, and we now plan to scale up our work and get to a position where we can commence human clinical trials."
Professor Mathew Upton, Professor of Medical Microbiology, University of Plymouth
Professor Upton is a world-leading expert in antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and leads the Antibiotic Resistant Pathogens Research Group at the University of Plymouth.
Amprologix was launched in 2018 to commercialise his research and, through a partnership with the University's commercialisation partner Frontier IP, has pioneered a drug discovery programme focused on identifying the next generation of antibiotics.
Based in the University's Derriford Research Facility, located on Plymouth Science Park, its work combines laboratory tests with the use of cutting edge machine learning technologies designed to accelerate research and improve antibiotic properties.
The work is funded in part through a £1million award from Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, as part of its Biomedical Catalyst programme.
University of Plymouth
Posted in: Drug Discovery & Pharmaceuticals | Medical Research News | Disease/Infection News
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Asynt announce key change to novel parallel overhead stirring platform, DrySyn Vortex, enabling flexible use of common laboratory glassware for up to three flasks/beakers in a tiny footprint.
Asynt have launched a comprehensive new range of DrySyn Vortex kits to enable use with common international glassware fitting sizes. Users can now choose from B24 or B29 fittings as standard throughout the range.
Designed to combat common problems in the lab such as overhead stirring for more viscous materials or where heterogeneous systems are used, the DrySyn Vortex platform is also ideal for those using materials unsuitable for agitation with magnetic stirrer bars due to their grinding effect.
All models of the DrySyn Vortex have a compact footprint and are compatible with standard glassware with B24 or B29 fittings, and with all major brands of overhead stirrer, enabling scientists to effectively triple the workload attributed to each overhead stirrer motor and work both more efficiently and sustainably. This space-saving design is ideal for reaction screening or performing multiple reactions simultaneously.
The hardwearing DrySyn Vortex system works by utilizing a robust maintenance-free mechanical gearbox to engage a single motor, enabling it to stir in three positions simultaneously. This gearbox can be easily adjusted by the user to provide more powerful stirring via a reduction drive or achieve better performance when using lower power overhead stirrers. Users can also easily swap out their preferred stirrer shaft/head to suit their requirements.
The DrySyn Vortex range encompasses three different models:
Keen to enable users to work more efficiently and therefore more sustainably, the Asynt team are thrilled to share this improved range worldwide.
Asynt
Posted in: Device / Technology News
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Announcing a new article publication for Zoonoses journal. Hematologic disorders occur frequently in patients with Ebola virus disease (EVD) and are characterized by one or several abnormalities in blood cells, including hemostasis, which is poorly documented. This study described the hematologic abnormalities of Ebola patients and the impact on the outcomes of patients who were admitted with EVD.
This was a retrospective observational study of patients recruited from 1 February 2019 to 25 June 2020 from Ebola Treatment Centers in Butembo and Katwa. Clinical and hemogram parameters at the time of admission and outcomes were collected. Descriptive statistics and logistic regression were performed with a significance level of 0.05. The analyses were carried out using Rstudio software.
Among 299 patients hospitalized during the study period, only 129 were included in the analysis. The mean age was 29.9 ± 18.6 years with a female-to-male ratio of 1.2. Only 13 patients (10 %) had been vaccinated against the Ebolazaire virus. The hematologic abnormalities included anemia (55.8%), hyperleukocytosis (36.4%), leukopenia (3.1%), thrombopenia (32.6%), and thrombocytosis (30.2%).
Only anemia was statistically significantly correlated with increased viral load. Anemia (OR, 4.07; 95% CI, 1.59-11.3) was shown to be an independent risk factor for mortality in patients with EVD based on multivariate analysis. EVD is responsible for major hematologic abnormalities that contribute to increased patient mortality.
Zoonoses
Isekusu, F., et al. (2025). Hematologic Disorders in Ebola-Infected Patients During the Tenth Outbreak in Butembo, Democratic Republic of Congo: Hemogram Analysis of Ebola Virus Disease Patients During the Outbreak in Butembo 2019–2020. Zoonoses. doi.org/10.15212/ZOONOSES-2024-0042
Posted in: Medical Research News | Disease/Infection News
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Announcing a new article publication for the BIO Integration journal. Lipid-based Nanoparticles (LBNPs) have emerged as a transformative approach in cancer treatment, offering innovative drug delivery solutions that enhance therapeutic efficacy while minimizing adverse effects.
This study highlights how LBNPs have been used to overcome the limitations of traditional chemotherapy and improve patient outcomes by exploring the characterization, classification, synthesis, targeting strategies, and advantages of LBNPs.
As nanotechnology revolutionizes cancer therapy, the emergence of LBNPs as a promising strategy for targeted drug delivery has led to optimism regarding the future of cancer treatment. This review extensively assesses the structure, categories, production methods, targeting strategies, benefits, and recent advancements in LBNPs for treating cancer. It also highlights current challenges and possible future directions.
This article provides a comprehensive understanding of LBNPs' potential in cancer therapy. Liposomes, nanostructured lipid carriers, solid lipid nanoparticles, and lipid-polymer hybrid nanoparticles are all types of LBNPs, each with unique features of interest for cancer therapy. These particles can be synthesized through various procedures, such as bulk nanoprecipitation, solvent-based emulsification, or microfluidics.
Passive targeting systems, active targeting systems, and responsive delivery platforms direct LBNPs to tumors. Consequently, LBNPs provide an improved drug release pattern that minimizes side effects while enhancing therapeutic efficacy. With the potential for combination therapy, LBNPs offer a hopeful future for cancer treatment. Continued research is expected to improve patient outcomes and overall quality of life in cancer care.
BIO Integration journal
Ard, J., et al. (2025). Lipid-based Nanoparticles: Strategy for Targeted Cancer Therapy. BIO Integration. doi.org/10.15212/bioi-2024-0107
Posted in: Drug Discovery & Pharmaceuticals | Medical Research News
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Osteoarthritis is the leading cause of disability and chronic pain worldwide, affecting an estimated 595 million people globally. Projections suggest that this number will rise to 1 billion by 2050. Despite its profound impact on individuals and societies, no disease-modifying treatments are currently available. Now, an international team of researchers led by Helmholtz Munich has made new discoveries by studying the genetics of osteoarthritis in nearly 2 million individuals, uncovering hundreds of potential new drug targets and opportunities for repurposing existing treatments.
The research team conducted the largest genome-wide association study (GWAS) ever performed on osteoarthritis, uncovering over 900 genetic associations. More than 500 of these associations had never been reported before, providing fresh insights into the genetic landscape of the disease. By integrating diverse biomedical datasets, the researchers identified 700 genes with high confidence as being involved in osteoarthritis. Notably, ten percent of these genes encode proteins that are already targeted by approved drugs, opening the door to drug repurposing opportunities that could accelerate treatment development. "With ten percent of our genetic targets already linked to approved drugs, we are now one step closer to accelerating the development of effective treatments for osteoarthritis," explains study leader Prof. Eleftheria Zeggini, Director of the Institute of Translational Genomics at Helmholtz Munich and Professor of Translational Genomics at the Technical University of Munich.
Beyond identifying genetic targets with therapeutic potential, the study also provides valuable insights that could help tailor treatment strategies. "Genetic variants associated with osteoarthritis risk are widespread across osteoarthritis patients," says co-first author Dr. Konstantinos Hatzikotoulas. "Our newly gained knowledge about them can enable improved patient selection for clinical trials and personalized medicine approaches." In addition to these genetic insights, the scientists identified eight key biological processes crucial to osteoarthritis development, including the circadian clock and glial cell functions. "Our discovery suggests that targeted interventions regulating one or more of these eight processes could play another significant role in slowing or even halting disease progression," Hatzikotoulas adds.
"What we found in the largest osteoarthritis GWAS study not only advances our understanding of the disease but also lays the groundwork for developing more effective and personalized therapies that could transform osteoarthritis care", says Eleftheria Zeggini.
Helmholtz Munich (Helmholtz Zentrum München Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Gesundheit und Umwelt (GmbH))
Hatzikotoulas, K., et al. (2025). Translational genomics of osteoarthritis in 1,962,069 individuals. Nature. doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-08771-z.
Posted in: Genomics | Medical Research News | Medical Condition News
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While some studies have suggested that having a mother with Alzheimer's disease may put you more at risk of developing the disease, a new study finds that having a father with the disease may be tied to a greater spread of the tau protein in the brain that is a sign of the disease, according to a study published on April 9, 2025, online in Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study does not prove that having a father with Alzheimer's results in these brain changes; it only shows an association.
The study also showed that female participants may be more at risk of a heavier buildup of tau protein than male participants.
We were surprised to see that people with a father with Alzheimer's were more vulnerable to the spread of tau in the brain, as we had hypothesized that we would see more brain changes in people with affected mothers."
Sylvia Villeneuve, PhD, study author of McGill University in Montreal, Canada
The study looked at 243 people who had a family history of Alzheimer's disease but had no thinking or memory problems themselves at the average age of 68. Family history was defined as one or both parents with the disease or at least two siblings with the disease. Participants had brain scans and took tests of thinking and memory skills at the start of the study and then during the study as they were followed for an average of nearly seven years.
During that time, 71 people developed mild cognitive impairment, which is a precursor to Alzheimer's disease.
Researchers found that people with a father with Alzheimer's disease as well as female participants had a greater spread of tau protein in the brain. Female participants also had a heavier buildup of tau protein in the brain.
"Better understanding these vulnerabilities could help us design personalized interventions to help protect against Alzheimer's disease," Villeneuve said.
A limitation of the study is that white people made up the majority of participants, so the results may not apply to other groups.
The study was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Quebec Research Fund – Health, J.-Louis Lévesque Foundation, Brain Canada Foundation, Alzheimer's Society Canada and Brain Canada Research.
American Academy of Neurology
Ourry, V., et al. (2025). Amyloid and Tau Pathology in Cognitively Unimpaired Individuals With a Parental History of Alzheimer Disease. Neurology. doi.org/10.1212/wnl.0000000000213507.
Posted in: Medical Research News | Medical Condition News
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A McGill University-led study found that people with cannabis use disorder (CUD) had elevated dopamine levels in a brain region associated with psychosis.
This could help explain why cannabis use increases the risk of hallucinations and delusions, key symptoms of schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders."
Jessica Ahrens, first author, PhD student in McGill's Integrated Program in Neuroscience
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that helps regulate mood and motivation, and an excess is associated with psychosis. While it was known that cannabis influences dopamine, this study clarifies where in the brain these changes occur. Cannabis use disorder is when someone has trouble controlling their cannabis use, continues despite negative effects, and may experience cravings or withdrawal.
"For a long time, clinical researchers across the world have been searching for a link showing that cannabis affects the brain mechanism behind psychosis. We now show that a shared dopamine pathway could be the answer," Ahrens said.
The study involved 61 people, including those with and without cannabis use disorder, as well as individuals with early-stage schizophrenia, some of whom also had CUD. Using a specialized brain scan called neuromelanin-MRI, researchers at Western University measured their neuromelanin signal, which reflects dopamine activity.
People with CUD had an abnormally high neuromelanin signal, and the elevation was tied to the severity of their cannabis use. In contrast, those without schizophrenia or CUD did not show this increase. Larger studies are needed to confirm these findings.
About one-in-five youth in Canada are cannabis users, consuming it daily or almost daily. Understanding the drug's impact on mental health remains a pressing question.
"The lack of clear biological evidence linking cannabis to psychosis has made it harder to persuade young people with psychotic symptoms to reduce their use," said Dr. Lena Palaniyappan, Professor of Psychiatry at McGill and Psychiatrist at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute.
"Our findings could help doctors and mental health professionals better educate patients about the potential risks of frequent cannabis use, especially for those with a family history of psychosis," he said.
Future research will explore whether long-term cannabis use leads to lasting dopamine changes and whether these effects reverse after quitting.
McGill University
Ahrens, J., et al. (2025). Convergence of Cannabis and Psychosis on the Dopamine System. JAMA Psychiatry. doi.org/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2025.0432.
Posted in: Medical Science News | Medical Research News | Medical Condition News
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A groundbreaking preclinical study reveals how targeting a viral enzyme with a new drug could prevent long-COVID complications, offering hope for millions and a powerful tool for future coronavirus threats.
Study: A novel PLpro inhibitor improves outcomes in a pre-clinical model of long COVID
Over 77 million people globally have experienced lingering symptoms after recovering from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), yet an effective and reliable prophylactic measure for long coronavirus disease (long COVID) remains elusive.
In a recent preclinical study published in the journal Nature Communications, a team of researchers in Australia investigated a new antiviral compound that may prevent these long-term effects of long COVID-19. This novel antiviral compound, which targets the viral enzyme papain-like protease (PLpro), could potentially represent an early-stage preclinical candidate for the first direct treatment for long COVID-19, bringing hope to millions whose daily lives are impacted by this disease.
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the etiological agent of COVID-19, has infected hundreds of millions worldwide, with effects reaching far beyond the initial illness. Many people who recover from mild infections continue to suffer from long-lasting symptoms such as fatigue, brain fog, lung issues, and heart problems. This condition is known as long COVID or post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC), affecting roughly one in three non-hospitalized patients.
Although vaccines and current antiviral drugs reduce severe illness and death, they do not protect against these persistent symptoms. Most existing treatments focus on the virus's main protease (Mpro), but another viral enzyme, PLpro, also plays a crucial role in viral replication and suppressing the immune response. Despite this, PLpro remains an underused drug target.
WEHI-P8's unique binding mechanism disrupts PLpro's ability to hijack human proteins, blocking both viral replication and its evasion of immune defenses—a dual-action strategy not seen in existing antivirals.
To develop a new antiviral that targets the PLpro enzyme of SARS-CoV-2, the researchers screened over 400,000 small molecules using a high-throughput assay designed to detect PLpro activity. Sixteen promising compounds were identified and further validated using surface plasmon resonance to assess binding and selectivity.
The team improved the most promising candidate, WEHI-P1, by altering its chemical structure to create WEHI-P4, which showed strong activity in lab-based biochemical, cellular, and antiviral tests. They determined the compound's binding mechanism through X-ray crystallography and found that it engaged a new binding pocket on PLpro not used by existing drugs.
Further structural refinements led to WEHI-P8, which displayed favorable drug-like properties, including potent PLpro inhibition, good bioavailability, and minimal interaction with human enzymes that could cause side effects.
The researchers then tested WEHI-P8 in preclinical mouse models of COVID-19, including models mimicking both mild and severe disease and a mouse model that closely mimics long COVID symptoms. Behavioral assessments and tissue analysis were also included in the study to evaluate cognitive function and organ-specific pathology following recovery from infection.
The study found that targeting the viral enzyme PLpro with a new compound, WEHI-P8, significantly reduced both acute and long-term COVID-19 symptoms in preclinical models. In mice infected with SARS-CoV-2, treatment with WEHI-P8 lowered viral load, prevented weight loss, and reduced lung inflammation.
Compared to standard treatment consisting of Paxlovid-like therapy, WEHI-P8 was more effective in reducing immune cell infiltration and cytokine production, even without requiring a booster drug like ritonavir.
In a long COVID mouse model, animals that survived infection displayed prolonged lung hemorrhage, immune cell buildup, and tissue scarring up to three months later. They also developed heart, gut, and brain abnormalities, including inflammation and cognitive decline.
The compound's design includes a strategically placed oxime group and cyclohexanol ring, which stabilize its interaction with PLpro while sidestepping interference with human enzymes linked to side effects.
However, WEHI-P8 treatment significantly reduced these outcomes. Treated mice showed improved lung tissue health, reduced inflammation markers in the brain, and better performance in memory tests. Notably, female mice, who showed worse symptoms, responded well to the treatment, reflecting the sex-specific differences that have also been observed in long COVID cases in humans.
While these preclinical findings bring hope to the millions suffering from long COVID, they remain experimental and untested in humans. The novel antiviral compound also displayed cross-reactivity with other coronaviruses, suggesting potential use for future outbreaks.
However, some symptoms, such as heart and gut changes, were not fully reversed in the mouse models, highlighting the complexity of long COVID. Moreover, while WEHI-P8 showed promising results when given early, its effectiveness when administered later in the disease course was not tested, limiting the conclusions about treatment windows and emphasizing the need for more research.
Dr. Marcel Doerflinger, one of the corresponding authors of this study and the head of one of the laboratories that constitutes this research team, stated, “Our pre-clinical studies have achieved something no currently approved therapy has done to date — preventing the most debilitating symptoms of long COVID in mice.”
Overall, the results showed that the novel PLpro inhibitor, WEHI-P8, can reduce viral replication and prevent long-term complications of COVID-19 in animal models. It performed better than current treatments, such as Paxlovid, did not require additional drugs to work effectively, and had a lower risk of interference with other medications. By targeting a different viral enzyme, this compound offers a preclinical strategy to treat both acute SARS-CoV-2 infections and long COVID.
Posted in: Drug Discovery & Pharmaceuticals | Drug Trial News | Medical Science News | Medical Research News | Disease/Infection News | Pharmaceutical News
Written by
Chinta Sidharthan is a writer based in Bangalore, India. Her academic background is in evolutionary biology and genetics, and she has extensive experience in scientific research, teaching, science writing, and herpetology. Chinta holds a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the Indian Institute of Science and is passionate about science education, writing, animals, wildlife, and conservation. For her doctoral research, she explored the origins and diversification of blindsnakes in India, as a part of which she did extensive fieldwork in the jungles of southern India. She has received the Canadian Governor General's bronze medal and Bangalore University gold medal for academic excellence and published her research in high-impact journals.
Please use one of the following formats to cite this article in your essay, paper or report:
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First, some good news: In late 2023 and early 2024, significantly fewer U.S. physicians reported symptoms of job burnout than they did a few years earlier.
The not-so-good news: Their burnout rates remain stubbornly high compared with those of other American workers.
It's concerning because we know from studies published by our research team at Stanford and elsewhere that objective turnover increases and that physicians are more likely to reduce their clinical work hours when burnout is higher. And it comes at a time when we're already projected to be facing large workforce shortages in medicine, including problems with access to care."
Tait Shanafelt, MD, chief wellness officer at Stanford Medicine
Shanafelt is the lead author of a study about physician burnout published April 9 in Mayo Clinical Proceedings.
It's the latest in a series of studies that have provided a snapshot of physician burnout, depression and work-life integration in the United States every three years since 2011. For comparison, researchers evaluate a sample of other American workers at the same intervals.
The studies are not only vital to understanding trends in physician well-being relative to the U.S. workforce but also to gauging the impact on the health care delivery system: On top of its workforce implications, evidence suggests that physician burnout worsens the quality of patient care, increases the risk of medical errors and decreases patient satisfaction.
The Association of American Medical Colleges predicts the United States will face a deficit of 86,000 physicians by 2036. Mitigating the effects of occupational stress in medicine has become a national priority, with the American Medical Association, National Academy of Medicine and the U.S. surgeon general all undertaking efforts to address its underlying causes.
Shanafelt, a professor of hematology and the Jeanie and Stew Ritchie Professor, initiated the series, the first of which was published in 2011. He and his colleagues also published the findings of an off-cycle survey in 2021 - at the height of the pandemic - showing the highest prevalence of burnout and lowest satisfaction with work-life integration in the series' history. (That particular study did not compare the burnout rates with those of other American workers.)
Since then, job satisfaction among doctors appears to be improving. In the most recent study, 45.2% of respondents reported at least one symptom of burnout compared with 62.8% in 2021, 38.2% in 2020, 43.9% in 2017, 54.4% in 2014 and 45.5% in 2011.
To conduct the study, surveys were sent to physicians between Oct. 19, 2023, and Feb. 26, 2024. Of 9,5079 doctors invited to participate in the survey, 7,643 responded. The ages and genders of the respondents were roughly proportional to those of physicians nationwide.
The physicians were scored on emotional exhaustion and depersonalization - the sense of being detached from work and unfeeling toward patients, respectively - using scales of the Maslach Burnout Inventory, a scientifically developed measure of burnout. The researchers calculated the percentage of respondents manifesting burnout based on a high score in the in one or the other category, or in both.
Of the respondents, 58.6% identified as men and 39.6% identified as women, a gender breakdown that approximately mirrors the profession nationally. Burnout rates differed between sexes, with female physicians at risk by about 27% more than male physicians after adjusting for age, specialty and other factors, the study found. Also, doctors in several specialties, including emergency medicine and general internal medicine, were at heightened risk for burnout. This is particularly concerning, Shanafelt said, given that these specialties are often patients' first point of contact with a health care system.
The investigators used a probability-based sample of nonphysician workers from the general population to compare with a sample of the physician respondents. After adjusting for age, gender, relationship status and work hours, physicians were 82.3% more likely to be experiencing burnout than U.S. workers in other occupations.
"Many physicians still love what they do, but they just can't keep doing it at this pace in the current practice environment, with its administrative burdens and regulatory burdens, and the proliferation of asynchronous messaging with patients through the electronic health record," Shanafelt said, referring to patients' online correspondence with a doctor. "So physicians are, in essence, just saying, 'I can't keep working this way.'"
Lotte Dyrbye, MD, chief well-being officer at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, is the study's senior author. Researchers from the Mayo Clinic and American Medical Association also contributed to the study.
The study was funded by the Stanford Medicine WellMD and WellPhD Center, the American Medical Association, and the Mayo Clinic Program on Physician Well-Being.
Stanford Medicine
Shanafelt, T. D., et al. (2025). Changes in Burnout and Satisfaction With Work–Life Integration in Physicians and the General US Working Population Between 2011 and 2023. Mayo Clinic Proceedings. doi.org/10.1016/j.mayocp.2024.11.031.
Posted in: Medical Research News | Healthcare News
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PHILADELPHIA — Gianni Infantino, understanding the assignment of the two Lombardi Trophies 10 paces away Thursday morning, started his press availability at Lincoln Financial Field with a Swiss-inflected, “Go Birds.”
That kind of sales pitch was the express purpose of Infantino's visit to Philadelphia, the first time the FIFA president has been to the city but one of the locations on his travel itinerary the next two summers. It begins in June when Lincoln Financial Field hosts eight matches over three weeks in the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup, a newly expanded international competition for clubs.
“We're here in the United States of America to start this new exciting competition,” Infantino said, “and of course, Philadelphia, with eight games, is one of the key venues.”
The Linc will host six matches in the group stages, plus one in the round of 16 and a quarterfinal on July 4. Already set to come to the city are the likes of Manchester City, Chelsea, Juventus and Real Madrid. The Round of 16 will bring two new teams, pitting Group A (Inter Miami, Palmeiras, Porto) and Group B (Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid) survivors.
In the process, a half-million soccer fans could find their way through South Philly turnstiles, a number that meets the Eagles' goal of being a player on the international stage.
“We are getting to put our home, the home of the Eagles, on the grandest stage potentially in the world,” Eagles Chief Operating Officer Frank Gumienny said. “It's a proud papa moment, to be able to take what we've done and what we've learned and what we've built and highlight the biggest names in the sports world.”
The Club World Cup is the natural, intercontinental consequence of super-sizing soccer tournaments, from the expanded UEFA Champions League to the first 48-team World Cup. Founded in 2000, it was mostly a quaint competition, uniting the winners of continental competitions like the Champions League, CONCACAF Champions League and South America's Copa Libertadores, with a couple of extra clubs to round out numbers. It remained at most an eight-team affair until this rapid inflation to 32 teams, bringing together more than just continental champs, a noble idea to scratch the itch that the World Cup addresses but on the club scale.
“When it comes to the teams, to the clubs, nobody really knows, because everyone thinks that the country winning their own national continental competition is the best in the world,” Infantino said. “That's actually not the case. So we decided to create a real World Cup for teams.”
The tournament will serve a dual purpose as a test run for the 2026 World. (FIFA in 2017 discontinued what had been since 1992 its designated dry-run, the Confederations Cup of national teams.)
Five of 12 venues for the Club World Cup will host 2026 World Cup games, plus Los Angeles, which will use the Rose Bowl for the Club World Cup and SoFi Stadium in 2026. The Club World Cup incorporates soccer-specific stadiums in cities that missed out on the World Cup, like Nashville, Cincinnati and Washington. It will open June 14 with Inter Miami playing Al Ahly of Egypt, and the winner will be crowned July 13 at MetLife Stadium.
The governance of the tournament is slightly different than the World Cup, mainly a partnership between FIFA and the Eagles locally. The 2026 World Cup – in which the Linc will host six games, including a Round of 16 contest on July 4, in a split hosting between the U.S., Canada and Mexico – is under the auspices of the Philadelphia 2026 local organizing committee.
Gumienny said that means the Linc will look a little more like what football fans are used to than when World Cup branding takes over in 2026. But this tournament is a crucial testing ground for the nuanced challenges of the World Cup. While the franchise has hosted plenty of major events, the frequency of World Cup games is novel, on the playing surface in particular. Gumienny said the tournament will allow the field to stretch to FIFA dimensions for the first time, including the removal of seating in the four field corners, which will then be replaced by temporary seating.
Infantino played to the local crowd by mentioning his visit to Super Bowl LIX, watching the Eagles win their second championship. He's had a busy visit to the United States, which includes a tour to Club World Cup venues and political maneuvering with the Trump administration. In March, he succeeded in getting President Trump to set up a task force for the 2026 World Cup. Amid growing fear of crackdowns on visas and the general safety from visitors to the U.S., Infantino this week hosted Attorney General Pamela Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel at FIFA offices in Miami.
“It's absolutely crucial that we have this collaboration,” Infantino said, before referencing corruption scandals that predated his presidency. “And by the way, something like this never would have been possible some years ago with the image that FIFA had. So we came back quite a long way. And today we work in a clear way, in a transparent way, in an ethical way, and we bring the world to the United States of America. These are the guarantees that the United States government has signed at the time of the bidding and has reconfirmed.”
Infantino pushed the notion of soccer as a uniting force, even as divisions in the U.S. grow. He brushed off reports of low ticket sales: “We will have full stadiums in America. If in America, you fill soccer stadiums for friendly games, then when you come with a World Cup with the best players who play really to win a competition, for sure, it will be full.”
From a Philadelphia perspective, bringing some of soccer's biggest brands to town is a chance to reach fans that might not normally engage with the Linc. The World Cup in 2026 promises to be an order of magnitude higher than that. It's an opportunity that Gumienny and the Eagles are looking forward to.
“We want to show to everyone that we can put on the grandest show and have everyone leave with an amazing experience,” Gumienny said. “ … We want to show off Lincoln Financial Field and Philadelphia.”
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It's been almost four months since Becky Sauerbrunn retired from professional soccer, but some facets of her pregame routine have carried over to her game day now that she's a broadcaster.
Sauerbrunn still gets movement in the morning whether that's running, walking or partaking in a deep stretch. She still takes a pregame nap to power down. She still prioritizes hydration and ensures she's fueling herself right. The pregame jitters feel the same. Except she's not playing on the field, she watching from the sidelines as an analyst for the USWNT coverage on TNT's pre, halftime and post-game shows.
“It's funny,” Sauerbrunn told USSoccer.com. “It's like all these things, I'm not actually physically doing a lot of work, but at the end of the day, I do feel like I've put a shift in.”
The legendary defender decided to hang up her cleats after her last hurrah with the USA, a title at the Concacaf W Gold Cup last year. Overall, Sauerbrunn helped the U.S. win two FIFA Women's World Cups and eight Concacaf championships.
Shortly after she announced the news, a producer for TNT Sports reached out to see if she'd be interested in becoming on-air talent.
It wasn't the first time she'd heard from that producer, but it was the first time she decided to take up the offer, now that her playing days were in the rearview. Sauerbrunn drew TNT's attention, not only after a brilliant playing career for club and country, but also after becoming popular in media through podcasting, including co-hosting the podcast“Good Vibes FC” on the Women's Game vertical of the Men in Blazers Media Network.
Those podcasts were integral in helping her get accustomed to talking about soccer rather than playing it.
“That really helped me get reps to feel comfortable with TV broadcast,” Sauerbrunn said. “Because you're kind of talking about soccer off the cuff. You never know where you're gonna go off to a tangent you're on.”
Along with her pregame routine, she's also found a similar sense of community joining broadcast teammates and former USWNT standouts Julie Foudy and Shannon Boxx along with seasoned host Sara Walsh.
“I've heard from colleagues of mine, peers that have retired, that one thing you miss the most is that sense of camaraderie and team,” Sauerbrunn said. “And to then immediately from one team go to this new broadcasting team, that's been really nice.”
Sauerbrunn has five “broadcast caps” so far after the USWNT's April camp, and there's no looking back for her. She's made peace with her playing career, and while she's close to the game, she's not itching to get back on the field.
“When I watch this team now, it's happiness, it's gratitude,” Sauerbrunn said. “I don't have that wistfulness, and maybe it's too soon — but right now — it's just gratitude for the career.”
Players and fans alike are surely glad that they can still see – and hear – the former U.S. captain at USWNT matches across the country.
She'll get to experience another special moment on June 3 at Energizer Park in her home of St. Louis, Mo. as U.S. Soccer will celebrate her career pregame in a special ceremony before the match against China PR. It's one more honor on the green grass for Sauerbrunn, and then she'll head over to the TNT desk to resume her second career.
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Alejandro Dominguez, the president of South American soccer's ruling body CONMEBOL, wants the 2030 men's World Cup to be temporarily expanded to 64 teams.
The idea was first proposed by Uruguayan football official Ignacio Alonso at a FIFA Council meeting last month, before UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin dismissed the proposal as a “bad idea”.
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The 2030 World Cup will be the tournament's centenary edition, with the first competition having been held in Uruguay in 1930.
1930 hosts Uruguay, 2022 winners Argentina and Paraguay — the home of CONMEBOL's offices — are currently scheduled to host one match each at the start of the 2030 tournament, with the remaining 101 games in the 48-team tournament split between Morocco, Portugal and Spain.
“We are convinced that the centennial celebration will be unique, because 100 years only happen once,” Dominguez said at the CONMEBOL Congress on Thursday.
“And that's why we are proposing, for the only time, to hold this anniversary with 64 teams, on three continents simultaneously. So that all countries have the opportunity to live a global experience, and so that no one on this planet is left out of this celebration which, even though it's played everywhere, is our party.”
FIFA told the New York Times in March that the 64-team proposal “was spontaneously raised by a FIFA Council member in the ‘miscellaneous' agenda item near the end” of their meeting.
The 2026 World Cup, to be held across the United States, Mexico and Canada, will be the first 48-team edition of the tournament, an increase from the 32-team format than ran from 1998 to 2022.
Seven of CONMEBOL's 10 nations are guaranteed spots in a 48-team tournament, with 16 spaces available for UEFA's 55 member nations.
Last month, European football's governing body's president Ceferin said of the idea of a 64-team competition: “I think it's a bad idea — it's not a good idea for the World Cup itself and it's not a good idea for our qualifiers as well.”
(YUKI IWAMURA/AFP via Getty Images)
Colin Millar is a Staff Writer for The Athletic. Prior to joining The Athletic, Colin was European Football writer at Mirror Football. From Belfast, he is the author of The Frying Pan of Spain: Sevilla vs Real Betis, Spain's Hottest Football Rivalry, and he can be found on Twitter/X: @Millar_Colin Follow Colin on Twitter @Millar_Colin
The 2030 World Cup will be hosted by Spain, Portugal, and Morocco, with its opening matches taking place in Uruguay, where the first World Cup was held in 1930, as well as in Argentina and Paraguay.
"We are convinced that the centennial celebration will be unique because 100 years are only celebrated once.
"And that's why we are proposing, for the first time, to hold this anniversary with 64 teams, on three continents simultaneously," CONMEBOL President Alejandro Dominguez said.
The World Cup has already been expanded from 32 to 48 teams for next year's edition in the USA, Mexico and Canada.
Football's governing body, FIFA, said earlier it would review a proposal to expand the 2030 World Cup to 64 teams.
Macario is finally in an extended run of good health, and is being tested at a new position for the U.S.
by
After three torrid, injury-ridden years, Catarina Macario is finally reasserting herself as a regular with the U.S. women's national team. After returning to the setup in this year's SheBelieves Cup, Macario was picked to start both international friendlies against Brazil and vindicated her performance with a goal and good all-around performance.
The back-to-back games served as a good test for U.S. head coach Emma Hayes and her ongoing look to improve and bed in different players, but they also suggested real promise for a new role for Macario in the side.
Several standout performances marked both matches, yet it was Macario's display as the starting No. 9 that caught the eye. Her role as a false nine not only reflects Hayes's ongoing tactical experimentation with the squad, but also addresses the need to find a reliable striker in Sophia Wilson's absence during maternity leave.
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Copyright © 2021 The Equalizer
In an otherwise increasingly uneasy discourse surrounding the United States Soccer
men's national team, Diego Luna is a bit of a North Star.
The 20-year-old Real Salt Lake
talent continues to draw nearly universal acclaim for his performances in a USNMT shirt since manager Maurico Pochettino
first invited him into the fold
. On the club level, there are increasing signs he is capable of carrying the star player mantle for a roster that is in transition, including his brace in a 2-0 victory over the Los Angeles Galaxy
last weekend.
There's even some chatter he should explore a move to Europe sooner rather than later.
But that would probably be a mistake.
Looking at the current landscape, Luna's best interests are served by staying in MLS at least through the summer of 2026 and, hopefully, his inclusion on the 2026 World Cup roster.
Here are three reasons why:
There was a time, particularly during the latter stages of previous manager Gregg Berhalter's tenure, that it felt almost imperative for USMNT hopefuls to head abroad if they wanted national team consideration. But that's clearly no longer the case.
Both with his words
and his squad selection
, Pochettino has made it clear that playing regular games and performing well in them is the most important component of qualifying for USMNT duty, and the caliber of the games you're playing comes shortly thereafter. And Luna can be assured of being a central part of RSL's plans while he's at the club.
But the timing of a potential European move, either in the next primary or secondary European transfer windows, would make his margin for error extremely slender in terms of adjusting to a new culture and earning first-team minutes. We've seen plenty of American players eventually become regulars at European clubs after requiring several months or even a full year to earn the trust of their new manager and new teammates. That's time Luna just doesn't have given his 2026 aspirations.
Additionally, Luna's biggest rival for inclusion on the USMNT squad may be another MLS player, Luciano Acosta, who is hoping to be naturalized as a U.S. Citizen in time for consideration in the 2026 squad. Now age 30, Acosta isn't headed anywhere else soon, having recently finalized a move to FC Dallas
, the third MLS club of his career.
Luciano Acosta vs Diego Luna - 2025 MLS Comparison
Player
Appearances
Goals
Assists
Expected Goals
Expected Assists
Luciano Acosta
7
3
0
2.1
1.0
Diego Luna
6
3
0
1.5
0.2
Data via Opta
Luna and Acosta have the most similar player profiles, which can make them unique in the U.S. player pool. And every moment that Luna might not be making plays in MLS if he moves to Europe and fights to earn a role at a bigger club, you can probably bet Acosta will be.
Perhaps the equation is different if the 2025 MLS season ends and Acosta still hasn't received U.S. Citizenship. But for now, both he and Luna's comparative performance in the league could prove critical to both players' hopes of earning a 2026 roster spot.
The final part of the equation is the shop window that a World Cup can provide a young player, something USMNT members haven't really experienced since at least 2014.
In 2018, the USMNT missed out on the tournament entirely, and thus didn't gain any exposure in front of a global audience and countless numbers of club decision makers.
Then in 2022, the timing of the tournament played in November and December made it more difficult for players to turn strong World Cup showings directly into meaningful club transactions, since the biggest moves typically come in the summer transfer window that had already been concluded.
If Luna, or indeed any of Pochettino's MLS-based talent, can get meaningful minutes in the 2026 World Cup and show well in them, that's nearly guaranteed to boost their transfer stock for the summer window that follows. And any player who seizes that opportunity may have far better offers to choose from than they might have in the summer of 2025.
Emmanuel Latte Lath and Cristian Arrango are among the favorites to top MLS goalscoring. But this weekend, that task got tougher for them.
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Real Salt Lake are in advanced talks to sign Slovakia international forward Róbert Boženík from Boavista, sources tell GIVEMESPORT.
The Columbus Crew have acquired star attacking midfielder Daniel Gazdag from the Philadelphia Union, sources tell GIVEMESPORT.
Roster building is a non-stop evolution. Even when clubs seem complete or content, the best are always working to be proactive behind the scenes.
Some of the West's most ambitious teams are currently hamstrung by salary cap restrictions, and desperately need to find a way out.
The Manchester United No. 1 showed her quality against Brazil over the weekend. Head coach Emma Hayes now has some hard choices to make.
by
This is an extraordinary fact to process.
United States women's national team head coach Emma Hayes has blooded the most talent in her first 20 games in charge since the team was invented. When she committed last May to boosting the senior development pipeline for the U.S., she has stuck to her guns.
Two more players earned their first caps against Brazil at SoFi Stadium on Saturday. One, goalkeeper Phallon Tullis-Joyce, represented another shocking fact.
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Copyright © 2021 The Equalizer
FIFA Club World Cup host cities will each receive $1 million from the soccer governing body to support community soccer projects in the future, the organization announced Thursday.
Atlanta, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, New York/New Jersey, Orlando, Philadelphia, Seattle and Washington D.C. will host Club World Cup games, and benefit from FIFA's "legacy contributions" intended to help build small community-focused pitches and leave an impact following this summer's tournament.
"This is a symbol and a sign that we want to do something for the community because one of the things that strikes me here in North America, and this has to change, is that there are not enough facilities to play soccer in the right environment," FIFA President Gianni Infantino said in a press release.
“So, to give something, to contribute in building something in the areas of the (host) cities ... that is most needed, is something that we have to do. It is our responsibility and I hope that many will follow us in this."
The 2025 Club World Cup begins with Lionel Messiand Inter Miami on center stage against Egyptian club Al Alhy on June 14 at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami.
The Club World Cup final will be July 13 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
The tournament features 32 of the best soccer club teams from around the world, with the winner taking home at least $125 million of a $1 billion prize pool to be awarded.
Consider it a precursor to the 2026 World Cup, which will be co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico from June 11-July 19, 2026.
FIFA also announced last week its expectation that both tournaments will generate $47 billion in economic impact and provide 290,000 jobs in the country, with $62 billion in gross domestic product globally in the next two summers.
Infantino also announced last week first responders to the January wildfires in the Los Angeles area will each receive two tickets, up to 30,000 tickets total, to attend Club World Cup games at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.
Manchester City are reportedly unlikely to receive a verdict on the 115 financial fair play charges levied against them before the summer.
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Ryan Smart
FIFA once banned a country from the World Cup after a bizarre row involving a razor blade.
Two teams have been 'banned' from the upcoming 2026 World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
Russia have been suspended by FIFA since before the qualifiers began due to their 2022 invasion of Ukraine, while the football federation of Congo was suspended earlier this year.
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In Congo's case, they were not suspended from qualifying for the World Cup, but their federation pulled the team out of their remaining fixtures.
Pakistan's football federation, meanwhile, was suspended due to third-party interference. But they were already eliminated from Asian qualifying and the ban was lifted shortly after.
But they are not the only teams ever to be banned from the World Cup - with Yugoslavia and South Africa previously suspended due to varying political reasons.
Back in 1989, meanwhile, Chile were embroiled in major controversy after an incident involving goalkeeper Roberto Rojas.
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Orlando Aravena's side went into their final South American qualifying match against Brazil knowing that they had to win to top their group.
Ahead of the World Cup, teams in South America were split into three qualifying groups - minus Argentina, who won in 1986 - with the top two highest-performing group winners automatically qualifying for the 1990 tournament in Italy.
But Chile went behind against Brazil in the Maracana through Napoli striker Careca.
Heading into the final 25 minutes of the contest, they were still a goal behind - but suddenly everything changed.
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Chile goalkeeper Roberto Rojas fell to the ground and was seen bleeding from his head.
The 32-year-old claimed that a flare thrown from the Brazilian fans had caused his injury. The match was subsequently abandoned.
But all was not as it seemed.
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After being questioned by CONMEBOL authorities, Rojas eventually admitted to having cut himself with a razor blade, hidden in one of his gloves, to cause the bleeding.
He also stated that Chile coach Aravena had asked that he and team doctor Daniel Rodriguez stay on the pitch, with the purpose of either forcing an abandonment or a third match on neutral soil, or even for Brazil to be disqualified.
Following the investigation, FIFA decided to award the victory to Brazil as a 2-0 walkover, and banned Chile from qualifying for the 1994 World Cup - though this was solely due to the match being abandoned.
Rojas, meanwhile, was handed a lifetime ban from football, with the incident marking his final act as a professional football player.
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The ban was lifted in 2001, but Rojas was aged 43 at that time and subsequently took a coaching role at Brazilian giants Sao Paulo - the club he was playing for at the time of the infamous saga.
The Scotsman report that the goalkeeper still lived there as of 2014, though he has not commented publicly about his actions since giving an interview to a Chinese television channel in 1990.
Topics: FIFA, Football World Cup, Brazil
Live in constant hope of the top flight as a Preston North End fan. Written in the past for SPORF, GiveMeSport and more.
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Real Madrid have reportedly held an inquest into their despicable performance against Arsenal as they look to find the key to mounting a comeback.
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ByLee Igel
ByLee Igel,
Contributor.
U.S. President Donald Trump holds up an executive order alongside President of Fédération ... More Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) Gianni Infantino in the Oval Office at the White House on March 07, 2025 in Washington, DC. President Trump signed an executive order establishing a White House Task Force for the 2026 World Cup. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
United States President Donald Trump's announcement about tariffs triggered shockwaves in global markets and grabbed headlines across global media. But an announcement last month—the formation of a White House Task Force on the 2026 FIFA World Cup—may be the one that shapes international relations in the long run.
The task force announcement came during a scene inside the Oval Office. Trump, seated at the Resolute Desk with FIFA President Gianni Infantino standing alongside, said, “We're going to be establishing a task force, a very important task force … and that's on the FIFA World Cup of 2026, which is, you know, is a big event,” Trump said. “It's going to be the biggest event, I think.”
When the White House announced formation of the task force, which aims to coordinate federal efforts for the 2026 World Cup, it was largely met with a shrug by much of the public. Critics dismissed it as an obvious move by the president or a political puff piece amid a flurry of executive orders and political maneuvers. That reaction, however, underestimates the scale of what's ahead—and the urgency of getting it right.
The World Cup is more than a sports mega-event and the 2026 edition will be the biggest ever staged. It is a festival of sport, tourism, parks, entertainment, arts, and infrastructure that will be jointly hosted by the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Millions of people and billions of dollars will be flowing in, through, and around cities and communities connected to the matches. Worldwide audiences will be viewing and engaging with content through television broadcasts and digital platforms on a scale that is anticipated to surpass that of any previous edition of the World Cup.
For the 11 host cities in the U.S. where matches will be played, the tournament's impact will extend far beyond city limits. Each of the 48 nations that win their way into competing for the trophy will establish a base camp in a separate location. Those base camps for team lodging and training will draw fans, media, and economic activity to dozens of additional communities. For more than a month, the World Cup will reshape transportation, security, business, and daily life for residents in cities and towns across the country. And it will shape the impressions that visitors have of those places, too.
In addition to matches and team base camps, each host city will feature a FIFA Fan Festival. These are large-scale events for millions of locals and travelers to gather around music concerts, cultural exhibitions, sponsor activations, and live match-viewings in a select park, plaza, or downtown destination. They create opportunities for community engagement and economic activity, but also require significant coordination across security, traffic and transit, permitting, hospitality, customer service, crowd management, and health, safety, and emergency response resources.
The sheer volume of travel to, from, and between host cities will present major logistical challenges.
The World Cup will put unprecedented pressures on transportation systems, testing their capacity to handle millions of travelers in as smooth and welcoming a manner as possible. Research has shown that lasting impressions about visiting a place are formed by both how a person remembers a peak moment during the experience and how a person remembers the end moment of it. So, a visitor may have a meaningful time attending an event or exploring a city, but their experience entering and exiting—whether through an airport, a train station, a bus station, or a border crossing—can define how they remember it. What they then tell family, friends, and other people afterward can make all the difference in whether any of them choose to visit there in the future.
Security is another factor. This ranges from standard safety measures and incident response procedures to scenario training, intelligence sharing, transportation logistics, and protection of critical physical assets and diplomatic security. Another aspect is travel visa processing—the system, already backlogged by years, is facing a surge in demand around the World Cup and at a moment in time when the Trump administration is enacting a stricter policy on entry into the country. The White House will also be expected to play a key role in delivering federal funding—$625 million has already been requested by U.S. host cities to help cover security costs alone.
Given the magnitude of the challenge, is its full scope being fully-appreciated?
The U.S.-Canada-Mexico bid for the 2026 World Cup was awarded in June 2018. While a White House task force like the one that Trump announced is typically formed years in advance, this particular effort is being launched only a year out from the event. For comparison, President Bill Clinton established a White House Task Force for the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics nearly three and a half years prior, and a similar effort for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics three years ahead of the Games. When the U.S. last hosted the FIFA World Cup, in 1994, federal preparations began in 1987, a full seven years earlier.
Although announcing a White House task force a little more than one year in advance might raise concerns, it's worth recognizing that FIFA, 2026 host cities, host city committees, and federal agencies earmarked for the task force have gained significant knowledge and communication over time. Add to that the Trump administration having shown a capacity for swift and intense action when it sees fit. Even so, the demands of planning and coordination for an event of this scale push the bounds of most imaginations.
FIFA President Infantino has likened the World Cup to three Super Bowls a day—or 104 Super Bowls—in sixteen host cities across three countries over the course of one month. That is a fair assessment from someone who surely knows. But city organizers for 2026 might plan for the atmosphere to be more like an NFL Super Bowl, a WWE WrestleMania, and a Formula One Grand Prix all unfolding in multiple cities at once. The social and economic implications are staggering.
While there has been coordination in prior years, the formation of the White House task force marks a turning point. It's not just a procedural move. It isn't political theater, either. It is a signal that World Cup 2026 is no longer on the horizon—it is now firmly part of the national agenda. As the executive order notes, it “underscores President Trump's commitment to showcasing national pride, hospitality, and economic opportunity through sports tourism.” This focus has the potential to shape the global perception of the U.S. and its cities for years to come.
When the matches kick-off next summer, there will be no extra time for municipalities, agencies, businesses, and communities to get things right for residents, visitors, and the future fortunes of cities. The clock is ticking. And as if there weren't enough moving parts already, the White House task force order ties the World Cup to America's 250th anniversary celebration.
Local governments, host committees, and FIFA will handle most of the logistical coordination, but federal involvement is key to ensuring it's done effectively. This reality makes the existence and work of the White House Task Force on the 2026 FIFA World Cup more critical than most people realize.
ByLee Igel
ByLee Igel,
Contributor.
United States President Donald Trump's announcement about tariffs triggered shockwaves in global markets and grabbed headlines across global media. But an announcement last month—the formation of a White House Task Force on the 2026 FIFA World Cup—may be the one that shapes international relations in the long run.
The task force announcement came during a scene inside the Oval Office. Trump, seated at the Resolute Desk with FIFA President Gianni Infantino standing alongside, said, “We're going to be establishing a task force, a very important task force … and that's on the FIFA World Cup of 2026, which is, you know, is a big event,” Trump said. “It's going to be the biggest event, I think.”
When the White House announced formation of the task force, which aims to coordinate federal efforts for the 2026 World Cup, it was largely met with a shrug by much of the public. Critics dismissed it as an obvious move by the president or a political puff piece amid a flurry of executive orders and political maneuvers. That reaction, however, underestimates the scale of what's ahead—and the urgency of getting it right.
The World Cup is more than a sports mega-event and the 2026 edition will be the biggest ever staged. It is a festival of sport, tourism, parks, entertainment, arts, and infrastructure that will be jointly hosted by the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Millions of people and billions of dollars will be flowing in, through, and around cities and communities connected to the matches. Worldwide audiences will be viewing and engaging with content through television broadcasts and digital platforms on a scale that is anticipated to surpass that of any previous edition of the World Cup.
For the 11 host cities in the U.S. where matches will be played, the tournament's impact will extend far beyond city limits. Each of the 48 nations that win their way into competing for the trophy will establish a base camp in a separate location. Those base camps for team lodging and training will draw fans, media, and economic activity to dozens of additional communities. For more than a month, the World Cup will reshape transportation, security, business, and daily life for residents in cities and towns across the country. And it will shape the impressions that visitors have of those places, too.
In addition to matches and team base camps, each host city will feature a FIFA Fan Festival. These are large-scale events for millions of locals and travelers to gather around music concerts, cultural exhibitions, sponsor activations, and live match-viewings in a select park, plaza, or downtown destination. They create opportunities for community engagement and economic activity, but also require significant coordination across security, traffic and transit, permitting, hospitality, customer service, crowd management, and health, safety, and emergency response resources.
The sheer volume of travel to, from, and between host cities will present major logistical challenges.
The World Cup will put unprecedented pressures on transportation systems, testing their capacity to handle millions of travelers in as smooth and welcoming a manner as possible. Research has shown that lasting impressions about visiting a place are formed by both how a person remembers a peak moment during the experience and how a person remembers the end moment of it. So, a visitor may have a meaningful time attending an event or exploring a city, but their experience entering and exiting—whether through an airport, a train station, a bus station, or a border crossing—can define how they remember it. What they then tell family, friends, and other people afterward can make all the difference in whether any of them choose to visit there in the future.
Security is another factor. This ranges from standard safety measures and incident response procedures to scenario training, intelligence sharing, transportation logistics, and protection of critical physical assets and diplomatic security. Another aspect is travel visa processing—the system, already backlogged by years, is facing a surge in demand around the World Cup and at a moment in time when the Trump administration is enacting a stricter policy on entry into the country. The White House will also be expected to play a key role in delivering federal funding—$625 million has already been requested by U.S. host cities to help cover security costs alone.
Given the magnitude of the challenge, is its full scope being fully-appreciated?
The U.S.-Canada-Mexico bid for the 2026 World Cup was awarded in June 2018. While a White House task force like the one that Trump announced is typically formed years in advance, this particular effort is being launched only a year out from the event. For comparison, President Bill Clinton established a White House Task Force for the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics nearly three and a half years prior, and a similar effort for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics three years ahead of the Games. When the U.S. last hosted the FIFA World Cup, in 1994, federal preparations began in 1987, a full seven years earlier.
Although announcing a White House task force a little more than one year in advance might raise concerns, it's worth recognizing that FIFA, 2026 host cities, host city committees, and federal agencies earmarked for the task force have gained significant knowledge and communication over time. Add to that the Trump administration having shown a capacity for swift and intense action when it sees fit. Even so, the demands of planning and coordination for an event of this scale push the bounds of most imaginations.
FIFA President Infantino has likened the World Cup to three Super Bowls a day—or 104 Super Bowls—in sixteen host cities across three countries over the course of one month. That is a fair assessment from someone who surely knows. But city organizers for 2026 might plan for the atmosphere to be more like an NFL Super Bowl, a WWE WrestleMania, and a Formula One Grand Prix all unfolding in multiple cities at once. The social and economic implications are staggering.
While there has been coordination in prior years, the formation of the White House task force marks a turning point. It's not just a procedural move. It isn't political theater, either. It is a signal that World Cup 2026 is no longer on the horizon—it is now firmly part of the national agenda. As the executive order notes, it “underscores President Trump's commitment to showcasing national pride, hospitality, and economic opportunity through sports tourism.” This focus has the potential to shape the global perception of the U.S. and its cities for years to come.
When the matches kick-off next summer, there will be no extra time for municipalities, agencies, businesses, and communities to get things right for residents, visitors, and the future fortunes of cities. The clock is ticking. And as if there weren't enough moving parts already, the White House task force order ties the World Cup to America's 250th anniversary celebration.
Local governments, host committees, and FIFA will handle most of the logistical coordination, but federal involvement is key to ensuring it's done effectively. This reality makes the existence and work of the White House Task Force on the 2026 FIFA World Cup more critical than most people realize.
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There are just over two months left before the ball gets rolling at the next Club World Cup to be held in the United States. There, two giants of European and South American football, Inter Milan and River Plate, will face off. Two clubs that have had seven encounters throughout history… and they have declared their 'love' before meeting in the Club World Cup.
River vs Inter: a classic at the Club World Cup
Enzo Pérez, who returned to River at the beginning of the year, gave an interview in which he expressed his excitement about facing a club the size of Inter Milan at the Club World Cup: “It's still a classic. Closing out and playing against them will be good and very competitive. There will be rivalry on both sides, and we will live it that way,” confessed the veteran River Plate player.
In fact, a respected figure in the history of Inter Milan, where he played 100 matches during his career, shared in an interview that he holds a deep admiration for River Plate… even though he has never played for the Argentine club: “I used to watch them at three in the morning, secretly from my mother. I fell in love with the River of Aimar and Saviola. It was something I really enjoyed watching. When I could, I watched River at 3/4 AM in Spain. They played the original commentary from the Argentine commentator. It's something I love.”
Will Inter fall for Mastantuono?
Interestingly, River and Boca have never faced each other in an official match throughout history. We'll see if Borja Valero is one of the many fans that Enzo Pérez says will fill the stands in the United States to support River. “The fans of River will turn the stadium wherever we go, not just in Seattle, but in other cities where we play, just like it's done at the Más Monumental stadium.”
If, at the time, Borja Valero fell in love with Aimar and Saviola at River… it's possible that this time he will do the same with Franco Mastantuono, the latest big gem to emerge from River Plate's prolific academy. And just like Borja Valero, all the fans of Inter Milan will closely follow his performance because, in recent weeks, rumors have circulated that he could make his way to Giuseppe Meazza for the next season. We'll see, then, if both clubs sit down again to close the eighth deal in their history.
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MYNORTHWEST POLITICS
Apr 10, 2025, 5:00 AM
A general view at Lumen Field between the Seattle Sounders and the Los Angeles FC on March 08, 2025 in Seattle, Washington. (Photo: Steph Chambers via Getty Images)
(Photo: Steph Chambers via Getty Images)
BY KIRO NEWSRADIO STAFF
KIRO Newsradio -- Here for what's next
An influential state senator says the president's immigration policies could have a profound impact on when Seattle hosts several World Cup games next year.
Democratic Washington Senator Manka Dhingra made quite the statement Wednesday during a weekly Democratic press conference. She was asked if the state will help financially with World Cup preparations.
“This could have been an event that would have been incredible for the state of Washington,” Dhingra said. “But what is happening at the federal level? It is not safe for people from other countries to come to the United States right now because people are literally being picked up from the streets and taken away.”
Dhingra said she's curious about who from other countries will actually show up. Seattle is set to host six games starting in June of next year.
In January, officials announced nine cities that will host FIFA fan zones. The cities include Bellingham, Bremerton, Everett, Olympia, Lacey, Pasco, Richland, Kennewick, Spokane, Tacoma, Yakima, and Vancouver, Washington.
The goal is to make sure families who can't make it to the soccer matches will have a place close by to watch, socialize with like-minded fans, and enjoy the festivities—including live music, food, drinks, and interactive activities.
The 2026 FIFA World Cup gets underway on June 11 and runs through July 19.
Contributing: Matt Markovich and James Lynch, KIRO Newsradio; Julia Dallas, MyNorthwest
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Veteran Spanish defender Sergio Ramos spoke about the FIFA Club World Cup, set to be held this summer in the US, and Mexican football.
Ramos praised the new format of the FIFA Club World Cup, telling FIFA's official website: "It's a great opportunity for each of us to showcase our level, not just individually but also as a team."
Noting that he finds the decision to organize the FIFA Club World Cup in the US wise, the 39-year-old said that interest in football in the US and Mexico is increasing day by day.
"I think it's a wise decision. It's all about getting the American world to learn a bit more about that passion for football. Because in Europe, perhaps, we have a little bit more passion for it. But in the United States, with the number of people there maybe or, I don't know, American football, the NBA and lots of other sports, football perhaps hasn't had the impact that it has had in our countries."
Stating that they expect support from the Mexican fans in Los Angeles, Ramos said: "Well for us, it's a very positive thing, right? Knowing that Los Angeles also has a large number of Mexicans and many of our supporters. I think it's essential to feel the love, the warmth, the support of our fans in those moments. It'll be very important, regardless of the fact that we're playing away from home."
Ramos said it would be an incredible achievement for Monterrey to win the cup.
He said that everything is possible in football.
"Well, the goal is to compete head-to-head with any opponent, right? I think in the end, there's something that's non-negotiable: your attitude. In football, the smallest detail can change many things, but something that should never be in doubt is your commitment, your effort and your dedication."
"The other day, when (FIFA President Gianni) Infantino presented the new trophy with (US President Donald) Trump, the truth is, it's a beautiful trophy. And in the end, that's also part of the motivation that brought me to Mexico, that brought me here, because it opened up the opportunity to play in new competitions," he added.
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Inter Miami looked doomed down two goals in the CONCACAF Champions Cup tie against LAFC, staring at elimination. But then Lionel Messi decided it was time to turn the script. With two goals and an assist – including a decisive penalty – the Argentine maestro led Inter Miami to a stunning 3-1 victory on Wednesday night, sealing a 3-2 aggregate win and a place in the semifinals for the first time in club history.
Perhaps it was luck. But mostly, it was Messi.
In a poetic echo of the 2022 FIFA World Cup final, Messi once again faced Hugo Lloris from the penalty spot — and once again, the outcome was the same. Just like in Lusail, Messi outwitted the French goalkeeper with icy calm. He waited, watched Lloris shift, and gently rolled the ball into the opposite corner to make it 3-1 in the 84th minute. Lloris had been left frozen — again — in a Messi flashback he wouldn't have wanted.
The drama had started much earlier. With LAFC leading 2-0 on aggregate and holding the away-goals advantage, Messi gave Inter Miami a glimmer of hope in the 35th minute. Picking up the ball just outside the box, he fired home a vintage left-footed strike to level the match and get the crowd believing.
The belief deepened in the 61st when Noah Allen made it 2-1, capitalizing on a bizarre defensive mix-up. Messi had picked out Federico Redondo with a clever ball into the box, but a misread from Lloris let the ball bounce into the side-netting untouched.
A potential third goal was chalked off for offside when Luis Suárez headed in off a Messi delivery, but Miami kept pushing. Their breakthrough came via a VAR-reviewed handball, setting up Messi's cold-blooded penalty.
“We gave it our all,” Inter Miami coach Javier Mascherano said. “We wanted it, we wanted to be in the semis, and I think it showed. ... Many times luck has to be on your side, and we had it.”
Inter Miami will now face either Mexican side Pumas or the Vancouver Whitecaps in the semifinals later this month. But for now, it's Messi's night – another big stage, and another comeback.
Stefanos Tsitsipas is making a bold change to his coaching team with the announcement of a partnership with Goran Ivanisevic, the former coach of Novak Djokovic. The Croatian will officially join Tsitsipas after the clay swing, once Roland Garros concludes, according to ' Gazzeta' from Greece.
Tsitsipas has been coached for most of his career by his father, Apostolos Tsitsipas. However, tensions escalated in August 2024 when Stefanos famously asked his father to leave his box mid-match at the Canadian Open, ultimately leading to Apostolos stepping down as head coach.
In the aftermath, Greece's Davis Cup captain Dimitris Chatzinikolaou took over coaching duties for the former World No. 3. But following a couple of inconsistent seasons and a decline in his prominence on the ATP Tour, Tsitsipas has now opted for one of the most respected names in tennis coaching.
Ivanisevic had previously worked alongside Novak Djokovic for several years, helping him win 12 Grand Slam titles. After parting ways with the Serbian star, Ivanisevic stayed away from coaching for most of 2024—until a brief surprise stint with 2022 Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina.
That WTA venture, however, was short-lived. Amid controversy surrounding Stefano Vukov, Rybakina's former coach, Ivanisevic stepped away. Rybakina announced Vukov's return to her team despite his suspension, and Goran, reportedly left in the dark, chose to exit after just three tournaments.
Now, Ivanisevic is set to make his ATP comeback as Tsitsipas' coach immediately following Roland Garros. Given Tsitsipas' underwhelming record on grass—he's never made it past the fourth round at Wimbledon—this move makes sense. With a former Wimbledon champion like Ivanisevic in his corner, the Greek star is clearly aiming to rewrite his story on grass.
This article first appeared on TennisUpToDate.com and was syndicated with permission.
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Goran Ivanisevic defied the odds when he won Wimbledon as a wildcard entrant back in 2001.
The Croatian player took out Tim Henman in a rain-affected semi-final and then defeated Pat Rafter in a final which took place on a Monday afternoon.
It was the defining moment for Ivanisevic in a brilliant career which saw him win 22 singles titles and reach number two in the world rankings.
The big-serving player never really got close to winning any of the other major titles, with a semi-final at the US Open in 1996 as close as he came prior to his glorious year at Wimbledon.
After retiring from tennis, he embarked on a career in coaching and most notably helped Novak Djokovic win a glut of titles from 2019 to 2024.
It would appear that Ivanisevic is still keen to stay involved in tennis and still speaks fondly of the game to a certain extent, even though he's currently inactive.
Ivanisevic began the year coaching Elena Rybakina as he entered the female game for the first time in his career, but that didn't last long.
Now, he's appeared on a podcast in his native Croatia alongside former footballer Slaven Bilic, and he's shared the one thing he hates about modern-day tennis.
He said: “What I don't like in tennis now is too many tournaments. No sport is like tennis, where the year ends if you reach the Davis Cup final. You have Torino, Masters in November, and by mid-December, you must go to Australia. How is that normal? It's impossible. You need rest, prep for Australia.
“Some matches last year ended at 4am. 4am! No way you will be ready. You got to sleep, reach the hotel, and it's 7-8am. You sleep until 5pm and must play tomorrow.
“They have started changing things, but still. Matches can't be played after 12. Too many tournaments, too many demands, it's too much. Every week, two to three tournaments, every week something.”
The three-time Grand Slam winner will absolutely agree with Ivanisevic on this after being critical himself of the scheduling at last year's US Open.
He took to social media to bemoan the scheduling of the tournament with some matches running until 3am in the morning in New York.
Murray said on X: “The tennis scheduling situation is a total mess. It looks so amateurish having matches go on at 2, 3, 4am. Sort it out.”
The tennis scheduling situation is a total mess. It looks so amateurish having matches going on at 2,3 4am👎 Sort it out @usopen @AustralianOpen @Wimbledon @rolandgarros @atptour @WTA @ITFTennis
Thankfully, this is one thing that will never happen at Wimbledon and perhaps it's time other tournaments followed suit with their curfew.
Elite athletes need the best conditions possible and furthermore, it's unholy to expect fans to remain in stadiums until such an hour to watch sport.
Hopefully the ATP and WTA can come together to devise better scheduling at events and if legends of the game such as Murray and Ivanisevic have an issue, it's definitely worth looking at.
Stream the quarterfinal match on TennisChannel.com at 6:10am ET.BySteve TignorPublished Apr 10, 2025 copy_link
Published Apr 10, 2025
🖥️📱 Click here for live coverage on TennisChannel.com (United States only; estimated start time 6:10 a.m. ET)The winner of this match will face either Alejandro Davidovich Fokina or Alexei Popyrin in the semifinals.👉 Click here for the complete Monte Carlo bracket.
The winner of this match will face either Alejandro Davidovich Fokina or Alexei Popyrin in the semifinals.👉 Click here for the complete Monte Carlo bracket.
👉 Click here for the complete Monte Carlo bracket.
This would seem to be an ideal time for the 21-year-old Spaniard and the 20-year-old Frenchman to face off for the first time as pros.Over the past month, we've seen surges and title runs from young guys like Jack Draper and Jakub Mensik. But Fils has been just a step or two behind.In Indian Wells, he made the quarters and nearly beat Daniil Medvedev; in Miami he also made the quarters, before losing to Mensik, the eventual champion. Fils, long touted for the Top 10, has crept up to No. 15; after his straight-set win on Thursday over Andrey Rublev, he looks set to move higher.
Over the past month, we've seen surges and title runs from young guys like Jack Draper and Jakub Mensik. But Fils has been just a step or two behind.In Indian Wells, he made the quarters and nearly beat Daniil Medvedev; in Miami he also made the quarters, before losing to Mensik, the eventual champion. Fils, long touted for the Top 10, has crept up to No. 15; after his straight-set win on Thursday over Andrey Rublev, he looks set to move higher.
In Indian Wells, he made the quarters and nearly beat Daniil Medvedev; in Miami he also made the quarters, before losing to Mensik, the eventual champion. Fils, long touted for the Top 10, has crept up to No. 15; after his straight-set win on Thursday over Andrey Rublev, he looks set to move higher.
Arthur showing that consistency 👏Fils is the only player in 2025 to reach the quarterfinals at all first three ATP Masters 1000 events!#RolexMonteCarloMasters pic.twitter.com/IiaveOZpel
Now for the next rung on the ladder: Alcaraz.Over the last four sets in Monte Carlo, the second seed has found his clay game, and his A game, at the same time. He and Fils are two athletes at the peaks of their youthful powers, who leap and bound around the court the way only guys their age can. They use top-handed backhands, and play a similar attack-first baseline game. Neither will leave many mid-court balls unpunished.As far as moving and ball-striking, Alcaraz has a higher ceiling than virtually anyone, including Fils. But Fils has been competing as well and as confidently as he ever has over the past six weeks. He'll believe he can win. I'll wait for him to prove it. Winner: Alcaraz
Over the last four sets in Monte Carlo, the second seed has found his clay game, and his A game, at the same time. He and Fils are two athletes at the peaks of their youthful powers, who leap and bound around the court the way only guys their age can. They use top-handed backhands, and play a similar attack-first baseline game. Neither will leave many mid-court balls unpunished.As far as moving and ball-striking, Alcaraz has a higher ceiling than virtually anyone, including Fils. But Fils has been competing as well and as confidently as he ever has over the past six weeks. He'll believe he can win. I'll wait for him to prove it. Winner: Alcaraz
As far as moving and ball-striking, Alcaraz has a higher ceiling than virtually anyone, including Fils. But Fils has been competing as well and as confidently as he ever has over the past six weeks. He'll believe he can win. I'll wait for him to prove it. Winner: Alcaraz
A post shared by Carlos Alcaraz Garfia (@carlitosalcarazz)
Alcaraz is a -300 moneyline favorite; Fils is a +240 underdog.To win the first set, Alcaraz is -250 and Fils +170.(Odds from BetMGM as of 3:30 pm ET on Thursday, April 10.)👉 Click here for more betting coverage on TENNIS.com.
To win the first set, Alcaraz is -250 and Fils +170.(Odds from BetMGM as of 3:30 pm ET on Thursday, April 10.)👉 Click here for more betting coverage on TENNIS.com.
(Odds from BetMGM as of 3:30 pm ET on Thursday, April 10.)👉 Click here for more betting coverage on TENNIS.com.
👉 Click here for more betting coverage on TENNIS.com.
Bolavip, like Futbol Sites, is a company owned by Better Collective. All rights reserved.
Updated on April 10, 2025 03:29PM EDT
By Santiago Tovar
When discussing the legends of Croatian tennis, one name stands out: Goran Ivanisevic. The 2001 Wimbledon champion became a major force in the sport, intimidating players like Pete Sampras and Boris Becker. Today, as a tennis coach, he continues to make an impact, most notably as part of Novak Djokovic‘s team, a legendary partnership in tennis history.
Ivanisevic turned professional in 1988, winning his first title that year in doubles alongside Rudiger Haas. He followed that up with a breakout performance in 1989, reaching the quarterfinals of the Australian Open as a wildcard entrant.
One of the standout moments in his early ATP career came at Roland Garros, where he stunned German tennis legend Boris Becker in the first round. That victory marked the beginning of Ivanisevic's rise as a key figure in international tennis.
The Croatian's first singles title came in 1990 at the Hamburg Open, and he also contributed to Yugoslavia's victory in the World Team Cup. Ivanisevic's quest for greatness continued, and it all culminated in 1992 when he made his first Wimbledon final, a defining moment in his career.
Goran Ivanisevic of Croatia kisses the winning trophy after winning the men's final of the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championship.
For Ivanisevic, winning Wimbledon wasn't an easy journey. The Croatian finally clinched the title after falling short three times previously, including a heartbreaking loss to Andre Agassi. Along the way, Ivanisevic had to overcome tennis legends like Pete Sampras, Ivan Lendl, and Stefan Edberg. However, a few mistakes in crucial moments kept him from achieving his goal, until his breakthrough year.
see also
He was world's No.1, beat Pete Sampras, Roger Federer and Andre Agassi, and retired at the age of 32
Despite the absence of a major title, Ivanisevic's consistent performances helped him solidify his place as the world's No. 2 player. His remarkable run at Wimbledon in 1994, where he reached the final only to lose to Sampras, played a significant part in his rise.
Between 1999 and 2001, Ivanisevic struggled with a series of debilitating injuries, which hindered his career. However, in 2001, he made a stunning comeback at Wimbledon, entering the tournament as a wild card, ranked No. 125 in the world.
That year, Ivanišević shocked the tennis world by capturing his lone Grand Slam title. He triumphed over the likes of Carlos Moya, Andy Roddick, and Marat Safin. In a gripping final, Ivanisevic defeated Australian Patrick Rafter, securing his first and only Wimbledon title, ironically, towards the twilight of his career.
Ivanisevic faced Sampras 18 times in his career, with the American leading their head-to-head 12-6. This rivalry remains memorable for Ivanisevic, especially since Sampras defeated him in two of the four Wimbledon finals Ivanisevic reached.
see also
He was World No. 1 at just 20, defeated Agassi and Sampras, and now reveals his secret for success
Ivanisevic also had a memorable rivalry with German legend Boris Becker, who edged out Ivanisevic 10-9 in their head-to-head record. Besides their Roland Garros encounter, Ivanisevic won 5 of their 19 consecutive matches between 1997 and 1998. Despite this, Becker triumphed in all three of the Grand Slam finals the two players contested.
After retiring from competitive tennis in 2004, following a brief hiatus from 2002 to 2004 due to injury Ivanisevic transitioned to coaching. After a short stint playing soccer in Croatia, he began his coaching career in 2013.
His first major success came with Marin Cilic, leading him to a US Open title. Ivanisevic continued his coaching journey with Tomas Berdych and Milos Raonic before reaching the pinnacle of his career with Novak Djokovic in 2019. Under his guidance, Djokovic captured 18 titles, including nine Grand Slam victories, making Ivanisevic one of the few people in tennis history to win Wimbledon both as a player and as a coach.
Santiago Tovar is a bilingual sports journalist, proficient in both English and Spanish, with additional fluency in French. He joined Bolavip US in 2024, bringing over seven years of experience in covering a wide range of sports, including soccer, NFL, NBA, tennis, and Formula 1. A graduate of Universidad Externado in Colombia with a degree in Social Communication — Journalism, Santiago has provided real-time coverage of major events like the 2021 Women's Copa America, Copa Libertadores, Copa Sudamericana, and the Davis Cup qualifiers. Previously, he worked at Kienyke.com and Redmas.com.co, where he developed strategies to highlight key sports moments across websites and social media platforms.
Bolavip, like Futbol Sites, is a company owned by Better Collective. All rights reserved.
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Goran Ivanisevic played at the Wimbledon Championships on 15 occasions throughout his career.
Ivanisevic finally won Wimbledon in 2001, making history as the only wildcard in history to win a major title.
More recently he has turned to coaching, with Ivanisevic mentoring Novak Djokovic until last year, winning 10 Grand Slams together, including three Wimbledon titles.
After splitting with Djokovic, Ivanisevic began coaching Elena Rybakina ahead of the 2025 season.
However, after just two tournaments with the former Wimbledon champion, Ivanisevic left Rybakina's team.
Last year saw the singles titles at Wimbledon won by Barbora Krejcikova and defended by Carlos Alcaraz.
Both of these players have also won Roland Garros, with Ivanisevic speaking on football manager Slaven Bilic's podcast about how much he thinks the Wimbledon courts have slowed down since he retired.
“The good thing is that the courts are more alike. Clay, grass, hard. It's all balanced out,” explained Ivanisevic. “So adaptation is easier. Only on grass, running is tricky.
“Statistically, which I think is crazy, in recent years longer rallies happen at Wimbledon than Roland Garros. It looks fast on TV with all the sliding but grass is extremely slow. The fastest slam is Australia. That is why it's the best. It rewards aggressive tennis. It rewards you when you attack, you win the point.
Bilic then asked Ivanisevic if he thinks that he would have a better chance of winning Roland Garros than Wimbledon in 2025, but the Croatian admitted that the grass courts are still the fastest surface.
“Well, I mean it is faster,” responded the former world number two. “In my time grass was like playing on ice.”
Wimbledon was by far Ivanisevic's strongest Grand Slam tournament, having won over double the amount of matches compared to the other three majors.
Ivanisevic's best Grand Slam outside of Wimbledon in terms of win percentage was Roland Garros, but it was the US Open where he achieved his best result by reaching the semi-finals.
Whereas at Wimbledon, Ivanisevic had already reached three finals before his famous title victory in 2001.
The final match of Ivanisevic's career fittingly came at Wimbledon in 2004, when he reached the third round before losing to third seed Lleyton Hewitt.
The Russians were knocked out in Round-1 at the Paris Games.
Reigning Indian Wells champion Mirra Andreeva has revealed that she and former US Open champion Daniil Medvedev have agreed to pair up in the 2025 US Open mixed doubles competition. In a recent interview with Sport-Express, the Russian expressed her desire to make the pairing work, after a disheartening Round of 16 exit for the duo at the Paris Olympic Games in 2024.
Currently the World No. 7 in women's singles, Mirra Andreeva has also been honing her doubles skills. She has formed a formidable pairing with southpaw Diana Shnaider – they are currently second in the Race to the WTA Finals. Andreeva captured her second doubles trophy at the recently concluded Miami Masters.
READ ALSO: Is This the Beginning of the End for Novak Djokovic: Analysis of His Monte Carlo Masters 2025 Loss
Consequently, Medvedev is not as pronounced on the doubles circuit as his female compatriot. He is yet to win a title on the doubles circuit, and has failed to get past Round-1 in two Olympic doubles attempts. The former World No. 1 is also going through a minor slump in the singles department – failing to win a single championship this season.
Mirra Andreeva has been one of the talking points of the WTA circuit this year. Having set out to enter the Top-10 in 2025, she already achieved her goal in the month of March. At the age of 17, Mirra is rapidly rising up the ranks. In an interview with Sport-Express, Andreeva revealed the potential team-up with 2021 US Open winner Daniil Medvedev at Flushing Meadows this year.
Medvedev and Andreeva to be one of the 16 mixed doubles competing at this year's US Open. https://t.co/aG44pcUdvM#ATPTennis #DaniilMedvedev #MirraAndreeva #MirraAndreeva pic.twitter.com/KILxnokXJ4
“It's a lot of fun,” said the prodigy about playing doubles with a veteran like Medvedev. “It may not have worked out at the Olympics, but hopefully it will at the US Open. We've already agreed to play there together. We can develop a good tandem.” Provided the agreement stays in place, the rest of the mixed doubles field will have an eye out when the draw is released in New York.
The lesser known fact is that Daniil Medvedev and Mirra Andreeva have already played mixed doubles together – at the biggest sporting spectacle in the world. Representing the Individual Neutral Athletes, they took on Andrea Vavassori and Sara Errani in the Round of 16. The Italian doubles specialists dominated their opponents, recognising the lack of coordination between the two.
In the end, Errani-Vavassori comfortably won 6-3 6-2 to progress into the QF stage. Despite the mixed doubles low, Andreeva shrugged off the loss and won a silver medal in women's doubles alongside Diana Shnaider. On the contrary, Medvedev has lost in Round-1 on three separate occasions in doubles – men's doubles (2020), men's doubles (2024) and mixed doubles (2024).
READ MORE: Arthur Fils Brushes Aside 2023 Champion Andrey Rublev in Monte Carlo Masters 2025 Round of 16 Upset
Do you think the deadly duo of Mirra Andreeva/Daniil Medvedev will take part in the US Open mixed doubles? If yes, how far will they go?
A passionate sports fan through and through, I am currently pursuing my MA in Global Sports Journalism. I specialise in tennis and football writing at The PlayOffs, and I have prior experience working at EssentiallySports and Sportskeeda. Born and raised in Bengaluru, India, sport was my safe space right from my childhood. After trying my hand at multiple sports and representing my educational institutions in cricket, badminton and table tennis, I found sports media to be my calling.
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Taylor Fritz appears to still be struggling with a fitness issue that has already seen him withdraw from multiple ATP events this year.
Fritz has been suffering with abdominal pain since February, but decided to compete at the sunshine double of Indian Wells and the Miami Open.
Despite admitting that he was not fully pain free, Fritz reached the Miami Open semi-finals for the first time in his career.
However, the world number four has not been able to push on since then, with Fritz withdrawing from the Monte Carlo Masters and now another upcoming ATP tournament.
Fritz was next scheduled to compete at the ATP tournament in Munich, where he reached the final last year before losing to Jan-Lennard Struff.
However, the American will not get the opportunity to improve on his runner-up finish this year, after it was announced that he had withdrawn from the Bavarian Tennis Championships.
While no explanation has been given as of yet, it is assumed that Fritz's withdrawal is related to the ongoing abdominal injury he has been suffering with.
As a result of this, Fritz will lose 165 ranking points from reaching the final last year, and has a further 800 to defend throughout the clay court season.
Fritz is not the only person having injury struggles, with former top 10 player Hubert Hurkacz also suffering with a lower back issue.
Hurkacz, who is coached by Nicolas Massu and Ivan Lendl, has not played since Indian Wells, where he won only four games against Alex de Minaur.
As a result of these withdrawals, Fritz has been replaced by Jakub Mensik, the player who beat him in the Miami Open semi-finals and went onto win the title.
David Goffin has replaced Hubert Hurkacz, with Jaume Munar the next to step in if any more players pull out.
Munich update:OUT: Fritz, HurkaczIN: Mensik, GoffinNext: Munar
The Bavarian International Tennis Championships have been upgraded to an ATP 500 level event for the first time this year.
This is reflective in its lineup, with four top 20 ranked players featuring in Alexander Zverev, Ben Shelton, Felix Auger-Aliassime and Ugo Humbert.
Zverev, who is currently out-of-form, won back-to-back titles at the ATP tournament in Munich in 2017 and 2018.
The German is one of two former champions returning to Munich, with last year's winner Struff looking to replicate what Zverev achieved in 2018.
Although Mensik did not make it onto the initial list of players in the main draw, he will be seeded due to his new career-high ranking of world number 23 since winning the Miami Open.
The Bavarian International Tennis Championships will get underway on Monday April 14.
Posted: Thu 10th Apr 2025
A major tennis tournament – which will feature British and international stars from this year's Wimbledon Championships – will officially launch in Wrexham this week.
The Lexus Wrexham Open is the biggest women's tennis tournament to be played in the UK this year, outside of the grass court season, and is being held in North Wales for the first time.
Wrexham Tennis & Padel Centre will host the prestigious ITF World Tennis Tour tournament between October 19-26.
Leading players will compete at the Plas Coch Road venue, with spectators able to watch world-class tennis in a 600-seat capacity arena constructed around the main indoor show court.
The official launch event will be held at Wrexham's Ramada Plaza hotel on Friday, April 11 (8-10am).
It will be an exciting opportunity for the local business community to find out more about the biggest tennis tournament ever held in North Wales and how they can be involved.
Guests will hear how the Lexus Wrexham Open is set to bring over £400,000 of business to the Wrexham area, a significant boost for the area's economic growth.
The importance of the tournament in helping the development of British tennis players will also be discussed.
Speakers at the launch event include former professional player Mel South, ranked in the world's top 100 during her career, and now a television tennis commentator.
She will be joined by Bethan Lewis, a director of Tennis Wales, and Kirsty Thomson, event manager at the Lawn Tennis Association, who will be sharing their views about the tournament.
Alwyn Jones, chief executive of Wrexham Council, and Ian Williams, deputy director of tourism development and events for Visit Wales, will also speak at the launch event.
Dave Courteen, event promoter for the Lexus Wrexham Open, said: “The tournament is going to be livestreamed to a global audience and is the largest women's tennis event to be staged in Wales since the Rover Championships in Cardiff in 1996.
“Some of the players set to come to Wrexham will be ranked in the world's top 100 and many of them will have played at Wimbledon just three months earlier.
“The whole week promises to be a real festival of tennis for Wrexham, and it will also feature a host of activities for the local community, including a range of hospitality events.”
He added: “We are hugely excited to be bringing this tournament to Wrexham and looking forward to the official launch on April 11, which will be a free to attend event, including a complimentary breakfast.
“It will provide people with a great insight about the tournament and why it has attracted the support of the Welsh Government and Wrexham Council.
“It's fantastic that local businesses are so keen to be involved, with 18 sponsorship slots for the tournament already sold.
“We now look forward to talking to more businesses about how best to maximise opportunities to showcase all that is good about the area.”
You can reserve a free place at the official launch of the Lexus Wrexham Open, here.
Pictured: British tennis player Freya Christie at Wrexham's Ramada Plaza hotel, the venue for the official launch of the Lexus Wrexham Open on April 11.
A major tennis tournament – which will feature British and international stars from this year's Wimbledon Championships – will officially launch in Wrexham this week.
The Lexus Wrexham Open is the biggest women's tennis tournament to be played in the UK this year, outside of the grass court season, and is being held in North Wales for the first time.
Wrexham Tennis & Padel Centre will host the prestigious ITF World Tennis Tour tournament between October 19-26.
Leading players will compete at the Plas Coch Road venue, with spectators able to watch world-class tennis in a 600-seat capacity arena constructed around the main indoor show court.
The official launch event will be held at Wrexham's Ramada Plaza hotel on Friday, April 11 (8-10am).
It will be an exciting opportunity for the local business community to find out more about the biggest tennis tournament ever held in North Wales and how they can be involved.
Guests will hear how the Lexus Wrexham Open is set to bring over £400,000 of business to the Wrexham area, a significant boost for the area's economic growth.
The importance of the tournament in helping the development of British tennis players will also be discussed.
Speakers at the launch event include former professional player Mel South, ranked in the world's top 100 during her career, and now a television tennis commentator.
She will be joined by Bethan Lewis, a director of Tennis Wales, and Kirsty Thomson, event manager at the Lawn Tennis Association, who will be sharing their views about the tournament.
Alwyn Jones, chief executive of Wrexham Council, and Ian Williams, deputy director of tourism development and events for Visit Wales, will also speak at the launch event.
Dave Courteen, event promoter for the Lexus Wrexham Open, said: “The tournament is going to be livestreamed to a global audience and is the largest women's tennis event to be staged in Wales since the Rover Championships in Cardiff in 1996.
“Some of the players set to come to Wrexham will be ranked in the world's top 100 and many of them will have played at Wimbledon just three months earlier.
“The whole week promises to be a real festival of tennis for Wrexham, and it will also feature a host of activities for the local community, including a range of hospitality events.”
He added: “We are hugely excited to be bringing this tournament to Wrexham and looking forward to the official launch on April 11, which will be a free to attend event, including a complimentary breakfast.
“It will provide people with a great insight about the tournament and why it has attracted the support of the Welsh Government and Wrexham Council.
“It's fantastic that local businesses are so keen to be involved, with 18 sponsorship slots for the tournament already sold.
“We now look forward to talking to more businesses about how best to maximise opportunities to showcase all that is good about the area.”
You can reserve a free place at the official launch of the Lexus Wrexham Open, here.
Pictured: British tennis player Freya Christie at Wrexham's Ramada Plaza hotel, the venue for the official launch of the Lexus Wrexham Open on April 11.
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April 09, 2025 09:54PM EDT
By Natalia Lobo
There are good tennis players, and then there are the greats: those who don't just excel at the game, but redefine it. Brazilian star Maria Bueno was one of the second group. She emerged in the late 1950s as one of tennis' most graceful and accomplished champions, becoming one of the first and most beloved South American idols in the sport.
Born in Sao Paulo in 1939, Maria Esther Bueno picked up tennis at the age of six, while going to the club with her family, despite tennis not being a popular sport in the country. “The main thing was football. But I just started playing and I just loved the sport. My father, my entire family played,” she told CNN in 2016.
Bueno said that her family didn't have any money and no sponsors to support her career, so they gathered money from friends at the club and bought her “a one way ticket” to Europe. “They said ‘come back when you can,'” she told CNN.
She quickly dominated the national circuit and made her international breakthrough in the late 1950s. She broke into the international scene in 1958 when she won the women's doubles with Althea Gibson at Wimbledon and won the women's singles at the Italian Open.
Maria Bueno playing in Wimbledon in the 1960s (Allsport UK)
A year later, she became the first South American woman to win a Wimbledon singles title, defeating Darlene Hard in the final. “My Wimbledon prize money was 50 pounds in a voucher,” she revealed. That same year, she also won the U.S. Nationals (now the U.S. Open) and ended the season ranked World No. 1.
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Her style was known for its fluid motion and effortless strokes, and became one of the great champions of the amateur era (the Open Era started in 1968). “It's all instinct. I never had coaches or anything like that. I just had it. As you know, you either have it or you don't,” she said.
“I had a lot of natural talent, but I had to work hard too,” she told The New York Times. Between 1959 and 1966, Bueno won seven Grand Slam singles titles, ten in doubles, and two in mixed doubles. At her peak, she was considered the best female player in the world, topping the rankings in 1959, 1960, 1964, and 1966.
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He was world's No.1, beat Pete Sampras, Roger Federer and Andre Agassi, and retired at the age of 32
However, Bueno wasn't only a tennis player, she was a celebrity, especially in her home country. As one of the early iconic players, she was one of the most fashionable, wearing dresses designed by Ted Tingling. One of his creations caused a stir during the 1962 Championships, as she wore a dress with pink underskirt and matching pink underwear.
The British media dubbed it a “wardrobe scandal,” but Bueno shrugged off the controversy. “There was a gasp from one end of the court,” The Associated Press quoted Bueno as recalling the incident, via The New York Times. “And the people at the other end didn't know why until I changed ends and served from there. Later I wore panties that resembled the club colors, which outraged the club committee and they brought in the all-white clothing rule.”
In 1963, Wimbledon made it a condition of entry that competitors had to wear clothing that was “predominantly in white throughout” or risk disqualification. The rule was modified in 2023 to allow women players to wear dark undershorts to ease period anxiety.
Injuries and illness hampered Bueno's career in the late 1960s. She spent eight months bedridden with hepatitis in 1961 and later underwent knee surgery in 1965. From 1969 to 1974, she was sidelined by severe cramps and pain in her right arm, which led to multiple surgeries.
Her last Grand Slam title came in 1968 in doubles in the U.S. Open. Her last tournament win came at the Japan Open in 1974. She effectively retired after the 1977 season but returned briefly to compete in mixed doubles at Wimbledon in 1980 and later took part in a few senior events.
After retiring from competitive play, she remained active in the sport. Bueno became a television commentator in Brazil, offering analysis and serving as an ambassador for tennis in South America. She also founded a tennis clinic and academy, mentoring young Brazilian players and promoting the sport's growth.
Maria Bueno in 2004 (
Maria Bueno passed away in 2018 at the age of 78, after battling with cancer, but her legacy lives on. She remains Brazil's most decorated tennis player and was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1978. In a sport long dominated by Europeans and Americans, she paved the way for South American talent, particularly women.
In 2016, the Tennis Olympic Stadium for the Rio Games was named after her. She said she was “very proud” of the honor. “First, because I'm a woman. You know, everything, sorry to say, but everything is made for the men. And having my name there while I'm still around, I think that's fantastic. It's the best I could possibly get from Brazil. It's such an honor,” she told CNN.
see also
Tennis rankings explained: ATP, WTA and points system
She is remembered not only for her titles but for the grace with which she played. For many in Brazil, Maria Bueno is a national treasure—a pioneer whose elegance, strength, and charisma forever changed tennis.
Natalia is a sports journalist at Bolavip US, where she covers soccer, tennis, and the broader sports world. She also works as an entertainment journalist at Spoiler US, focusing on the film industry, series, reality TV, and celebrity news. With a diverse background that includes reporting on sports, fashion, and culture, she brings a rich and varied perspective to her current roles. Natalia holds a Bachelor's degree in Communication and Media from the Universidad Central of Venezuela (UCV) and has over eight years of experience in digital media. She has previously contributed her bilingual skills in English and Spanish to outlets such as Revista Exclusiva and Cambio16.
Bolavip, like Futbol Sites, is a company owned by Better Collective. All rights reserved.
News
WEEKEND WARM-UP: McLaren take on Red Bull in a scorching hot Bahrain while Ferrari run upgrades in a bid to join the party
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Lando Norris believes that McLaren are “unlikely” to fend off a potential challenge from Red Bull at the Bahrain Grand Prix following Max Verstappen's victory last time out in Japan, though the Briton hopes that his team can “make amends” for missing out on that win.
After triumphing in Australia and China via Norris and team mate Oscar Piastri respectively, the papaya team had to settle for a 2-3 result at Suzuka following a masterful drive from Verstappen, meaning that the Dutchman has now closed the gap in the Drivers' standings down to just one point behind leader Norris.
READ MORE: Stella explains why McLaren's hands were tied in strategic Japanese GP battle against Verstappen
Now the championship moves on to Bahrain and, when asked if he thinks that McLaren can keep Red Bull at bay during the weekend ahead, Norris played down those expectations as he responded: “Unlikely, just from my feelings at the minute.
“We've had a great start to the season and I know a lot of things are amazing, but it's a much slower speed circuit than the last few weekends. We still know that's one of our weaker areas. I'm not expecting bad things, I'm just expecting a trickier weekend than the last few.”
Norris was beaten to victory by Verstappen last time out at the Japanese Grand Prix
Reflecting further on his feelings about the event in Sakhir, the 25-year-old added: “Red Bull are close; they're not that far off, maybe one-tenth or maybe two-tenths, but that's it and it's still not a lot of time.
“I think maybe this weekend potentially we struggle a bit more in Qualifying, and what was proved in pre-season testing was our race pace was strong. Maybe with the hotter temperatures our race pace can still be very strong, but I don't expect us to be as comfortable in Qualifying. But hopefully I'm wrong and it's an easy weekend for us.”
READ MORE: Verstappen says Red Bull ‘definitely need to improve' if they are to fight for 2025 titles
And when quizzed on whether he was surprised to see three different winners across the opening races, Norris spoke of his disappointment at McLaren not continuing their run of victories at the Japanese Grand Prix.
“I would love if there was only one [winner] and that was me,” the British driver said. “Oscar is doing a very good job so I'm not surprised he's won a race, and I don't think we've ever put Red Bull or Max out of the race. I'm not surprised he's also won a race.
Norris expecting 'a trickier weekend than the last few' in Bahrain
“Did we have a better car last weekend? Yes. Should we have beaten them? Yes, but they and Max did a better job and they deserved it over us. We took it on the chin, it was not a good feeling, we were not happy after last weekend, but that's life sometimes and we try and go into this weekend and make amends.”
Piastri, meanwhile, does not feel that Verstappen's win at Suzuka has altered much in terms of whether McLaren now view Red Bull as more of a threat, with the Australian remaining confident about the Woking-based outfit's performance.
NEED TO KNOW: The most important facts, stats and trivia ahead of the 2025 Bahrain Grand Prix
“I don't think it changes much,” he commented. “I think we have the quickest car at the moment, but our advantage is not enough to be careless and kind of lay back and not execute as best as you can.
“We saw Melbourne was a very strong weekend for us, but we also got the most out of the car and both of us felt we drove very well. I think China in the Sprint – Sprint Quali, Lando went on pole – and I think China and Japan have both shown that it doesn't take much to go wrong for us to not be at the front.
Piastri remains confident that McLaren are in a position to win in Bahrain
“We have an advantage in the race for sure, but in Qualifying you have to still be on it because the gap is not much still. As we saw in Japan, Max put in a good performance and it was enough to be better than us. So I think that's just another demonstration that it's going to be tight the whole year and we've got to be on our best form.”
The Bahrain International Circuit has historically not been the strongest track for McLaren, meaning that Piastri is expecting the venue to be a “good test” for the team.
AS IT HAPPENED: Follow all the build-up ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix weekend
However, the 24-year-old reiterated his belief in the outfit as he added: “I think we're as confident as we have been in my time at the team. We are in a position to win this weekend, and I think we have some evidence from testing that we're in a good place.
“But yeah, it's also about 20 degrees hotter than testing, which is going to change things as well.”
Don't miss your chance to experience F1 racing under the lights in Sakhir...
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© 2003-2025 Formula One World Championship Limited
Lewis Hamilton suggests the upgrades Ferrari have brought to Bahrain "should bode well for a better weekend" as the teams arrive in Sakhir for this weekend's Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix.
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© 2003-2025 Formula One World Championship Limited
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No fewer than six junior, test and reserve drivers will be in action up and down the F1 field during Friday's first practice session for the Bahrain Grand Prix, with Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes, Aston Martin, Haas and Williams all making FP1 line-up changes.
Under F1's regulations, every full-time driver is required to make way for a rookie – viewed as someone who has started no more than two Grands Prix – in two practice sessions across the 2025 season, an increase on the one mandated last year.
READ MORE: Ayumu Iwasa set to drive Verstappen's Red Bull in FP1 at Bahrain Grand Prix
Given that both Qualifying and the Grand Prix in Sakhir are held in twilight conditions, at a similar time to second practice, it provides an ideal opportunity for teams to run different drivers in FP1 (in hotter midday weather) without massively compromising their weekend efforts.
At Red Bull, reigning four-time World Champion Max Verstappen will hand his RB21 over to 23-year-old Japanese racer Iwasa, who made two FP1 outings with RB (now Racing Bulls) in 2024.
Iwasa will take over Verstappen's Red Bull for the opening practice session in Bahrain
After a two-year stint in Formula 2, which included five race wins, Iwasa moved back to Japan to compete in Super Formula in 2024, where he finished fifth in the standings – and he leads the way after two races this term.
While Iwasa has some FP1 experience under his belt already, one person gearing up to make their official F1 weekend debut is Ferrari junior Beganovic, who currently competes in the F2 feeder championship with Hitech TGR.
IT'S RACE WEEK: 5 storylines we're excited about ahead of the 2025 Bahrain Grand Prix
A champion in Formula Regional European and a race winner in F3, he will become the fifth Ferrari Academy driver to represent the Scuderia in a proper F1 session, following on from Charles and Arthur Leclerc, Robert Shwartzman and Ollie Bearman.
He is also set to be only the second Swede to appear for Ferrari in F1, with the 21-year-old joining Stefan Johansson – who raced with the famous Maranello-based outfit in 1985 and 1986 – on an exclusive list.
Beganovic is preparing to make his official F1 weekend debut with Ferrari
Vesti will be making his third FP1 appearance with Mercedes, having driven for the Silver Arrows at the start of the Mexico City and Abu Dhabi Grand Prix weekends back in 2023, when he finished runner-up in F2.
As a test and reserve driver, the 23-year-old Dane has spent the first part of 2025 working in the simulator at Mercedes' Brackley headquarters, alongside a debut season in the United States-based IMSA endurance championship with Cadillac.
READ MORE: Vesti, Drugovich and Browning to drive in FP1 in Bahrain
Vesti is getting another opportunity to drive Mercedes F1 machinery
Aston Martin's own test and reserve driver, 2022 F2 title winner Drugovich, will get his latest F1 outing in Bahrain, where he stood in for an injured Lance Stroll during 2023 pre-season testing.
Now (like Vesti) also competing in endurance racing, the 24-year-old Brazilian has previously taken part in three end-of-season test sessions for Aston Martin, as well as five FP1 sessions at race weekends.
NEED TO KNOW: The most important facts, stats and trivia ahead of the 2025 Bahrain Grand Prix
Drugovich is adding to his F1 experience with another run-out for Aston Martin
Hirakawa started the 2025 season as a reserve driver at Alpine, even hopping into the cockpit for FP1 at last weekend's Japanese Grand Prix, but the 31-year-old has now moved over to rivals Haas.
He previously served as a dedicated development driver at McLaren, making his FP1 debut in Abu Dhabi in 2024, and drove for Haas in the post-season test that followed at the Yas Marina Circuit.
READ MORE: Hirakawa joins Haas as reserve driver for 2025 in switch from Alpine
As well as his Haas reserve duties, Hirakawa competes for Toyota GAZOO Racing in the FIA World Endurance Championship, having won the 24 Hours of Le Mans and World Endurance Championship twice.
Hirakawa is straight into action with Haas after making the move from Alpine
Finally, Williams Racing Driver Academy member Browning will make his second FP1 appearance for the Grove-based squad, having driven in the opening practice session over the 2024 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix weekend.
The Briton, 23, who also appeared at last year's post-season test in Yas Marina, is contesting his first full F2 season alongside Beganovic at Hitech TGR, having stepped up after finishing third in the F3 championship.
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© 2003-2025 Formula One World Championship Limited
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Ex-Ferrari test driver Marc Gene has praised Lewis Hamilton's impact on the team after just three Grands Prix, and believes "there's a reason why he won so much" before joining the Scuderia.
Hamilton joined Ferrari for the 2025 campaign having spent 12 seasons with Mercedes, during which time the Briton cemented himself as statistically the greatest driver in the championship's history.
READ MORE: Five storylines we're excited about ahead of the 2025 Bahrain Grand Prix
The seven-time World Champion has already tasted victory in the colours of Ferrari after taking pole and victory during the China Sprint, and while it has only been a short amount of time that the 40-year-old has been with the team, he is already proving his credentials, according to Gene.
“It's very early days with Lewis. He won the Sprint in China, which was amazing. I'm just getting to know him, but no one can doubt his talent. He's very experienced and you can really see he knows what he needs," said Ferrari ambassador Gene on the Beyond the Grid podcast.
Hamilton tasted victory with Ferrari during the China Sprint
"That's why, from Melbourne to China, he made a huge improvement because coming from another team, it really is not easy. With the current Formula 1 that you cannot test, it's so hard to change teams and to get used to the dynamics, to get used to the steering wheel. That takes time.
"But already in the briefings, when he talks, you can really tell that he's really giving some very important information and then he's very exceptional in tyre management. I look at the telemetry and you see some things that he's very exceptional. I know people say he won so much because he had the best team. Now that I've seen him, there's a reason why he won so much.”
READ MORE: ‘My Mum really cares about it' – Antonelli on balancing F1 with schoolwork as rookie reveals his least favourite subjects
Despite Hamilton's impressive performance during the China Sprint, results elsewhere during the Grands Prix have been more elusive.
He was consigned to just 10th on his Ferrari debut in Australia after tyre strategy issues in wet conditions and was disqualified from sixth in China after his car's plank was found to be below the minimum thickness.
Hamilton could only manage 10th on his Ferrari debut after wrong tyre strategy
Last time out in Japan he could only manage seventh, meaning he has been beaten by team mate Charles Leclerc in the opening three races of the season.
Gene reckons that while Hamilton has the talent and ability to succeed at Ferrari, the unique nature of racing for the historic team means that pressure could become a deciding factor.
PALMER: Why Tsunoda's first weekend with Red Bull was a lot more impressive than his final result suggested
"There's a lot of pressure at Ferrari. There's no other team in the world that you have to cope with so much pressure, but as a driver, he's going to experience things that he never experienced before, probably his debut in Fiorano, to see so many people that they had to close the roads. This at the end of the day is nice," said Gene.
"He has a very good team around him, but I don't think it's difficult for him. We are making sure that he adapts to the Ferrari world very fast. We are very proud at Ferrari that he chose not to retire from Formula 1 without living his dream of being part of the Ferrari family. I think that's part of Ferrari's DNA. Everybody dreams one day of driving a Ferrari."
Don't miss your chance to experience F1 racing under the lights in Sakhir...
NEED TO KNOW: The most important facts, stats and trivia ahead of the 2025 Bahrain Grand Prix
IT'S RACE WEEK: 5 storylines we're excited about ahead of the 2025 Bahrain Grand Prix
BETTING GUIDE: Who are the favourites as F1 heads to Bahrain?
PALMER: Why Tsunoda's first weekend with Red Bull was a lot more impressive than his final result suggested
EXCLUSIVE: Perez reveals talks with ‘a few' teams as he hints at possible F1 return
Norris feels McLaren ‘unlikely' to fend off Red Bull in Bahrain as he looks to ‘make amends' for Suzuka
FIA Thursday press conference – Bahrain
‘My Mum really cares about it' – Antonelli on balancing F1 with schoolwork as rookie reveals his least favourite subjects
PALMER: Why Tsunoda's first weekend with Red Bull was a lot more impressive than his final result suggested
ICYMI: Incredible fans, Russell's iconic pose in miniature and an incredible hair style – it's the best social media from Japan
© 2003-2025 Formula One World Championship Limited
Feature
WEEKEND WARM-UP: McLaren take on Red Bull in a scorching hot Bahrain while Ferrari run upgrades in a bid to join the party
Antonelli explains ‘main difference' between himself and Russell as he assesses where to improve
Norris feels McLaren ‘unlikely' to fend off Red Bull in Bahrain as he looks to ‘make amends' for Suzuka
BAHRAIN GRAND PRIX – Read the all-new digital race programme here
PADDOCK INSIDER: Three different winners from the first three races – but who will come out on top in the scorching heat of Bahrain?
Formula 1 is heading back to Sakhir for the Bahrain Grand Prix this weekend, marking the second stop on a busy triple header sequence. After Max Verstappen became the season's third different winner last time out in Japan, who will take the spoils during Round 4 of the championship? Here are what the odds tell us…
Odds are provided by F1's Official Betting Data Supplier ALT Sports Data and are presented in decimal form: for every $1 wagered you would win the figure represented by the odds; so, if Verstappen is favourite at 1.50, you would win $1.50 for every dollar bet.
IT'S RACE WEEK: 5 storylines we're excited about ahead of the 2025 Bahrain Grand Prix
Lando Norris might have had to settle for second behind Verstappen at Suzuka, but the odds suggest that the Briton is the most likely to emerge victorious in Bahrain this weekend. This is a track where Norris is yet to stand on the podium – can he change that statistic in style with a win?
McLaren team mate Oscar Piastri is ranked as Norris' closest challenger for the top prize, though like Norris, the Australian has never been on the rostrum at the Bahrain International Circuit during his two previous visits. Verstappen, meanwhile, will be hoping to repeat his 2024 triumph in Bahrain again this year.
Can Norris take his second victory of the season in Bahrain?
While Norris, Piastri and Verstappen are again the favourites to score a podium finish in Bahrain, George Russell also has decent odds for a top-three result. The Mercedes driver took back-to-back P3 finishes during the opening two rounds of the campaign in Australia and China.
Behind the Briton are the Ferrari duo of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton, with both yet to stand on the rostrum in 2025, though Hamilton enjoyed a taste of victory with his win in the Shanghai Sprint.
POWER RANKINGS: Who dazzled our judges with a perfect performance during the Japanese GP?
Can Russell return to the rostrum in Bahrain?
A name deemed as likely to feature in the top six – alongside those previously mentioned – is Kimi Antonelli. The rookie has impressed so far during his first three races for Mercedes – can he continue his solid run of points-scoring finishes this weekend?
Also rated as being in with a shot is Red Bull's newly-promoted Yuki Tsunoda. The Japanese driver missed out on points during his debut for the team at Suzuka and will be keen to make up for this in Sakhir.
READ MORE: ‘My Mum really cares about it' – Antonelli on balancing F1 with schoolwork as rookie reveals his least favourite subjects
Don't miss your chance to experience F1 racing under the lights in Sakhir...
NEED TO KNOW: The most important facts, stats and trivia ahead of the 2025 Bahrain Grand Prix
IT'S RACE WEEK: 5 storylines we're excited about ahead of the 2025 Bahrain Grand Prix
BETTING GUIDE: Who are the favourites as F1 heads to Bahrain?
PALMER: Why Tsunoda's first weekend with Red Bull was a lot more impressive than his final result suggested
EXCLUSIVE: Perez reveals talks with ‘a few' teams as he hints at possible F1 return
What is the weather forecast for the 2025 Bahrain Grand Prix?
BAHRAIN GRAND PRIX – Read the all-new digital race programme here
BEYOND THE GRID: Marc Gene on working with five World Champions at Ferrari
What tyres will the teams and drivers have for the 2025 Bahrain Grand Prix?
FIA Thursday press conference – Bahrain
© 2003-2025 Formula One World Championship Limited
By Anthony D'Alessandro
Editorial Director/Box Office Editor
EXCLUSIVE: Here's a project moving forward at Paramount: the Western Man of War starring Samuel L. Jackson, with Tim Story directing and producing.
In Man of War, Jackson plays a newly retired and long-revered general who returns to his hometown in rural Georgia after the death of his wife to find it in the throes of corruption, gentrification and racism. Using battle-honed strategy and combat skills, he'll wage all-out war against the town and the billionaire exploiting it. Sheldon Turner penned the screenplay.
Jennifer Klein and Turner are producing through their company Vendetta Productions, alongside Story and The Story Company's Vicky Story will executive produce.
Story has directed 10 major studio feature films, and eight of them have debuted at No. 1 at the box office during their opening weekends: Tom & Jerry, Ride Along 2, Think Like A Man Too, Ride Along, Think Like A Man, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Fantastic Four and Barbershop. Story's feature canon counts north of $1 billion at the global box office making him the first Black director ever to cross this milestone. He was also the first Black director to direct a Marvel film and the first to direct two Marvel movies.
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His next feature film is The Pick Up starring Eddie Murphy that will be released this year by Amazon Studios. He is currently in pre-production on Netflix's 72 Hours starring Kevin Hart. On the television side, Story was most recently a director and executive producer of ABC's Queens and Showtime's White Famous.
Jackson was nominated for a 1995 Supporting Actor Oscar for Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. His resume spans over 150 movies. The actor has also received Emmy, Golden Globe, SAG and Tony Award nominations, as well as a BAFTA Award, two Independent Spirit Awards and four NAACP Image Awards, among myriad honors. In 2022, in recognition of his contributions to cinema, he received an Honorary Oscar. His feature credits are numerous including Jurassic Park, The Hateful Eight, Captain Marvel, the Iron Man franchise, Avengers: Infinity War and End Game, Star Wars – Episodes I-III, among many others. Upcoming is Renny Harlin's The Beast and J.J. Perry's Afterburn.
Story is represented by UTA, the Collins Jackson Agency and Johnson Shapiro Slewett & Kole.
Jackson is represented by CAA, Anonymous Content, and Jackoway Austen Tyerman Wertheimer Mandelbaum Morris Bernstein Trattner Auerbach Hynick Jaime LeVine Sample & Klein.
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By
Daniel Kreps
Weezer bassist Scott Shriner is still set to perform with the band at Coachella despite an incident earlier this week where his wife was shot by police and arrested on attempted murder charges, a source close to the band tells Rolling Stone.
According to the news release from the Los Angeles Police Department, the incident occurred Tuesday afternoon, April 8, after California Highway Patrol requested backup in locating three misdemeanor hit-and-run suspects who fled into a residential neighborhood of Eagle Rock in Los Angeles. LAPD officers approached the back of a home where one of the suspects was seen running, and Jillian Lauren Shriner reportedly appeared in the yard of a nearby residence, armed with a handgun.
After officers ordered Shriner to drop the firearm, she refused numerous times and pointed the handgun toward the officers, per the news release, and a shootout took place, during which Shriner was struck by gunfire and retreated back into her residence.
“At that point, there were some commands given, multiple commands to drop the gun, drop the weapon, unfortunately, it did result in an officer-involved shooting,” Detective Meghan Aguilar said at a press conference Wednesday.
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Shriner and a babysitter eventually left the residence and surrendered to the police; Shriner was taken to a nearby hospital and treated for a non-life-threatening gunshot wound. A 9 mm handgun was recovered from her residence.
Jillian Lauren Shriner, an author with two New York Times bestsellers, was later booked on attempted murder charges — police allege she fired her weapon at them before she was shot — and after arraignment, was released on $1 million bail.
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Despite the incident, as the saying goes, the show must go on, and Weezer — who themselves were a late addition to the Coachella lineup as a replacement for FKA Twigs — proceeded with their festival obligation. Neither Weezer nor Shriner have publicly commented on the incident.
Weezer are still set for a number of other festivals, including Kilby Block Party next month, Soundside in September, and When We Were Young in October. Over the summer, they're scheduled for a slew of festival dates in Europe, including U.K.'s Glastonbury festival.
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Rolling Stone is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2025 Rolling Stone, LLC. All rights reserved.
By
Nancy Dillon
A California jury found Grammy-nominated rapper Soulja Boy liable for claims he assaulted, sexually battered and harassed a Jane Doe plaintiff while she worked as his personal assistant, lived with him and entered into a sometimes-consensual intimate relationship with him in 2019 and 2020.
After two days of deliberations, the jury announced Thursday that the “Crank That” rapper, born DeAndre Cortez Way, owes the woman $4 million in compensatory damages. The panel now moves on to a second phase of the trial to determine punitive damages. Way will return to testify Thursday afternoon about his net worth.
In their slightly mixed decision, the jurors found that Way placed the woman in fear and subjected her to sexually offensive contact, gender violence and intentional infliction of emotional distress. They found the woman also suffered “severe or pervasive” harassment when she worked for Way between Jan. 10, 2019 and July 20, 2019. The jury declined to award anything for the woman's false imprisonment and hostile work environment claims, finding Way did not deprive her of her freedom or ability to resign.
As the verdict was read, Way looked straight ahead. He appeared to have a faint smile on his face when the clerk revealed the jury had awarded $760,000 for the woman's assault claim. His expression dropped after he heard the jury awarded $1.5 million for the sexual battery cause of action. The smile was gone completely when the clerk said the jurors decided Way should face punitive damages as well.
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Jane Doe's lead lawyer, Ronald Zambrano, praised the verdict, saying, “We're happy our client was vindicated.” His co-counsel, Neama Rahmani, said the Jane Doe was particularly grateful the jury found Way liable on the sexual assault claims. “Those were the ones that certainly caused the most damage,” he said. “She feels vindicated because he called her a liar. He said she was never an employee – nothing more than a disgruntled, jealous, lying ex. And the jury rejected that argument.” Rahmani said that prior to the trial, Way's defense made a settlement offer of $100,000.
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During closing arguments Monday, the woman wiped tears as her lawyer said she deserved $73.6 million in total damages for the alleged horrors she suffered at the hands of Way. Her attorney, Ronald Zambrano, painted Way as a brutal boss who regularly raped and beat the woman, subjected her to labor code violations and dressed up in non-prescription “fake glasses” and a suit to lie to jurors about the alleged abuse.
“He raped her, he punched her, he kicked her, he cut her. He picked up and then slammed her, choked her, left bruises from squeezing her arm. He grabbed her head by a mirror and said, ‘No one will love you,'” Zambrano told the jury of seven women and five men. “He pointed a Draco gun at her. He locked her in a room, threatened her family, threatened her, denied her food.”
The lawyer showed the jurors screen grabs from text messages between the woman and Way. In one exchange from April 20, 2020, Way texted “I hope u die slow.” The Jane Doe responded with, “You think you can keep hitting on me, you are crazy,” to which Way responded, “Fuck u bitch.” In other messages highlighted during the trial, the woman texted Way, “You body slammed me on my head and choked me,” and, “I should have just let you hit me. Idc anymore I feel lost now.” Zambrano said Way never responded to the woman's texted accusations with protests that she was making false claims. He usually ignored them, Zambrano said. When Way did text the woman, he often asked her to complete tasks such as picking up his food, setting up his computer equipment and organizing his travel arrangements. Way also sent disparaging messages like, “I hope you catch corona, bitch,” and, “I should have killed your ass,” Zambrano told the jury.
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In Way's defense, the rappers' lead lawyer argued Way was the victim of an ex-girlfriend advancing a “false story” for money. The lawyer, Rickey Ivie, argued that when the woman first reported her allegations to police in December 2020, she didn't tell the investigating deputy that Way allegedly knocked her unconscious on one occasion and separately smacked her in the mouth and forced her to engage in oral copulation. He said her story “evolved” over time. He also argued the woman could have escaped her alleged false imprisonment at Way's house when she traveled through airports that were crawling with police.
Ivie urged jurors to interpret one December 2020 message sent by the woman as a demand for $50,000 and a Dodge Charger to resolve her claims. He called the effort “extortion” and pointed out that in one text from April 2020, Way did push back against the woman's claims, telling her to “stop” texting him “police shit.” “Plaintiff is motivated by jealousy, revenge and financial gain,” Ivie told the jury. “She wanted to be paid. That's what this case is all about. It's not about the truth, it's just not.”
The woman reported her alleged abuse to the Ventura County Sheriff's Office in December 2020. In April 2021, the Ventura County District Attorney's Office “declined to file charges due to insufficient evidence to prove the alleged crimes true beyond a reasonable doubt,” an agency spokesperson previously told Rolling Stone.
Over the four-week civil trial, the jury heard directly from the woman, Way, several medical experts, a bodyguard and one of Way's managers. In graphic and harrowing testimony delivered March 19, the woman described the purported bathroom attack during the police raid in 2019. She claimed Way chucked several guns out a window into a steep canyon and was trying to dispose of narcotics in a bathroom when he allegedly spun her around, pulled her pants down and “started having sex” with her. She didn't immediately report the alleged attack to the sheriff's deputies who raided the home because she was “terrified” of Way and possible retaliation, she testified.
“I feared for my life,” Doe told the jury on the fourth day of the civil trial. She claimed Way told her he knew where her mother lived and had threatened to “send shooters” to the house. “I was scared of what he would do to my family. I didn't want him to hurt anybody because of me,” she testified.
The woman said she was so desperate for food while living with Way in early 2019, she gathered loose change from the home and gave it to the property's gardeners so they could buy her instant noodles. She claimed she dropped from 140 pounds down to 86 pounds before Way was sent to jail in April 2019 for a probation violation linked to the raid. “I didn't even feel human anymore. I felt like an animal,” she said.
When it was his turn to testify, Way admitted there was a sexual encounter with the woman when police showed up at the door of his $25,000-a-month rental home to serve the search warrant — but he claimed she consented. “I asked her if she wanted to have sex, and she was engaged in it,” he said. “She didn't push me or say stop, nothing like that.”
Way, 34, denied he ever abused the woman in any way, claiming they “bonded” during their time together and always acted voluntarily. He said the woman would handle errands for him because he offered her a free place to live and they struck up a personal relationship, not because she was a paid employee. “Did you ever hit the plaintiff in the mouth, bust her lip, and force her to give you oral sex?” his lawyer Ivie asked during Way's testimony. “Of course not, and that's a disgusting allegation,” Way responded. “It sounds crazy to me. I did not do that.”
Way has also been accused of physical and sexual assault by former girlfriends Kayla Myers and model Nia Riley, the daughter of musician Teddy Riley. Way appeared on the reality shows Love & Hip Hop: Hollywood and Marriage Bootcamp with Riley. In 2021, Riley sat down with YouTube vlogger TashaK and said Way threatened her with a gun and kicked her in the stomach while she was pregnant, causing her to suffer a miscarriage.
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Myers claimed in a prior lawsuit that she had a romantic relationship with Way that ended when he allegedly held a gun to her head, threatened her life, and assaulted her at his home on Feb. 1, 2019. A civil court jury found Way liable for the assault and kidnapping of Myers at a prior trial.
Way is set to begin his 32-city Swag Tour this summer. His next concert is set for Friday, April 11, in San Luis Obispo, California.
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By Nellie Andreeva
Co-Editor-in-Chief, TV
EXCLUSIVE: Prime Video is developing Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, based on the Crane-Iron Pentalogy book series by Wang Dulu. The drama comes from writer/executive producer Jason Ning (Lucifer, The Brothers Sun), executive producer Ron Moore (Outlander, For All Mankind) and Sony Pictures Television where both are under overall deals.
Amidst stunning landscapes and spectacular action, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon follows Shu Lien and Mu Bai, two star-crossed warriors, as they struggle between forbidden love and the pull of modernity — caught between preserving their way of life or embracing a future together.
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Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was famously adapted by Ang Lee into his Oscar-winning movie, which incorporated elements from other books in the Crane-Iron series. The film is part of Sony's library as it was produced and distributed by the studio.
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The Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon TV series originated a couple of years ago when Sony regained the rights to the books through a first-look deal with Vertigo and tapped Ning to adapt it as part of an overall deal. Moore came on board last year after returning to Sony TV with a new overall deal. It is one of two major Sony IP-based TV series projects the Battlestar Galactica creator has boarded since rejoining the studio, along with God of War, which also is set up at Prime Video.
Executive producing the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon series are Ning; Moore and Maril Davis of Tall Ship Productions; Johnny Levin; Roy Lee of Vertigo Entertainment; as well as Hong Wang and Qin Wang for the Wang Dulu Estate. Ying Lou is co-executive producing.
Wang DuLu's five Crane-Iron Pentalogy novels, published between 1938 and 1944, chronicle the struggles of four generations of youxia, a type of ancient Chinese warrior folk hero.
Ning is repped by UTA, Gotham Group and Yorn Levine. Moore is repped by CAA and Hansen, Jacobson, Teller. The estate of Wang Du Lu, Vertigo and Levin are repped by Aron Baumel at Goodman, Genow, Schenkman, Smelkinson and Christopher. Levin has represented the estate since he was the head of corporate consulting at the William Morris Agency.
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By Rosy Cordero
Associate Editor, TV
EXCLUSIVE: Steve Guttenberg (Police Academy films, How To Murder Your Husband), Jana Kramer (A Cowboy Christmas Romance, One Tree Hill), and Rachel Stubington (Shrinking) are set to lead the new Lifetime “ripped from the headlines” film Kidnapped by a Killer: The Heather Robinson Story.
Based on the true story of Robinson, who was abducted as a baby and raised by the family of a serial killer who was convicted of murdering her mother. The movie will premiere on Saturday, June 7, at 8/7 c.
Heather (Stubington) grew up in a loving family in Illinois. By the time she was a teen, she had long known that she had been adopted as an infant by her parents. But in 2000, the then-15-year-old's world was shattered when she learned that the man she knew as her uncle, John Robinson (Guttenberg), was a serial killer accused of murdering multiple women in the Kansas City area, including her biological mother, Lisa Stasi. After her uncle's arrest, Heather learns the shocking truth about her birth mother's disappearance. Kramer portrays an investigator working on the case.
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Kidnapped by a Killer: The Heather Robinson Story is produced by Marwar Junction Productions and Allegheny Image Factory. Executive producers are Joseph Freed and Allison Berkley of Marwar Junction Productions, Jeffrey Tinnell and Robert Tinnell of Allegheny Image Factory, Melissa Moore of Redletter Media, and Maritte Lee Go. Lee Gabiana directs from a script written by Shawn Linden and Pamela Gray.
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Guttenberg is best known for his roles in such films as Diner, Police Academy, Short Circuit, and Three Men and a Baby, and the TV shows ABC's High Potential, HBO's Ballers, ABC's The Goldbergs, and the UPN/WB series Veronica Mars. He has hosted NBC's Saturday Night Live and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He wrote and performed in the play Tales from the Guttenberg Bible at The Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor in the summer of 2023. He has authored books, including The Guttenberg Bible (2012) and the children's book The Kids from DISCO (2014). His most recent book was Time to Thank, which was released in 2024. He is repped by CAA and Vault Entertainment.
Kramer is an actress, ACM award-winning country music singer, and a New York Times best-selling author. She is known for her role as Alex Dupre on the TV series One Tree Hill. She made her small screen debut with a guest appearance on the ABC soap All My Children. Additional TV credits include CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice, CSI: NY, and recurring roles on NBC'sFriday Night Lights, CW's 90210, and the HBO dramedy Entourage. Film credits include Click and Prom Night, as well as Lifetime titles Christmas in Mississippi, A Welcome Home Christmas, and The Holiday Fix Up. Kramer is repped by WME and Luber Roklin Entertainment.
Stubington can currently be seen in the Apple TV+ series Shrinking in the role of Summer. She has also guest-starred on ABC's Doctor Odyssey. Kidnapped by a Killer: The Heather Robinson Story is her second movie with the Lifetime Network, previously acting opposite Chrishell Stause in A Rose For Her Grave. Stubington graduated UCLA with a degree in theater. She is repped by Brilliant Talent Management and Stewart Talent.
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A title like “I Don't Understand You” could refer to the words literally lost in translation as the core couple of the horror comedy, played by Nick Kroll and Andrew Rannells, travel across Europe. Of course, the only real miscommunication seems to stem from their own fraught union amid the pressures of an impending adoption.
“I Don't Understand You” centers on Dom (Kroll) and Cole (Rannells), a couple on the verge of adopting a baby. The duo embark on an Italian vacation, which they believe could be the perfect opportunity to reconnect before the baby arrives. And yet things soon begin to spiral out of control once they land abroad…
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The official synopsis reads: “Lost on the way to dinner, their car gets stuck in a ditch, leaving them stranded in rural nowhere during a torrential downpour. These two Americans, who are used to being catered to, are now in a foreign land with no cell service, zero comprehension of the Italian language, and, as fear takes over, escalating turmoil that could explode at any moment.”
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Amanda Seyfried plays the woman whose baby Dom and Cole will be adopting. Morgan Spector has a standout cameo, while Nunzia Schiano, Eleanora Romandini, and Paolo Romano also star. The film premiered at SXSW and later screened at Overlook.
“I Don't Understand You” is co-written, co-directed, and executive produced by Brian Crano and David Joseph Craig. The film is produced by Joel Edgerton, Nash Edgerton, Kara Durrett, Jessamine Burgum, Jonathan Glickman, with Toby Nalbandian, Gregory Schmidt, Will Greenfield, Ben Shafer, Giovanni Pompili, and Lara Costa Calzado executive producing.
“We're so happy moviegoers are going to get to see an old school, dark, twisted comedy on the big screen,” Crano and Craig said in a press statement provided by distributor Vertical.
The IndieWire review of the horror comedy praised “I Don't Understand You” for being “outrageously snappy and unapologetically fun,” deeming the feature a “must-see for anyone who likes queer romance, horror-comedy, and/or hot Italians.”
“Written with instantly clockable authenticity, the queer characters give Kroll and Rannells a unique opportunity to act ever-so slightly against type,” the review from Features Writer Alison Foreman reads.
A Vertical release, “I Don't Understand You” opens in theaters on Friday, June 6. Watch the trailer below.
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Actress Meghann Fahy has fond memories of playing the younger version of a character played by Hollywood legend Betty White in the 2011 Hallmark movie “The Lost Valentine.” The comedy icon, perhaps best known for her role as Rose on “The Golden Girls,” died on December 31, 2021 — weeks shy of her 100th birthday.
Although White and Fahy didn't share any scenes in their Hallmark movie, they still got to know each other, Fahy told Jimmy Kimmel on his late-night talk show on April 8, 2025. And one thing Fahy will never forget is what White ate and drank every single day.
Now starring on the hit show “The White Lotus,” Fahy's first movie was “The Lost Valentine.” The Hallmark classic is about White's character, whose Navy Lieutenant husband was never found after his plane went down during World War II. A reporter, played by Jennifer Love Hewitt, begins working on a story about the 65th anniversary of the widow returning to Union Station each year, where she last saw her husband.
When Kimmel asked about working with White, Fahy said, “I played a younger version of her so we were never on the set at the same time, but we crossed paths a bit and, you know, she loved drinking vodka on ice and eating chocolate cake for breakfast, like a real, true legend.”
Shocked, Kimmel said, “That's crazy! She lived a very long time. Was she drinking the vodka with the cake?”
“On set, yeah!” Fahy joked, but quickly clarified, “No, she wasn't on set, she wasn't drinking on set.”
“Wow, that's pretty crazy,” Kimmel said again, and Fahy offered, “I think she just sort of moved through life in this amazing way. It was so cool for me to meet her that early on in my career, and learn that you can be as incredible as that and still be so human and not fussy.”
Kimmel noted she also learned she could “drink vodka and eat chocolate cake your whole life and it's not gonna really make a difference at all.”
Fahy, who stars in the new thriller “Drop,” laughed, “Yes, it's the secret! I started then. I was about 20. I thought, ‘If that's working for her, it's definitely gonna work for me.”
Fahy's not the only one who picked up on White's affinity for vodka while filming “The Lost Valentine.” In 2018, Hewitt revealed on “The Late Late Show With James Corden” that she'd become close with White and that she “loves pizza and vodka.”
“So, we went out one night, we were filming and we went out,” Hewitt recalled. “I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I'm going on a date with Betty White! The most nervous date I've ever been on in my life, by the way.”
“We go out,” she continued. “We're chatting and having the best time. I don't drink a lot. Maybe three-and-a-half vodkas in, I was like, ‘Whoa, I'm feeling this dinner with Betty White!'”
As they were leaving, Hewitt said she noticed White looking very tipsy as she tried to walk out and that she, too, felt like she was swaying.
Hewitt recalled, “I was like, ‘Oh my god, I'm the bodyguard of a national treasure! Like, you've got to snap it together! Don't kill Betty White on your date!'”
Once they got back to their hotel, Hewitt said White asked her up to her room, where they snacked on a nightcap of gummy bears.
She concluded, “We got drunk, we had gummy bears, it was amazing!”
“The Lost Valentine” is available to stream on Hallmark+ and re-runs of “Golden Girls” air most evenings on Hallmark Channel.
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By
Tomás Mier
Marina wants you to meet the Princess of Power, the love-radiating heroine of her new album. The cult-favorite pop queen has revealed full details of her sixth studio album, Princess of Power, out June 6, and released its third single, “Cuntissimo,” ahead of her main stage Coachella performance on Friday, April 11.
“We are meeting a Marina who is not guarding her heart so much anymore,” she tells Rolling Stone. “I think part of why this album has felt so freeing is that I think I've really dove into my fear of love. That's why for me, it's so powerful that this superheroine's biggest power is love.”
She adds: “It can sound trite, but the ability to love is so powerful and brave. It's a courageous thing, particularly if you've been hurt in the past. It can be really hard to reprogram yourself, and I've finally been able to do that.”
A post shared by MARINA (@marinadiamandis)
Marina sees Princess of Power, which she recorded with producer CJ Baran, as reflecting something true about her inner self. “Maybe to others, I've had a bold energy. Internally, I've always struggled to feel like I'm allowed to be my own person,” she says. “The album is about teaching yourself — or re-teaching yourself — how to love.”
The single she dropped along with the album announcement, “Cuntissimo,” is an anthemic pop song inspired by glamorous, brave, confident women “who enjoy life to the max.” As she says this, Marina scrolls through a list of queens who embody “Cuntissimo” on her phone — Elizabeth Taylor, Sophia Loren, Madonna, and Rihanna among them.
“That's really key: pleasure,” Marina says. “Throughout the centuries, it's been denied us that freedom to be silly and messy. Women have been under such a strict patriarchal power for so long, but this is just like, ‘Fuck you.'”
She pauses before adding: “I want women to not be afraid to age. I think it's not talked about in pop. Pop pretends it's not happening. We are getting older. But I don't want to feel ashamed about it or feel like I have to cling on to youth.”
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In some ways, the song recalls themes from her first album, 2010's Family Jewels, on which she sang about how “girls are not meant to fight dirty/Never look a day past 30.” (The song's video drops Friday morning.)
On Friday night, Marina will debut “Cuntissimo” live during her Coachella set, 10 years after she last played the fest in 2015. She'll perform her three Princess of Power singles and play some fan-favorite deep cuts — “Are You Satisfied” and “Oh No!” among them. But ultimately, “People want bangers,” she says. “I want to give that energy.”
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Stylistically, the set will reflect the pastels — teals, pinks, baby yellows — that accompany her new album's aesthetic, as seen on its corset-and-ribbon-adorned album cover, continuing on the album's themes of female power and fearless love.
“I had no intention to do a pop record. But I found my creative partner CJ Baran who is just so talented and it's just been such an enjoyable experience,” she says. “I think that's why the energy of this record feels different: It's part of my evolution as a human being. it's a really fun record. It has a lot of energy.”
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Rolling Stone is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2025 Rolling Stone, LLC. All rights reserved.
By Anthony D'Alessandro
Editorial Director/Box Office Editor
EXCLUSIVE: Lee Cronin's The Mummy from Blumhouse and Atomic Monster has added three in Veronica Falcón, May Calamawy, and May Elghety.
The trio joins previously announced cast members Jack Reynor and Laia Costa.
Production is currently underway in Ireland and Spain on the Atomic Monster and Blumhouse film for New Line Cinema. Cronin is also producing under his Doppelgängers banner. Plot details remain under wraps — but it is about a Mummy, and I'm sure a tomb is involved.
A native of Mexico City, Falcón starred in Blumhouse's supernatural thriller Imaginary, directed by Jeff Wadlow as well as The Forever Purge. She played Trader Sam opposite Emily Blunt & Dwayne Johnson in Disney's Jungle Cruise. She starred in A Million Miles Away alongside Michael Peña and starred in the film adaptation of the global bestseller book Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, produced by Lin-Manuel Miranda, and starring Eva Longoria & Eugenio Derbez. Other notable film credits include The Starling, Days of Grace, Voyagers opposite Colin Farrell.
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On TV, U.S. audiences know her as Camila Vargas in Queen of the South as well as Camila Elizondro in the Emmy-winning Ozark. She also starred as Lupe Gibbs in Perry Mason opposite Matthew Rhys and John Lithgow. She also starred in Marc Cherry's Why Women Kill & in Steve Conrad's Perpetual Grace Ltd. with Sir Ben Kingsley, Jackie Weaver & Luis Guzmán. Additional TV credits include Apple TV+ Mr. Corman opposite Joseph Gordon Levitt, HBO's Room 104 & Ryan Murphy's 9.1.1. with Angela Bassett & Peter Krause. Falcón is repped by IAG and Art2perform.
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Calamawy broke out as Scarlet Scarab in Marvel Studios' Moon Knight series, starring opposite Oscar Isaac and Ethan Hawke. She can also be seen in Hulu's Emmy-winning comedy series Ramy where she plays Dena. Her upcoming work includes Duke Johnson's The Actor opposite Andre Holland and Gemma Chan. Calamaway is repped by WME.
Elghety has starred on such Egyptian TV series as Grand Hotel, La Totfee' Al Shams, and Tayee and films such as Clash which competed at Cannes, making her the youngest Egyptian actress to do so. She has also gained international recognition through projects like Disney Plus's Kizazi Moto as the only North-African actress in the series, and her upcoming English-speaking role in Due Dating. Elghety is repped by SIZZLE Company.
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Hailee Steinfeld, Jack O'Connell, Delroy Lindo, Wunmi Mosaku and Miles Caton also star in this genre-bending brew of vampire horror, Southern Gothic, folklore and blues-soaked spirituality.
By
David Rooney
Chief Film Critic
Ryan Coogler first turned heads with his 2013 debut Fruitvale Station, a shattering account of a fatal shooting that presaged the surge of the Black Lives Matter movement. He followed by successfully reinvigorating the wheezing Rocky franchise with Creed and went on to make what's arguably the best of the MCU canon, Black Panther, plus an emotionally satisfying sequel that paid moving tribute to Chadwick Boseman. Sinners is the gifted writer-director's first entirely original feature, not based on real-life events or existing IP, and he packs it with enough thematic layers and genre fluidity to fuel at least three movies.
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There's a lot going on here — an evocative portrait of life in the Jim Crow South; a pulpy explosion of vampire horror; a dynamic reflection on the spiritual and supernatural power of the blues; an allegory for the struggle for freedom, both earthbound and other-worldly. As much arthouse as grindhouse, it's a blood-drenched mix tape that shouldn't work. But it does, thanks to Coogler's muscular direction, a terrific cast, enveloping IMAX visuals, body-quaking sound and music that stirs the soul while setting the pulse racing.
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Sinners
The Bottom Line
A succulent bite.
Release date: Friday, April 18Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Hailee Steinfeld, Miles Caton, Jack O'Connell, Wunmi Mosaku, Jayme Lawson, Omar Miller, Li Jun Li, Delroy LindoDirector-screenwriter: Ryan Coogler
Rated R,
2 hours 18 minutes
Coogler teams with regular leading man Michael B. Jordan, serving a double dose of cool but steely charisma as identical twin entrepreneurs known as Smoke and Stack. Having survived the WWI trenches and Chicago gangland, the brothers return after seven years to their Mississippi Delta hometown, Clarksdale, in 1932, flush with cash, a truckload of liquor and a plan to open a juke joint.
Nattily dressed in fancy big-city threads that stick out a mile in the dirt-poor, segregated plantation town, Smoke and Stack purchase a disused mill, its equipment and the land on which it stands from sweaty good old boy Hogwood (David Maldonado), warning him and his Klan buddies to stay off their property unless they want to be shot. “Shit, the Klan don't exist no more,” smirks Hogwood. Yeah, right.
Coogler opens with traumatized sharecropper Sammie (impressive newcomer Miles Caton), smeared with blood and fresh claw marks gouged into the side of his face, staggering mid-service into the church where his father preaches, clutching his guitar. This is preceded by a voiceover recounting legends of music so true it can conjure spirits from the past and the future — piercing the veil between life and death, healing communities but also attracting evil. Illustrations of this mystical force are traced back to ancestral West Africa, pre-colonization Ireland and Choktaw tribal lore, which foreshadows the presence of all three cultures in the story.
It's a safe bet that Sammie's blues guitar and stirring vocals wield that transcendent power, something the pastor seems to intuit when he warns his son, “You keep dancing with the devil, one day he's gonna follow you home.” While the flashes of red-eyed, demonic faces tormenting the young man's mind suggest the hell he narrowly escaped, Coogler is in no hurry to ratchet up the horror once the action jumps back to the previous day.
While business-minded Smoke heads to town to enlist the help of Chinese American grocer Bo Chow (Yao) and his wife Grace (Li Jun Li), happy-go-lucky Stack reconnects with their cousin Sammie, whose musical talents will help them inaugurate the juke joint that night. He also persuades legendary local harmonica and piano blues musician Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo) to join them, offering unlimited Irish beer as an incentive, and hires burly sharecropper Cornbread (Omar Miller) away from the cotton field to serve as bouncer.
With brisk economy, Coogler introduces love interests for the three principal male characters. Sammie is instantly beguiled at the railway station by Pearline (Jayme Lawson), a young woman stuck in a loveless marriage and itching to sing the blues. Stack has an uncomfortable encounter with Mary (Hailee Steinfeld), a well-heeled white woman with a husband in Arkansas, in town for her mother's funeral. Her romantic history with Stack, who disappeared from her life, has left her with lingering rage, even if it hasn't dulled her desire.
The most captivating of the three love stories is Smoke's reunion with Annie (Wunmi Mosaku), a Hoodoo conjurer and Orisha spiritual healer who runs a small plantation store, where their infant son is buried outside under an oak tree. Though he has worn the talismanic Mojo bag she gave him on a string around his neck the whole time he's been gone, Smoke claims he doesn't believe in ghosts or demons, just power and the money that buys it. But their differences dissolve as Annie calls him by his name, Elijah, and their bodies melt into each other.
For a movie that will become a violent bloodbath, Sinners is unabashedly horny. It's ripe with sensuality, which seems appropriate for a title you might expect to see splashed across a Jackie Collins novel.
That aspect extends into the sumptuous textures and saturated colors of Autumn Durald Arkapaw's magnificent, big-canvas cinematography (the film was shot on both 65mm IMAX and Ultra Panavision 70); and even more so, into the flavorful music of Ludwig Göransson, with the score and the blues performances fusing together to intoxicating effect.
The film's defining set-piece revolves around Sammie electrifying the opening-night juke crowd with the song “I Lied to You” (an original composition by Göransson and Raphael Saadiq). As the music soars, that life-death veil is pierced, crossing both metaphysical and temporal boundaries. The crowd jammed into the old mill are joined by West African ceremonial dancers and drummers, popping and locking hip-hop movers from the future, a deejay working turntables and a Rick James-style guitarist bedecked in sequins.
In just one transporting sequence that's almost too much to take in, Coogler traces a line from the blues of the 1930s back to its origins and forward to its influences on funk and beyond. Sammie's music even summons traditional Chinese dancers, awakening Americanized Bo and Grace's cultural heritage.
That ecstatic communal experience is a glorious moment of freedom for oppressed people, most of them living hand-to-mouth in an environment of hatred and exploitation. But Sammie's song also unwittingly beckons sinister interlopers all the way from North Carolina, bent on making that freedom short-lived.
Coogler doesn't have the lightest of touches getting his message across about the violation of a community by supernatural forces echoed in the real-world history of the Deep South. But the vampires' descent on the juke joint ups the suspense and becomes genuinely scary, at first with the unsettling charm of their ancient leader, Remmick (Jack O'Connell, chilling), and eventually the brutal carnage of their siege.
All that bloody mayhem is expertly teased in an earlier scene in which Remmick — exposed to daylight, bloodied and sweating smoke — knocks on a farmhouse door, asking for shelter from the couple who live there, Bert (Peter Dreimanis) and Joan (Lola Kirke). (The reason singers are cast in those roles becomes clear before long.) A Choktaw posse shows up chasing the runaway and their spokesman (Nathaniel Arcand) warns Joan: “He's not what he seems.” But the warning comes too late.
In its wildest moments, Coogler's film seems like a collision of Lovecraft Country with True Blood, though more obvious comparisons will likely be drawn to From Dusk Till Dawn. But unlike that 1996 Robert Rodriguez-Quentin Tarantino joint, Sinners isn't winking at the audience from behind grotesque violence and droll B-movie tropes. Coogler has more serious things on his mind, which yield some truly disturbing images and ideas.
It's unsettling to watch a crowd of newly undead revelers — the first to flee the juke joint when blood starts flowing — skipping in a circle around Remmick as he sings “Wild Mountain Thyme” and dances a little Irish jig. Just the sight of Black people mesmerized into dancing to some of the whitest music ever made gets under your skin. But what's even creepier is Remmick's invitation to the holdouts to join them, promising an escape from dehumanizing cruelty into a fellowship that offers an eternal life of freedom and enlightenment.
Jordan throws himself into his dual roles with authority, sly humor and effortlessly masculine physicality, shaded with the menace that might be expected of brothers rumored to have worked for Al Capone. Ruth E. Carter — whose painstakingly detailed period costumes throughout are superb — gives the twins distinct sartorial styles. Smoke favors a dapper gray three-piece suit and flat cap, while Stack, gold tooth caps glittering in his mouth, is more ostentatious in his burgundy fedora with matching tie and pocket square.
But Jordan also gives them contrasting energy and attitude, setting them apart even before they clash, and putting subtle building blocks into place to signal which one will be maniacally transformed and which one will keep hold of himself long enough to claim retribution.Steinfeld makes Mary a slinky vixen, clearly chafing at the constraints of a numbing marriage and easy prey for a fate unconscionably revealed in the film's trailer.
Of the small group trapped inside the juke, Lindo is in winning form as a boozy old-timer previously acquainted with the devil; Caton (a former backup singer for H.E.R.) is a legitimate discovery, vulnerable but also driven in his desire to put the “Preacher Boy” tag behind him and carve a life as a musician (he plays a mean resonator guitar); Lawson has the least satisfyingly developed character, but she makes up for it when Pearline sings, busting sultry moves and raising the temperature to a point where the whole place seems to reek of sex; and Li has strong moments as Grace, her survival instincts not quite in line with the others.
The real standout, however, is Nigerian British actress Mosaku, so memorable in another unconventional horror film, His House. Annie is soft and sweet with Smoke, the evidence of a love that goes way back written in her eyes. But she's also tough, and no novice at dealing with “haints,” the Gullah term for evil spirits. She's the first of them to recognize that the intruders are no ordinary haints but vampires and she's quick-thinking enough to slow one of them down by tossing a jar of pickled garlic in his face.It's hard to say whether hardcore horror lovers will be fine waiting out Coogler's patient scene-setting, his detailed attention to character and milieu, until the blood-letting starts — even if it then settles into nerve-rattling terror with plenty of gruesome payoff. The movie is smart horror, even poetic at times, with much to say about race and spiritual freedom. It's not in the Jordan Peele league in terms of welding social commentary to bone-chilling fear. But Sinners is a unique experience, unlike anything either the director or Jordan has done before.It's also an exactingly crafted movie that demands to be seen on the biggest possible screen, with the loudest sound system. And stick around for an end credits surprise or two.
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A bloody, muscular, barrelhouse of a vampire movie that throbs like the neck of a blues guitar on fire, Ryan Coogler's “Sinners” might be the first story the “Creed” director has ripped straight from his own guts. This film thrillingly continues his post-“Fruitvale Station” tradition of filtering real and imagined Black histories through the prism of blockbuster entertainment, and of doing so in a way that recognizes genre as a living connection between the past and the future, as opposed to seeing it as a necessary evil of funding his art in the present.
“Sinners” is nothing if not a film about genre, and the distinctly American imperative of cross-pollinating between them to create something that feels new and old — high and low — at the same time. It's a heartfelt and viscerally well-researched historical drama that introduces the blues as the devil's music before fighting to reframe it as a kind of fourth-dimensional magic in its own right. It's also a ridiculous and horny-as-hell creature feature that leverages Coogler's enduring love for multiplex favorites like “The Faculty,” “The Thing,” and “From Dusk Till Dawn” in order to convey the hope, heartbreak, and humanity of Mississippi sharecroppers in the Jim Crow South.
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“Sinners” is a movie where the fact of the old Delta's Chinese-American population is affirmed by the fantasy of watching dozens of Black vampires perform a perfect Irish jig, and a movie in which the agonizing push-and-pull between safety and freedom — a tension familiar to any marginalized community — is perhaps best articulated by a shot of Hailee Steinfeld slowly dripping her spit into Michael B. Jordan's open mouth. Despite being confined to a small handful of hyper-expressive locations (and the awestriking 65mm cotton fields between them), “Sinners” feels like it had to be shot on IMAX cameras just to fit all the different ingredients that Coogler wanted to mix into the stew. The film he's made from them is inevitably too much at times, and not always in full command of its many competing flavors, but that too muchness is also the greatest strength of a visionary studio product that sticks its fangs deep into an eternal struggle: how to assimilate without losing your soul.
Collapsing centuries of joy and pain into the span of a single day, “Sinners” drops us into the rural fields of Clarksdale, Mississippi, on a blue-white morning in the fall of 1932, where Coogler immediately lays his cards on the table with a prologue that sacrifices a “From Dusk Till Dawn”-like surprise in favor of the narrative circularity offered by an ominous flash-forward. Rewinding 24 hours from there, “Sinners” engagingly begins to sing us the song of the Smokestack twins (Michael B. Jordan as Smoke, and Michael B. Jordan as Stack), who sweep back into town after being gone nine years in Chicago with some new threads, a small fortune in money stolen from Al Capone, and a dream of opening their own juke joint where Black laborers can safely let loose after a long day in the fields. It would be another 19 years before Langston Hughes thought to ask, “What happens to a dream deferred?,” but the brothers Smokestack already seem to know the answer to that question, which is fitting enough in a movie engaged in a rousing séance with its cultural anachronisms. The Juke, as they plan to call it, is going to open tonight. And it will be an opening night to remember.
A marvel of character-based world-building, the first act of “Sinners” busies itself with the process of putting that plan into action, as Smoke and Stack — introduced buying a busted old sawmill from a white guy who would rather burn the place down than sell it to them — drive around Clarksdale assembling a team capable of throwing the best rager in town. Their kid cousin Sammie is the first recruit, as rumors have spread far and wide about the local preacher's son and his preternatural ability to conjure some kind of spirit on the blues guitar that Smoke and Stack gave him when he was younger. (Sammie is played by former H.E.R. backup singer Miles Caton, a raw but riveting discovery who's entrusted with the heart of the movie and never lets it lose the beat.)
From there, the brothers rope in a boozy harmonica virtuoso named Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo), who only accepts the gig after the brothers agree to pay him in Irish beer. (Lindo is delightful as the tetchy old-timer, playing him as a man who's lived through just enough shit to still soil his drawers.) Then, there's a waifish siren who has to sneak away from her controlling husband in order to sing freely (“How to Blow Up a Pipeline” actress Jayme Lawson is a revelation as Pearline). They even enlist the Chinese-American couple who run the town grocery store, as Grace (“Babylon” standout Li Jun Li) is the only person in Clarksdale who can whip up some legit-looking signage in less than six hours.
The film's ensemble cast is so rich and textured that I'd just as soon watch them in a sprawling drama as I would a schlock-adjacent vampire saga that will eventually bleed them dry. They're dressed in Ruth Carter's instantly transportive costumes, rendered in the light of Autumn Durald Arkapaw's thick and humid cinematography, and brought to life by the swagger of Coogler's ultra-confident direction. That “Sinners” doesn't feel like a waste of a half-dozen other great actors' talents is a testament to Michael B. Jordan's immaculate dual performances as the siblings. He's dynamic and alive in a way that allows this movie to be at least two things at any one time — not just silly and serious, but also aggressive and protective, ruthless and loving.
Initially only distinguishable by the fact that Smoke wears a blue pageboy cap while Stack rocks a burnt red fedora, the twins soon develop into the two most nuanced characters Jordan has ever played. There's a terrific frisson in seeing how these identical brothers receive strength from each other, but “Sinners” really gets off on the differences Jordan draws between them, and on the contrast those differences create in the face of an enemy that operates like a hive mind.
Even before we get to the root of the loss — and residual lust — that Smoke shares with a local Hoodoo conjurer named Annie (Wunmi Mosaku), it's clear he moves with a heaviness that Stack has never had to carry. He's the older brother; by a minute, but for a lifetime. Stack, meanwhile, is all about money and the power that it affords. Yet that hunger for power belies the tenderness of its purpose, both put on display by virtue of Stack's forbidden romance with a white-presenting spitfire who looks like Scarlett O'Hara and talks like a rabid sailor (Hailee Steinfeld, whose maternal grandfather was also half-Black, delivers Mary's lines with enough relish to cover every hot dog in New York for an entire summer). In spite of how far they've gone in this world, neither twin is truly free, and because of how far they've gone in this world, both know they never will be.
That's all the more reason for Smoke and Stack to open the Juke, and allow their community to have a sip of freedom for a few hours each night. But those pesky fucking vampires are always messing shit up and demanding to be let inside for a drink of their own. At first, they just look like a weird folk trio who got lost on their way to a Coen brothers movie (Jack O'Connell is the glimmering Remmick, with Lola Kirke and Peter Dreimanis as the KKK couple he turns). But then, there's the glowing red eyes and the pointy teeth and the screaming. Most of all, there are the lies that they spread like truths, even and especially among themselves; the promise of living forever as one happy family and never hurting again.
Those lies allow “Sinners” to indulge in some classic moments of bodysnatcher-like paranoia. That promise — which Remmick offers to people regardless of their skin color — pushes Coogler's script to reach beyond the black-and-white metaphor that vampirism would seem to offer the Jim Crow South in favor of a messier but more far-reaching commentary on the temptation that turns decent souls into bloodsuckers. People will do anything to spare themselves and their loved ones from suffering, and feasting on their fellow man — be it from their necks or their hearts — historically allows them to feel as if they're living above the hurt they're so afraid to feel for themselves. Racism is evergreen, but fascism is too, and “Sinners” is often fascinating for how it braids those two forces together into a slipstream of eternal damnation.
“Sinners” almost makes surrendering to the darkness and joining the vampires seem like fun, an interesting choice that nevertheless conflicts with Coogler's obligation to make the vampires seem frightening. Which, sadly, they are not. Tense and totally engaging as it is to watch the bloodsuckers prepare to lay siege to the Juke (the siege itself is less exciting), the only thing scary about “Sinners” is the abstract notion of losing someone — or yourself — to the devil's embrace. At least there's a lot of blood, and all of it is the drippy orange-brown stuff that gorehounds have come to see as a mark of integrity rather than the bright red digital garbage that looks all too gross for a very different reason.
That “Sinners” remains such an absolute ripper in spite of its uninspired villains is owed to how Coogler makes being a human seem even more fun, and so much of that is owed to the film's thundering musicality. This isn't the first time that a Ludwig Göransson score has been inextricable from the texture of a Ryan Coogler movie, but “Sinners” opens with someone talking about a kind of music “so pure it can pierce the veil between life and death, past and future” (a heavy gauntlet to drop at your composer's feet!), and then proceeds to show us exactly what that sounds like. Twangy bass lines thick enough to saw down a redwood tree are shredded with shivers of electric guitar to create a blues sound that cuts a hole straight through the decades.
Things get even more heated when the characters burst into a series of sweltering original songs at the Juke, creating an orgiastic — even religious — fever strong enough to rip the space-time continuum apart at the seams. A shoot-the-moon sequence in a film that isn't afraid to take some mighty big swings (even during the end credits), Coogler's exhilarating centerpiece literalizes the idea that music can serve as a living conduit for all the pain and the pleasure that hold a people together over the centuries. In moments like that, “Sinners” affirms that the movies are still capable of growing into the same power.
Warner Bros. will release “Sinners” in theaters on Friday, April 18.
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By Nellie Andreeva
Co-Editor-in-Chief, TV
Prime Video has confirmed a series green light for Carrie, a TV series based on the Stephen King novel. Mike Flanagan (The Fall of the House of Usher, Midnight Mass) is the writer, executive producer and showrunner, and will direct select episodes. Trevor Macy also executive produces.
The series came together quickly, with Flanagan opening a writers room in late fall. The eight-episode project also has been quietly casting, with relative newcomer Summer H. Howell (Hunter Hunter) in negotiations for the title character, Carrie White, and Siena Agudong (Resident Evil) set as her nemesis, Sue Snell.
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Carrie is described as a reimagining of the story of misfit high-schooler Carrie White, who has spent her life in seclusion with her domineering mother. After her father's sudden death, Carrie finds herself contending with the challenges of attending high school, a bullying scandal and the emergence of mysterious telekinetic powers.
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The series is produced by Amazon MGM Studios.
“Carrie is an iconic story that has withstood the test of time with continued cultural relevance,” said Vernon Sanders, head of television, Amazon MGM Studios. With Mike Flanagan at the helm and the accomplished team assembled including executive producer Trevor Macy this provocative series is sure to captivate our global customers.”
This is one of many MGM movie titles Prime Video has been exploiting for TV series adaptations following Amazon's acquisition of MGM. The list includes Legally Blonde, Tomb Raider, Poltergeist and Barber Shop.
The 1976 Brian De Palma movie Carrie starred Sissy Spacek. The 2013 remake was headlined by Chloë Grace Moretz
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By Rosy Cordero
Associate Editor, TV
EXCLUSIVE: Netflix has set a new 6-part limited series based on the Jane Austen novel Pride and Prejudice with Emma Corrin (Nosferatu, Black Mirror), Jack Lowden (Slow Horses, Benediction), and Olivia Colman (The Favourite, The Crown) to take on the beloved literary characters of Elizabeth Bennet, Mr. Darcy and Mrs. Bennet, respectively. Production will take place in the U.K. later this year.
The streamer's Pride and Prejudice is written by Dolly Alderton (Everything I Know About Love) and directed by Euros Lyn (Heartstopper), who also executive produces with Corrin, making their EP debut, Laura Lankester, Will Johnston and Louise Mutter for Lookout Point. Lisa Osborne produces.
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Sources close to production reveal that casting is underway for the perfect flowy white button-down shirt that looks great both wet and dry.
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Austen's second novel follows Elizabeth Bennet, an unmarried woman and the second of five daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet from Hertfordshire, near London. Their home can only be inherited by males in the family, so the pressure is on for the daughters to marry well or risk losing everything. While out in society, Elizabeth interacts with single men like Mr. Darcy, an outwardly curmudgeon who is misunderstood. The novel tackled the issues of manners, upbringing, morality, education, and marriage in the society of the landed gentry of the British Regency.
Netflix touts that the limited series “will be a faithful, classic adaptation of the novel” from Alderton, who hopes audiences will cherish it “whilst inspiring a new generation to fall in love with Austen for the first time.”
“Once in a generation, a group of people get to retell this wonderful story, and I feel very lucky that I get to be a part of it,” shared Alderton in a statement. “Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is the blueprint for romantic comedy – it has been a joy to delve back into its pages to find both familiar and fresh ways of bringing this beloved book to life. With Euros Lyn directing our stellar cast, I am so excited to reintroduce these hilarious and complicated characters to those who count Pride and Prejudice as their favourite book, and those who are yet to meet their Lizzie and Mr Darcy,” she continued.
Added Corrin, “Playing Elizabeth Bennet is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. To be able to bring this iconic character to life, alongside Olivia and Jack, with Dolly's phenomenal scripts, is truly the greatest honour. I can't wait for a new generation to fall in love with this story all over again.”
There have been multiple adaptations made of Pride and Prejudice, a beloved 200-year-old tale, throughout the years. Most famously, Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle portrayed Elizabeth and Darcy in the 1995 TV drama from BBC and A&E Networks, and the Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen film, which celebrates its 20th anniversary with a theater re-release set for April 20.
Netflix adapted the Austen novel Persuasion in 2022, starring Dakota Johnson.
“We are delighted to be sharing this beloved British classic with our global audience. Pride and Prejudice is the ultimate romantic comedy. Dolly's fierce intelligence and enormous heart, twinned with her genuine love of the Austen novel means she is able to bring new insights, whilst celebrating all that the generations of fans hold so dear. The calibre of a cast led by Emma, Jack and Olivia is testament to this precious story being in the best possible hands with Euros Lyn and the team at Lookout Point at the helm,” the streamer's Mona Qureshi said.
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The rock star wants to make sure his daughter is included in the family mausoleum.
By
Hannah Dailey
Teddi Mellencamp says that her dad, John Mellencamp, is being proactive amid her cancer battle, with the rock icon apparently already making arrangements for her burial in Indiana.
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On the latest episode of her Two Ts in a Pod podcast with fellow Real Housewives star Tamra Judge posted Tuesday (April 8), Teddi revealed that she and her father had a very frank conversation related to her recent announcement that her cancer has advanced to stage 4. After she was first diagnosed with melanoma in 2022, the reality star shared in a February Instagram post that the cancer had metastasized to her brain.
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“Yesterday, my dad calls 11 times in a row,” Teddi, who starred on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills for several seasons, told Judge. “Finally, I answer, I'm like, ‘I'm in the bath! Let me live a little, let me enjoy.' He goes, ‘I just want to make sure you're going to be in our group family mausoleum.'”
Trending on Billboard
In response, a shocked Judge said, “He did not.”
“Yes he did,” said Teddi, who shares three children with estranged husband Edwin Arroyave, laughing. “I said, ‘I have kids, so where are they gonna go?' He's like, ‘Well, there's going to be the top five, and then we're gonna have little areas around it, and then that's where everyone's going to get buried.' And I go, ‘Do I need to make this commitment right now?' And he goes, ‘Well you're doing your will right now, so you may as well put it in there.'”
The podcaster went on to confirm that the family mausoleum is in Indiana, where th “Jack & Diane” singer lives. “You're going to have to visit my grave there,” she told Judge.
Teddi also joked that she started “making demands” on the call with her famous Grammy-winning father, noting that she wants a phrase a total stranger said to her recently etched on her gravestone: “Hot girls never die.”
Billboard has reached out to John Mellencamp's reps for comment.
The TV personality has spent the past couple of months recovering from a February surgery, during which doctors removed four tumors from her brain. “I am so grateful for the incredible surgeons, doctor and nurses who made my surgery a success and my recovery process comfortable,” she wrote in an Instagram update shortly afterward. “The laughter, support and patience of my kids, my family and my closest friends is one gift with which words cannot properly express my gratitude.”
She's also been undergoing radiation and immunotherapy to treat the cancer, which has also metastasized in her lungs, she revealed in March. Stage 4 is the most advanced form of melanoma, according to the American Cancer Society.
Amid her fight against the disease, Teddi has kept followers updated on her treatments and how she's feeling on Instagram. On the latest episode of the podcast, she also opened up about how her family is coping, saying, “A lot of people ask me that: How are the kids doing?”
“They're doing really well, I mean, Edwin's for sure had to step up,” she added. “We're really lucky that we have two nannies that we can rotate in and out. My dad also had extreme worry about me because there's certain times where I don't feel good, so I have a lady that comes and helps me at night.”
Listen to Teddi open up about her conversation with her dad about burial plans below.
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By Matt Grobar
Senior Film Reporter
EXCLUSIVE: Tony Cavalero, the actor known for his fan favorite role of Keefe in HBO's comedy The Righteous Gemstones, has joined the cast of the psychological thriller The Silence Game, written and directed by John Rosman (New Life).
As previously announced, Sarah Yarkin and Nicholas Cirillo will also star.
Currently shooting in New Mexico, the film follows a disillusioned young man who, after following a mysterious woman into a camp of outsiders, falls under the influence of a charismatic leader preaching virtue through “The Silence Game,” an unnerving game with straightforward but terrifying rules. As the ideology takes a darker turn, he must grapple with its intoxicating philosophy before it spirals into something far more sinister.
No word yet on the role Cavalero will be tackling here. Emily Schweber handled casting, and T. Justin Ross (Aporia, New Life) is producing.
Watch on Deadline
Most recently, Cavalero's wrapped on David Michôd's biopic on boxer Christy Martin, opposite Sydney Sweeney, as well as the lead in DMV, a pilot for CBS produced by Aaron Kaplan and Dana Klein. Other recent projects include Cold Wallet, alongside Raúl Castillo, and Die Hart 3, opposite Kathryn Hahn, J.K. Simmons, and Kevin Hart. The Righteous Gemstones, in which he stars opposite Danny McBride, Adam Devine and more, is currently winding down toward its finale, which airs in May, after a four-season run.
Rosman's debut feature, the horror thriller New Life, emerged as a breakout on the festival circuit in 2023, striking a distribution deal with Brainstorm Media before making its way to Hulu.
Cavalero is represented by Nicole Garcia Management, Gersh, and Lichter, Grossman, Nichols.
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Back when the mysterious scandal surrounding Natalia Grace Barnett made headlines, Imogen Faith-Reid — the actor who would one day play her — wasn't aware of it. As gripping as the case was, it didn't exactly make U.K. headlines, and Faith-Reid only came to learn of the story when she landed a starring role in Hulu's “Good American Family.”
“I saw that it was an open casting, and saw that it was going to be filmed in America, and I genuinely was like, ‘Well, I'm not going to get that, but what can I do?,'” the actor recalled in an interview with IndieWire. “After three or four recalls, I got the job and it just felt so surreal. I was in a restaurant, I look at my phone, see the contract, and I genuinely just freaked out. It was such a surreal moment.”
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In the series, Faith-Reid plays Natalia Grace, whose adoptive parents believed that she was an adult pretending to be a child. Kristine (Ellen Pompeo) and Michael Barnett (Mark Duplass) cited the girl's behavioral issues and perceived threats of violence to their family before moving her out and becoming acting legal guardians. Episode 5 of the series shifts firmly from Kristine's point of view to Natalia's — that of an abandoned child now forced to live alone, and completely ill-equipped to do so. Her memories reframe events that have already been shown through Kristine's eyes as misunderstandings or abuse.
“Not only was she left alone in an apartment at eight years old, she was also somebody living with a disability,” Faith-Reid said. “Playing that and being in that physique and that body, it just felt like ‘How can anybody do this to a child?' It made me feel angry towards the story. It just really made me want to give it my all, and do what I can to portray this as best as I could.”
Below, Faith-Reid discusses her first major role and both the emotional and physical demands of playing someone as compelling and multifaceted as Natalia.
“I have felt very proud of being a part of a show that delves into telling unique stories and showing inclusivity on screen, which I think we need to see more of,” she said.
The following interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
IndieWire: What were your conversations like with the creative team as you started to dig into the character?
Imogen Faith-Reid: A lot of it was their visions with the show and their visions with Natalia, and that we were all on the same page with wanting that sensitivity around the show. We all want the show to win, we all want the show to have respect and sensitivity around these subjects because it was a heavy piece.
I read that Natalia has a different form of dwarfism from you. What kind of challenges did that present as an actor, physical or otherwise?
I had an amazing movement coach. I wanted to do my own version of Natalia. I didn't want to replicate Natalia's movement, because then it would feel kind of like imitating. I didn't want to feel like I was portraying or pretending. So with the movement sessions, we made them feel like it was authentic and genuine in my own body, which felt really good to do as an actor, and also as a little person as well.
Especially as we get into Episode 5, there's the stuff with the chronic pain, there's talk about her surgeries. There's so many different chapters to the physicality.
When we reached Natalia POV, that was the most important time to show the pain that Natalia does go through that we don't see — because through Kristine's perspective, she just sees Natalia to be this person that is faking all of this and is this kind of devil. But in Natalia's point of view, we get to slow it down, take time to really see what Natalia does go through. That was really important for all of us to show the pain that she has.
What other sort of prep did you do on the emotional side?
I had an amazing acting coach that Disney hooked me up with, so he helped to break down the script and the character's objectives, what the character wants from this certain scene. I'm playing my own version of Natalia, and the more I played her, the passion just grew and grew. So when it got to Natalia POV, that's when I wanted to show that justice for her. It was really important to me to tell this story.
There's so many layers because they adopt her as a child, thought she was an adult, then she turns out to be a child — and now you are an adult playing these different versions of it.
It was really fun actually, to play so many different versions, especially because it was my first role. It was something that was cool to delve into. When we see Kristine's point of view at first, Natalia is very cunning. She's very quick. She is always one step ahead. And then when we dive into Natalia's point of view, she really was just this child, and she doesn't know any better. She doesn't know anything. She's just so helpless.
We really get into the helplessness in Episode 5. What was it like shifting the POV?
At first I found it a bit daunting. Playing with Kristine's point of view a lot, I got into that version of Natalia. Episode 5 was something that I was always very anxious about, because I knew it was my episode. I knew it'd be long hours on set, I knew that it'd be tiring. There were so many physical scenes and heavy emotions carried throughout.
I loved doing that episode. I loved showing the audience what Natalia really did go through. It felt important to do, and I just think it's just an amazing episode that we did.
In Kristine's version, you get to play that “Orphan” nightmare that she's concocted in her head. Were there moments where you wanted to connect those two versions?
When filming, we would play around with different angles, different takes and stuff like that. I remember sometimes the director would ask me to play both in one scene, and play with that innocence but also with that cunningness as well. During Episode 3 — the scene where Kristine is asking Natalia how old she is — I had to do a take combining all of it, and it was so thrilling to do. When doing that, you just can't overthink it. You just have to let the scene take over, because acting is about reacting to what's going on. So it was challenging, and it was amazing.
Do you have a favorite scene from the entire series, or from 5 specifically?
I love the scenes with Michael and Natalia. I think they just bring so much joy and that light that we need through such a heavy series. We got to have so much fun, and it felt like I was able to bring some of me into that character as well, that playfulness and that light.
Is there also Michael's version of Natalia?
Maybe. The way that we approach this is that Natalia always kind of knew that Michael was this broken person, and so was Natalia. So Natalia always wanted to fix Michael and I think those two had such an amazing bond — their emotions were shot and they just needed each other.
What were some things that were exciting or challenging about Episode 5 in particular, because you have so much solo work?
I was nervous about the hours and the repetitiveness of doing those heavy emotions again and again and again. But honestly, it just felt so relieving. Something about playing such a heavy character sometimes can be relieving for the actor, because you're actually getting your own emotions out while playing this. It felt good to sink my teeth into.
The scene that I remember the most out of Episode 5 was the scene where she has a tantrum. Michael and Kristine have just left her in the apartment. She doesn't understand what's going on. She doesn't know why this happened, and she's filled with so much rage. That scene I remember in particular shooting, because we'd done so many different takes, and the camera people would do different angles when I would do my tantrum — my POV whilst doing it, and also looking at what I'm doing. And it just felt relieving to do it, something about just getting your anger out. It felt really good.
The production design, is also really immersive — that apartment just looks like it sucks the energy out of somebody.
There definitely is a difference between Kristine's point of view and Natalia's for sure, just the colors and everything. What was really interesting, what people may not know, is that when we leave Natalia in the apartment in Episode 4, Natalia is wearing clothes that were lilac and bright, and when we see her in Episode 5, they're gray, because that's her perspective. It was fun to play around with that.
I noticed that you keep making sure to say that it's your version of Natalia. What's your relationship feel like now to the real version?
I was very proud of the version that I played on Natalia. I wanted to show empowerment and for her to be seen — and for people to take away not to judge others so much. I think that's what this story does so well, and I was honored to play her.
New episodes of “Good American Family” premiere Tuesdays on Hulu.
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With prices for live music going through the roof, fans are turning to payment plans as an interest-free way to pay for their festival tickets.
By
Dave Brooks
Tens of thousands of music fans will descend on the California desert this weekend for the first of two iterations of the Coachella Music and Arts festival outside of Palm Springs, Calif.
Approximately 80,000 to 100,000 fans each weekend will have coughed up the $599 ticket price to see headliners Lady Gaga, Travis Scott, Green Day and Post Malone. But ticket price is often just the cost of entry — many of those fans will spend more than a $1,000 per weekend on lodging and cough up hundreds of dollars more for food, drinks and merchandise. It's a substantial spend for any of the 20-somethings in Coachella's target demographic. But festival organizers have increasingly helped finance their purchase through payment plan programs.
Approximately 60 percent of general admission ticket buyers at this year's festival opted to use Coachella's payment plan system, which requires as little as $49.99 up front for tickets to the annual concert. The desert festival isn't alone — Lollapalooza, Electric Daisy Carnival and Rolling Loud all sell the majority of their tickets using some kind of payment plan system.
Trending on Billboard
Representatives at Goldenvoice, which puts on Coachella, declined to comment for this story. One source, who asked to remain anonymous because they weren't authorized to speak to the media, told Billboard that payment plans have fundamentally changed how festivals are marketed to the public.
“Festivals are now marketing a cheap down payment as their main call to action,” the source says. “The messaging is $20 down gets you in the door, or $50 down gets you started. It's no longer about the artists, or the festival lifestyle — the message is, ‘You can afford this if you act today.'”
The same source told Billboard it's not uncommon for some fans to have four or five different festival payment plans hitting their accounts at one time. Typically, fans pay as little as $19.99 to get started on a payment plan that's extended over a period of several months — three months generally for Coachella, since most buying happens after the lineup is announced, which until 2025 took place in early January. This year, fans who signed up before Jan. 25 had their payments split into three payments, with the last payment hitting a user's account in March.
The system is different than those of popular fintech payment-plan firms like Klarna, Affirm and Sezzle, which pay out the vendor in full and reimburse themselves by collecting the remaining payments from buyers. These firms make money from merchant and processing fees they collect from vendors and, in some cases, interest payments charged to customers that go beyond the terms of their original payment plan. Because firms like Klarna and Affirm essentially grant buyers credit, and often run credit histories on their users, they are heavily regulated under a number of state and federal financial frameworks.
The payment systems used by festival promoters are administered by ticketing companies like AXS, Ticketmaster and Frontgate, and are offered as a service in exchange for the festival promoter's business. These systems are not considered credit providers since there's no third party fronting the vendor the full price of the transaction. Instead, the vendor is paid out over time, as each payment goes through.
Ticket buyers are charged a $41 fee for using Coachella's payment plan, similar to what other festivals charge fans for the use of payment plans. The fee is equivalent to approximately eight percent of the ticket price, which is still far cheaper than what a fan might pay for financing a ticket on their credit card. The revenue generated from this fee is split between the ticketing company and the promoter.
While some have criticized festivals for using fees as a revenue generator, fest organizer Bob Sheehan with the California Roots Festival in Monterey, Calif. tells Billboard that payment plans “are a critical link between fan affordability and generating the revenue needed to finance a modern multiday festival.”
Sheehan estimates that 65 percent to 70 percent of his festival attendees use payment plans to pay for their tickets and adds “the entire system is built upon trust — trust that we will deliver the experience we promised and trust that our fans will make their payments on time.”
If Coachella attendees miss their scheduled payments — typically, the attempt to debit their account is declined for insufficient funds or having an expired credit card — they are given 10 days to bring their account current. If the 10th day passes and the payment is not received, then the order is cancelled and the fan is issued a credit that can be used towards next year's festival.
“Credit expires 12 months from issuance,” Coachella officials explain on their website. “No exceptions.”
Expired monies and credits — often referred to as “breakage” in business — are governed by state law, though one source says the revenue generated from breakage is miniscule.
“Most defaults happen after the initial deposit is made on the first payment — it's very rare that a fan will default on tickets after two payments have been made, so the revenue from breakage is very low,” explains one source familiar with how festivals operate their payment plans. “All of the incentives for the promoter are that the fan pay off their ticket in full and attend the event so they can spend money on beer and parking and merchandise.”
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The China Film Administration said it would "moderately reduce" the number of American films the country imports in response to Donald Trump's tariffs.
By Abid Rahman, Patrick Brzeski
April 10, 2025 4:50am
It's official: China is set to reduce the number of Hollywood films it imports in response to an escalating tariff war with the U.S. and will look to increase film imports from other countries.
The China Film Administration (CFA), the body that handles film releases and quotas in the country, released a statement on Thursday in response to a reporter's question about whether the Trump administration's increasing tariffs on China would impact imports of American films. A spokesperson for the CFA said that the U.S. government had made the wrong move to “abuse tariffs on China” and that the situation “will inevitably further reduce the domestic audience's favorability towards American films.”
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The statement added, “We will follow market rules, respect the audience's choice, and moderately reduce the number of American films imported. China is the world's second-largest film market. We have always adhered to a high level of opening up to the outside world and will introduce more excellent films from the world to meet market demand.”
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The move to reduce American film imports comes as Trump increased tariffs on China to 125 percent on Wednesday. China hit back on Thursday with tariffs of 84 percent on American goods.
On Tuesday, reports from China suggested that the country was mulling a ban or a reduction on the number of Hollywood films. Speculation had increased after 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 were said to be considering in response to Trump's tariffs, and their outlines included a ban or reduction of imported American films.
Under the most recent 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.
The news of the reduction appeared to catch many in the Chinese film industry, particularly local exhibitors, by surprise. According to sources, China's Film Bureau had just approved on Monday Disney and Marvel's Thunderbolts for a theatrical release on April 30 (it's now unclear whether that release will go forward). Exhibitors in contact with the bureau told The Hollywood Reporter that they were optimistically awaiting positive news about other upcoming U.S. releases, including Apple's Brad Pitt starring racing movie F1.
China's theatrical box office has staged a strong recovery this year from a severe downturn in 2024, when total ticket revenue declined 23 percent. The turnaround in 2025 has been profoundly top-heavy, though. As of Monday, theatrical revenue for the year was up 42 percent compared to the same period in 2024, but virtually all of the gains had come from just one film: Beijing Enlight's animated sequel Ne Zha 2, which has earned a record-smashing $2.1 billion since its release during Chinese New Year in late January.
The popularity of Hollywood films has eroded drastically in the past several years, but top U.S. tentpoles can still occasionally bring in substantial revenue. In 2022, Avatar: The Way of Water made $246 million at the China box office. Warner Brothers and Legendary Entertainment's A Minecraft Movie opened to $14.7 million last weekend, and local theater chains were banking on a summer slate of tentpoles like James Gunn's Superman and Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning to help fill seats and keep the market recovery going.
Even with Hollywood's diminished state in China, the film business is one sector where the U.S. maintains a sizable trade surplus with its geopolitical rival, as Chinese films, despite their enormous earnings in the home market, have made little headway with mainstream North American moviegoers.
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It's a tradition I long ago grew weary of: waking up early on an April morning to see how few women filmmakers had made it into Cannes‘ competition section. For a long time, the festival seemed destined (or worse, depending on how you see it) to stall out with just four films directed or co-directed by women in the section. Hell, Cannes didn't even program four competition titles from women until 2011 (the year after that milestone, in 2012, no women made it into the section). And, yes, it happened with last year's edition, which included four female directors again.
There have been bright spots along the way, like 2023's record-breaking competition lineup, which included seven films directed by women in a field of 21, plus an eventual Palme d'Or win for Justine Triet (only the third woman to win the festival's top prize).
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Today? Another bright spot, with six (!!) female directors announced so far, plus an out-of-competition festival opener directed by a woman (Amélie Bonnin's “Leave One Day”), with festival director Thierry Frémaux promising that more films will be announced in the coming days.
Those other female-directed films include new features from Cannes regulars Kelly Reichardt (“The Mastermind”) and Julia Ducournau (“Alpha”), plus Mascha Schilinski (the buzzy “Sound of Falling,” previously titled “The Doctor Says I'll Be Alright, But I'm Feelin' Blue”), Hafsia Herzi (“La Petite Dernière”), Chie Hayakawa (“Renoir”), and Carla Simón (“Romeria”).
In recent years, films directed by women have proven to be some of the best and buzziest of the festival, like Triet's Palme d'Or-winning (and Oscar-winning) “Anatomy of a Fall,” Coralie Fargeat's juicy (and, yes, Oscar-winning) “The Substance,” Ducournau's delirious Palme d'Or-winning “Titane,” and more.
As so often needs to be repeated in stories like this one, no one is asking for special treatment or easy breaks, but the festival's resistance to recognizing that some of cinema's most thrilling (and good) movies come from female filmmakers has long been lacking. Films like Triet, Fargeat, and Ducournau's most recent Cannes entries could only have been made by them. So, yes, they could have only been made by women.
Is that changing? Is the success of Triet, Fargeat, Ducournau, and others too hard to deny? We sure think so, and today's batch of new films proves that. Is there another female Palme d'Or winner in the bunch? We'll find out in May.
It's certainly taken long enough already. Consider some more history: Between 2016-2018, only three female filmmakers made it into competition each year; in 2019, the festival again notched four female directors in competition. (The festival was canceled in 2020. Though festival brass did announce which films would have been programmed, had the COVID pandemic not upended the world, they did not use the usual designations for those films, and there was no “competition section.”) Enough.
As previously reported, this year's main competition jury president will be Juliette Binoche, who will oversee the choosing of the Palme d'Or and other festival awards alongside a jury yet to be announced. In a rare passing of the torch, Binoche takes the position from another woman, last year's president Greta Gerwig. (The only other time this happened: Sophia Loren, 1966 jury president, succeeded 1965's Olivia de Havilland.) This year's festival will run May 13-24, 2025.
Below, you can get a better idea of just how massive today's announcement is, as we look back and compare five years of women-directed films in the competition section.
Total films in competition section directed or co-directed by women: 6
Percentage of section: As of this writing, 31.57 (with more films to be announced)
Directors: Kelly Reichardt, Julia Ducournau, Mascha Schilinski, Hafsia Herzi, Chie Hayakawa, Carla Simón
Wins at festival: TBD
Notable wins beyond festival: TBD
Total films in competition section directed or co-directed by women: 4
Percentage of section: 18.18
Directors: Payal Kapadia, Andrea Arnold, Coralie Fargeat, Agathe Riedinger
Wins at festival: Grand Prix (Kapadia, “All We Imagine as Light”), Best Screenplay (Fargeat, “The Substance”)
Other recognitions of note: Fargaet's “The Substance” was nominated for 5 Oscars (including Best Director and Best Original Screenplay) and won 1
Total films in competition section directed or co-directed by women: 7 (for first time ever, current high mark)
Percentage of section: 33.3
Directors: Justine Triet, Ramata-Toulaye Sy, Alice Rohrwacher, Jessica Hausner, Kaouther Ben Hania, Catherine Corsini, Catherine Breillat
Wins at festival: Palme d'Or (Triet, “Anatomy of a Fall”), third woman to win
Other recognitions of note: Triet's “Anatomy of a Fall” was nominated for 5 Oscars (including Best Picture and Best Director) and won 1 (Best Original Screenplay)
Total films in competition section directed or co-directed by women: 5 (for first time ever)
Percentage of section: 23.8
Directors: Claire Denis, Kelly Reichardt, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Charlotte Vandermeersch, Léonor Serraille
Wins at festival: Grand Prix (Denis, “Stars at Noon”), Jury Prize (Vandermeersch, “The Eight Mountains”)
Other recognitions of note: Reichardt's “Showing Up” won the Robert Altman Award at the Indie Spirits
Total films in competition section directed or co-directed by women: 4
Percentage of section: 16.6
Directors: Ildikó Enyedi, Mia Hansen-Løve, Catherine Corsini, Julia Ducournau
Wins at festival: Palme d'Or (Ducournau, “Titane”), second woman to win
Other recognitions of note: “Titane” filmmaker Ducournau was nominated for Best Director at the BAFTAs, the film was also nominated for five European Film Awards and won 1
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Johansson will premiere 'Eleanor the Great' starring June Squibb, while Dickinson debuts his feature-length film 'Urchin' following a drifter on the streets of London.
By
Lily Ford
Scarlett Johansson and Harris Dickinson are set to make their directorial debuts at this year's Cannes Film Festival.
The two actors have concentrated their focus behind the camera for the debuting titles, featuring in Cannes' Un Certain Regard, announced by Cannes delegate general Thierry Frémaux and president Iris Knobloch at a press conference in Paris on Thursday morning.
Johansson, best known for her Avengers outings in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, will premiere Eleanor the Great. It follows a 90-year-old Floridian woman who strikes up an unlikely friendship with a 19-year-old student in New York City and stars June Squibb, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jessica Hecht and Erin Kellyman.
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Meanwhile, Dickinson, Babygirl actor and a relative newcomer to A-list stardom, will debut his feature film Urchin, about a drifter (Frank Dillane) on the streets of London. Dickinson is not turning to directing entirely — he is set to play John Lennon in Sam Mendes' Beatles biopics for Sony for a 2028 release.
Elsewhere, Cannes' competition lineup is packed with auteur heavyweights, including Kelly Reichardt's The Mastermind, an art-heist drama starring Josh O'Connor and John Magaro, set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War; Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier, who returns to the Croisette after his 2021 The Worst Person of the World with Sentimental Value, also featuring Renate Reinsve; and dissident Iranian director Jafar Panahi, who will be back in Cannes competition with his latest drama, A Simple Accident.
Hot features this year include Wes Anderson's The Phoenician Scheme (with Benicio del Toro, Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera, Riz Ahmed and Tom Hanks among others), Richard Linklater's Nouvelle Vague (Guillaume Marbeck and Zoey Deutch) and Ari Aster's Eddington (Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone, Pedro Pascal and Austin Butler) also set to premiere on the Croisette.
The festival screened 2,909 features in its selection process, an all-time record. See the full lineup for the 2025 Cannes Film Festival here.
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By Zac Ntim
International Reporter
The Official Selection for the 78th Cannes Film Festival was revealed Thursday, with 19 movies in Competition. See full lists below.
Familiar names who will launch new works in the Competition include Wes Anderson, who brings his latest flick The Phoenician Scheme; Richard Linklater will launch his Paris-shot Nouvelle Vague; Jochim Trier debuts his latest feature Sentimental Value; and Titane Palme d'Or winner Julia Ducournau returns with Alpha.
Cannes will open this year with Leave One Day by first-time French filmmaker Amelie Bonnin. Thierry Frémaux said during his presser this morning that it was the first time a debut film has been selected to open the festival. Also hitting the Croisette for the first time is horror auteur Ari Aster, who returns to feature filmmaking with his buzzy A24 feature Eddington.
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Elsewhere, American filmmaker Kelly Reichardt will screen her feature The Mastermind in Competition, Oliver Hermanus's war drama The History of Sound plays in Competition, and Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi is back at Cannes with In Simple Accident.
Veteran Hollywood actor Scarlett Johansson has landed in Un Certain Regard with her first directorial effort Eleanor the Great. British actor Harris Dickinson also is in the sidebar comp with Urchin, his debut as a director.
RELATED: Full List Of Cannes Palme d'Or Winners Through The Years: Photo Gallery
Cannes regulars Kirill Serebrennikov, Raoul Peck and Sebestian Lelio will debut new works in the Cannes Premiere section, while Rebecca Zlotowski is Out of Competition with her Jodie Foster-starrer Vie Privée.
Earlier this week, the fest confirmed Tom Cruise and Paramount‘s Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning will debut on the Croisette. The movie will play Out of Competition on May 14 with Cruise, director Christopher McQuarrie and cast treading the carpet. The trailer for the movie launched on Monday.
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Robert De Niro will receive the festival's honorary Palme d'Or at the opening-night ceremony. French actress Juliette Binoche will serve as the President of the Jury, succeeding last year's jury head, Greta Gerwig.
RELATED: The Movies That Have Made More Than $1 Billion At The Box Office
This year's festival runs May 13-24. Here is the Official Selection:
COMPETITION
In Simple Accident, Jafar Panahi
Sentimental Value, Jochim Trier
Romeria, Carla Simone
The Mastermind, Kelly Reichardt
Sound of Falling, Mascha Schilinski
The Eagles of the Republic, Tarik Saleh
Dossier 137, Dominik Moll
The Secret Agent, Kleber Mendonça Filho
Fuori, Mario Martone
Two Prosecutors, Sergei Loznitsa
Nouvelle Vague, Richard Linklater
Sirat, Oliver Laxe
La Petite Derniere, Hafsia Herzi
The History of Sound, Oliver Hermanus
Young Mothers, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
Eddington, Ari Aster
The Phoenician Scheme, Wes Anderson
Renoir, Chie Hayakawa
Alpha, Julia Ducournau
Leave One Day, Amelie Bonnin
UN CERTAIN REGARD
The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo, Diego Céspedes
My Father's Shadow, Akinola Davies Jr
Urchin, Harris Dickinson
Eleanor the Great, Scarlett Johansson
Once Upon a Time in Gaza, Tarzan Nasser and Arab Nasser
Aisha Can't Fly Away, Morad Mostafa
Meteors, Hubert Charuel
Heads or Tails?, Alessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppis
Pillion, Harry Lighton
L'inconnue de la Grande Arche, Stephane Demoustier
A Pale View of the Hills, Kei Ishikawa
The Last One for the Road, Francesco Sossai
Homebound, Neeraj Ghaywan
Karavan, Zuzana Kirchnerová
The Plague, Charlie Polinger
Promised Sky, Erige Sehiri
RELATED: Spike Lee Says His ‘Highest 2 Lowest' Will Debut Out Of Competition At Cannes
OUT OF COMPETITION
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, Christopher McQuarrie
Vie Privée, Rebecca Zlotowski
The Richest Woman in the World, Thierry Klifa
Colours of Time, Cedric Klapisch
CANNES PREMIERE
Amrum, Fatih Akin
Splitsville, Mike Corvino
The Disappearance of Josef Mengele, Kirill Serebrennikov
Orwell: 2+2=5, Raoul Peck
The Wave, Sebestian Lelio
Connemara, Alex Lutz
SPECIAL SCREENINGS
Stories of Surrender, Bono
The Magnificent Life, Sylvain Chomet
Tell Her That I Love Her, Romane Bohringer
MIDNIGHT SCREENINGS
Dalloway, Yann Gozlan
Exit 8, Kawamura Genki
Sons of the Neon Night, Mak Juno
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Set in a tiny and tight-knit Arctic village, the series follows a 20something Inuit woman trying to rebuild her life after exiting her marriage.
By
Angie Han
Television Critic
Cold is never far from mind in Netflix's North of North, set in a remote village deep in the Arctic region of Canada. Snow blankets the ground in every single episode, as icy grey waters lap the shore. Even in summer, the characters remain bundled up in woolen hats and puffy coats.
And yet “warm” was one of the words that came most readily to mind as I made my way through the eight-episode first season, along with “likable.” Ice Cove, Nunavut, might be nestled in a literal tundra. But the comedy's affection for its characters, and the community they call home, make it feel as cozy as a hot bath after a long day.
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North of North
The Bottom Line
Endlessly endearing.
Airdate: Thursday, April 10 (Netflix)Cast: Anna Lambe, Maika Harper, Jay Ryan, Braeden Clarke, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Zorga Qaunaq, Bailey Poching, Kelly William, Keira Belle Cooper, Nutaaq Doreen SimmondsCreators: Althea Arnaquq-Baril, Stacey Aglok MacDonald
Anna Lambe leads the cast as Siaja, a plucky civil servant in the mold of Parks and Recreation's Leslie Knope or Rutherford Falls' Reagan Wells. Or, at least, that's what she aspires to be. As the series starts, she's the stay-at-home wife to Ting (Kelly William), the town “golden boy,” and mother to a seven-year-old named Bun (Keira Belle Cooper, a TV child who manages to stay on the right side of the balance between funny and cutesy). But at 26, she's starting to long for something of her own, outside the roles prescribed to her as a good Inuk woman.
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In quick succession, she dumps Ting and moves in with her mother, Neevee (Maika Harper). She talks her way into a probationary job as the assistant to Helen (Mary Lynn Rajskub), the town manager whose white-savior tendencies are mostly counterbalanced by her clearly genuine love for her adopted home. She even, eventually, starts trying to date again, ignoring the whispers of neighbors who cannot believe she'd let go of a catch like Ting.
Like most comedies, North of North takes a few episodes to click into its fullest potential. The premiere ends with a twist that's a hair too awkward for my taste, and Ting's callousness toward Siaja initially lands a shade too cruel to be amusing. But those are minor quibbles to take with a show that comes out of the gate with an undeniably fresh perspective — as acknowledged in Siaja's opening monologue, most “Southerners” probably think of Inuit only as a historical population, when we think about them at all — and that by its third or fourth episode has settled into a reliably pleasant rhythm.
Lambe is thoroughly winning as Siaja, who can't seem to stop herself from wearing her heart on her sleeve — even when, as in her very public breakup with Ting, she'd probably be better off if she could. Harper's Neevee is her opposite, sarcastic and prickly and more likely to set a guy's car on fire than to talk through her feelings about him. The actors share a complex chemistry that speaks to the unwavering love between mother and daughter, but also the rocky history between them.
The rest of the ensemble includes Jay Ryan as Alistair, a handsome and kindly environmental consultant who has a surprisingly complicated history with Ice Cove, and Braeden Clarke as his assistant Kuuk, a handsome “city boy” whose endearing, low-key dorkiness and perfect comic timing make him an ideal match for Siaja. In fact, my biggest complaint about North of North might really be a compliment: It seemed a shame there wasn't more time for characters like Millie (Zorga Qaunaq) and Colin (Bailey Poching), Siaja's friends who seem fun but whom we never actually get to know very well.
Plot-wise, North of North isn't exactly out to reinvent the wheel. Storylines about Siaja's efforts to liven up the weekly “elders' night” by bribing the town youth with slushies, or to raise money by challenging a better-funded rival town to a baseball game, seem in broad strokes like they could be borrowed from any number of sitcoms, and it's rarely a big shock where any of them end up.
But North of North draws strength from the specificity of its unusual-for-TV setting. So that game, for example, isn't anything the Los Angeles Dodgers might recognize. Instead, it's an Alaskan variant that uses a giant bone as a bat, because wood has traditionally been harder to come by in frozen northern climes and also because it's fun for the characters to keep saying the phrase “walrus dick baseball.”
The costumes, courtesy of designers Debra Hanson and Nooks Lindell, were frequently sourced from or created by Inuit artisans — including the characters' enviable parkas, trimmed in lush fur or bordered with vibrant patterns. The upbeat soundtrack is a mix of pop hits, Inuktitut-language covers of pop hits and original pop music by Inuit artists.
And while North of North never blows too far from its sweet, sunny vibe, it gradually layers in some more somber notes as well. An especially moving late-season storyline taps into the lingering trauma of residential schools and child-family separations, foregrounding the characters' difficult emotions without losing sight of the devotion and pleasure also integral to their relationships.
In combination, all of these choices add up to a vividly detailed portrait of a place — and one constructed by creators Stacey Agloc MacDonald and Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, both Inuit women who live in the Arctic, with the tender and knowing perspective of an insider, rather than one designed by and for gawking outsiders. (You know a non-local character sucks when she starts going on about how Ice Cove is a “perfect blank slate” for her lofty civic ambitions.) North of North distinguishes itself in large part through its details, even as it scratches a similar itch as other quirky small-town comedies like Letterkenny or Schitt's Creek.
In the fourth episode, an elder, Lazarus (Solomon Awa), approaches Siaja with feedback about a recent party that spiraled out of control. But instead of the dressing-down she expects, he begins by reflecting on how it is their people have managed to endure through so many millennia under such harsh and unforgiving conditions. “Yes, practical skills are important,” he tells her, “but so are the little joys in life.”
North of North is unassuming in its humor, only occasionally provoking full-on belly laughs or delivering memorably quotable lines. But I found, as I kept watching, that what was near-constant was the smile on my face. In the sweet intergenerational moments of bonding between Siaja and Neevee and Bun, or the sillier beats about Helen's cluelessness or Millie and Colin's snarkiness, or the sheer and simple pleasure of getting to spend time in such likable company, North of North makes itself one of Lazarus' little joys.
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The late actor played T'Challa/Black Panther in the 2018 superhero film.
By
Carly Thomas
Associate Editor
Ryan Coogler is looking back at how seriously the late Chadwick Boseman took his work as an actor.
The Black Panther director, who recently helmed Sinners starring Michael B. Jordan, made a recent appearance on The Breakfast Club, where he was asked, “What did Chadwick Boseman bring out of you that Michael B. Jordan doesn't?”
“Out of all of my actors, Chad's death actually hit Mike the hardest,” Coogler responded. “Chad was older than us, he was quite a bit older than us, even though he looked like he was the same age. He was a fully baked man from the South. He was an old school man's man and compared to that dude when we worked together bro, me and Mike was kids.”
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The filmmaker continued of Boseman, who died in 2020 at age 43 following a battle with colon cancer, “Chad changed my life. He was the kind of teacher who you never knew you was getting a lesson when he taught. It was all by example and what he gave me and Michael was patience. He moved at an old-school pace and he took his time. He was always early. He was that type of dude. And Mike will tell you this, I told him man, I said, ‘Hey bro, what would Chad do in this [Sinners] role? If he had this role what would he do?' Because Chad never broke action.”
Coogler then recalled how the late actor immersed himself into his character throughout filming for Black Panther, even continuing T'Challa's accent until the film wrapped production.
“He was talking in an African accent,” the director explained. “Disney execs came to see us on ‘Panther.' It was week two and they pulled up and it was the T'Challa accent and they were freaked out. I was like, ‘Don't be freaked out. He's working, man. He don't turn it off until we wrap.' And no shame or embarrassment in that, but that's how he was moving.”
Coogler added that seeing Boseman “that up close” while filming Black Panther and having “to do scenes across from” him helped Jordan — who played villain Erik Killmonger in the 2018 superhero film — “lock in” to play twin brothers in Sinners, which released April 18.
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The song topped the Billboard Hot 100 for seven non-consecutive weeks.
By
Rania Aniftos
The Kid LAROI and Justin Bieber's “Stay” has hit another milestone, as the music video for the viral hit reached one billion YouTube views.
The milestone marks the Australian singer-rapper's first entry to the Billion Views Club and the Canadian superstar's 12th as a lead, featured artist or collaborator. In the clip, which was released in July 2021, the duo are frozen in time as LAROI navigates a broken heart.
Upon its release, “Stay” spent seven non-consecutive weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100, and also topped the Pop Airplay and the Adult Pop Airplay charts. The diamond-certified anthem won Top Hot 100 Song as well as Top Collaboration honors at the 2022 Billboard Music Awards.
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In the 2024 Prime Video documentary Kids Are Growing Up: A Story About A Kid Named LAROI, the duo opened up about becoming musical collaborators. “From the moment I met Justin, it was just all about positivity coming in here. No judgment zone, let's all have fun,” Laroi says in the doc, before Bieber recalls: “He plays me this song, ‘Stay,' and it was him on it by himself. He was like, ‘I don't think I'm gonna use it for my album.' I was like, ‘Well, if you don't use it, give it to me. I'll use it. This is a great song.'”
To celebrate the song's new achievement, rewatch the “Stay” music video below.
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“Summer House” star Lindsay Hubbard is denying rumors that she and her boyfriend, Dr. Turner Kufe, have broken up.
During an April 2025 interview with It Girl, Hubbard said she and Kufe, the father of her daughter, Gemma, are still dating.
“We are very much together. All the time, day in, day out, being parents to our baby. We just went to Florida. We have a couple of trips coming up. And yeah, just, like, normal life with a newborn,” said Hubbard during the interview.
In the It Girl interview, Hubbard also noted that she and Kufe met during the fall of 2020. According to Hubbard, they “went on a few dates.” Kufe, however, let Hubbard know that he was not interested in having a serious relationship after their fourth date. Hubbard said Kufe reached out again in December 2023, four months after her engagement to Carl Radke was called off. The couple, who welcomed their daughter in October 2024, began dating again in January 2024.
A post shared by Lindsay Hubbard (@lindshubbs)
Hubbard suggested she was not sure how her relationship with Kufe will end up faring during a February 2025 interview on “Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen.”
“I think we're trying to figure that out. We got pregnant very quickly upon dating. And it's very challenging even on the strongest relationships. But, you know, we're doing it,” said Hubbard during the interview.
She also said she does not believe Kufe will ever appear on “Summer House.”
In addition, Hubbard gave an update about how she was feeling after welcoming Gemma.
“I feel identity issues. And I don't know what my future holds. And I'm just getting used to being a mom,” said Hubbard while filming the “Watch What Happens Live” episode.
A post shared by Lindsay Hubbard (@lindshubbs)
While speaking to It Girl, Hubbard discussed her dynamic with Radke. She said she does not believe she will “ever forgive” Radke for ending their relationship while “Summer House” cameras were rolling.
“We were supposed to get married two months later. And next thing you know, there was cameras in my living room. And he's breaking up with me on television,” said Hubbard during the interview.
In an April 2025 “Watch What Happens Live” interview, Radke said he did not intend to break up with Hubbard in front of cameras.
“I wanted to get on the same page. But as we were talking — which we talked in circles, it was very obvious that it wasn't right. And when I said, ‘I don't think I can do this.' Her response was, ‘Okay, it's over,'” said Radke during the April 2025 interview.
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HGTV‘s “No Demo Reno” star Jenn Todryk revealed that a scary fan encounter forced her family to suddenly move to a new home. Todryk felt the need to relocate for her family's safety.
A post shared by Jenn Todryk (@theramblingredhead)
Todryk, her three children, and husband Mike moved to a new home for their safety after a fan showed up at their former house.
In an April 2025 interview with Realtor.com, the HGTV star explained the situation. She shared the reason why her family made such a rushed move to a “mostly sight unseen” new home.
“The true story [about our move] is that we had people show up on weekends and take pictures; that's what really did it,” Todryk explained. “One night, Mike waited until the kids went to bed, and he told me that two people came while [their son] Von was playing outside and asked for a picture, and I lost it.”
She continued, “In that moment, I literally heard God say, ‘It's time,' and so I got in the car and I looked up real quick — probably Realtor.com — and I saw this home that was super close to my home. I drove to it. I was crying. I was emotional because I did not want to move. I loved that house. I still love it, and now my best friend lives there, so we still get to go all the time. I still get emotional talking about it.”
Todryk added, “[But] I saw this house and I couldn't see anything because it's really heavily treed and it's on a hill, and I was like, ‘It's perfect!'”
According to the HGTV star, she “didn't even know what the inside looked like,” but they was beyond motivated to buy. “I called the real estate agent that night; it was like 9 p.m. We went and walked it the next day, and we put an offer on the house,” she shared.
“We didn't even look at anything else, and I love it here. It's great,” Todryk added.
A post shared by Jenn Todryk (@theramblingredhead)
Todryk shared that she was fine without an open-concept kitchen in their new home. “I've lived in it. It's very echoey and open, and I like having separation,” she explained. “I think it's very cozy and homey, so I did not take down any walls in this home.”
According to the HGTV star, the kitchen renovation included upgrading the space to provide a warm place for the family to gather.
The kitchen features a gold faucet and white cabinets with gold hardware. The room is tied together with a neutral backsplash and beautiful quartzite countertops.
Todryk noted that her family is making memories in the kitchen, with her and her husband making lunches and their kids “crafting nonstop” in the space. She noted, “We do everything there really.”
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Here are all the parties and events where festival attendees and artists will be hanging out during Coachella this year.
By
Rania Aniftos
With Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival just around the corner, things are heating up in Indio, Calif. Lady Gaga, Green Day, Travis Scott and Post Malone are headlining the main Coachella stage at the festival taking place over the next two weekends, April 11-13 and April 18-20.
Missy Elliott, Benson Boone, LISA, GloRilla, Tyla, Artemas and more performing on both Fridays ahead of the “Rain on Me” singer's night-closing performances. The Saturday lineups will be led by the “American Idiot” rock band and also feature Charli XCX, Clairo, ENHYPEN, Jimmy Eat World, T-Pain and more. Posty leads the Sunday shows, and Megan Thee Stallion, Zedd, JENNIE of BLACKPINK, Beabadoobee, Ty Dolla $ign, Rema, Shaboozey and more will perform on the final days of both weekends, wrapping up the festival.
Ed Sheeran and Weezer were also recently added to this year's lineup, both at the Mojave tent, shortly after FKA Twigs dropped out of the fest due to “ongoing visa issues.” Additionally, Anitta had to cancel her Coachella performance this year, citing “unexpected personal reasons.”
In addition to the star-studded lineup during the festival itself, there are countless parties and events in between sets and after hours where fans can enjoy even more action — from Neon Carnival and Revolve Festival to White Claw Sessions powered by Billboard and beyond.
See below for a full list of parties and events, where festivalgoers and artists will be hanging out during the jam-packed weekend. (Updating ahead of Coachella weekend 1 with new events. Most events are invitation-only.)
White Claw Sessions Powered by BillboardJoin us for another year of concerts bringing you closer to the artists you love, starting with exclusive live performances featuring Maren Morris and Maude Latour.The Saguaro, Palm Springs6-10 p.m. RSVP here, available on a first-come, first-served basis.
Gallery Desert House by Gallery Media GroupPatrón El Alto teamed up with Gallery Desert House by Gallery Media Group to give fans non-stop entertainment, music, art and signature beverages.
NYLON House in the Desert Presented by Ulta BeautyThe annual event will feature a star-studded guest list as well as a performance by Dove Cameron, and DJ sets from James Hype and Austin Millz.10 p.m.
Zenyara Desert NightsGlobal experiential agency Corso Marketing Group (CMG) and underground nightlife tastemakers Framework have teamed up for their invite-only late-night festival series, with exclusive access driven by Dorsia and in collaboration with Tao Group Hospitality. Ahmed Spins, Bob Moses (Club Set), Damian Lazarus b2b Dennis Cruz, KILIMANJARO will perform.Zenyara Estate
MuSick: Live from Reggie Watts' CouchBillboard and Amazon teamed up for the special activation and event with Amazon Pharmacy and Amazon One Medical. Festival-goers will get to enjoy a wellness-inspired experience with Reggie's “sick” beats serving as their soundtrack.Ace Hotel, Palm Springs12 – 4 p.m.
Revolve FestivalThe annual event will feature an all-star performance lineup including Lil Wayne, Tyga, Gelo and Uncle Waffles, plus DJ sets by Hunny Bee, DJ Lex and Quinn Blake, as well as special guest Cardi B. This year's theme includes an immersive Desert Mirage experience, which promises a “fusion of chrome and organic elements, inspired by the desert sunset and the beauty of a bold yet serene landscape,” per a press release.Thermal, Calif.
Neon CarnivalThe 14th year of the event founded by L.A. nightlife impresario Brent Bolthouse and produced by Jeffrey Best of Best Events will once again take place at the Desert International Horse Park and feature sets from Anderson .Paak‘s record-spinning persona, DJ Pee .Wee, as well as DJ Charly Jordan and Chase B & Friends. This year's topline sponsor is once again Patrón El Alto, whose handcrafted, prestige tequila cocktails will be served along with beverages from returning sponsors Ghost Energy, Nütrl Vodka Seltzers, LaCroix, and PathWater.10 p.m.
Zenyara Desert NightsGlobal experiential agency Corso Marketing Group (CMG) and underground nightlife tastemakers Framework have teamed up for their invite-only late-night festival series, with exclusive access driven by Dorsia and in collaboration with Tao Group Hospitality. Special guest to perform.Zenyara Estate
Zenyara Desert NightsGlobal experiential agency Corso Marketing Group (CMG) and underground nightlife tastemakers Framework have teamed up for their invite-only late-night festival series, with exclusive access driven by Dorsia and in collaboration with Tao Group Hospitality. Dixon b2b Jimi Jules, WHOMADEWHO, Yulia Niko, DESIREE, Sparrow & Barbossa will perform.Zenyara Estate
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We spend a large portion of our lives sleeping. That might seem like an evolutionary disadvantage, given sleep leaves us immobile and potentially vulnerable to attacks for hours on end — but evidence suggests we have many key physiological functions tied to sleep, and disruptions in sleep are linked to a wide range of health problems, including a higher risk of death.
What's more, as we sleep, we often dream. In this way, sleep unlocks an experience that we can't access during our waking hours.
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A newly released video shows a mysterious UFO spotted by the U.S. Navy off the coast of California, sparking fresh questions about unidentified aerial phenomena. Could this be proof of extraterrestrial technology?
A new video featuring an unidentified flying object (UFO) near the coast of California has sparked significant interest, adding fuel to the ongoing discussion around UAPs (unidentified aerial phenomena). The footage, which was reportedly recorded by a U.S. Navy ship in 2023, showcases a mysterious ‘tic-tac' shaped object, a term frequently used to describe peculiar UFOs with an elongated, oval shape.
The term ‘tic-tac' UFO has been used for years to describe certain sightings, particularly those reported by military personnel. These objects are typically described as having no wings or visible propulsion, making their movement appear almost otherworldly. According to NBC, the recently released video from the Navy ship adds another layer of intrigue to this ongoing phenomenon, as the object appears to move with extraordinary speed and precision, defying conventional aircraft characteristics.
Jeremy Corbell, a documentary filmmaker known for his work on UFOs and UAPs, was among those who discussed the new video. In an interview with NBC News' Gadi Schwartz, Corbell shed light on the significance of this sighting, emphasizing the ongoing mystery surrounding these aerial phenomena.
Corbell has previously worked on projects exploring military encounters with UAPs, and his insights continue to shape public understanding of these unexplained events.
The release of this video coincides with heightened governmental and military interest in UAPs. Over the past few years, the U.S. Department of Defense has declassified several videos and reports documenting encounters with unexplained aerial objects.
These investigations have led to a broader discussion about transparency, national security, and the need for further inquiry into these phenomena. In fact, Congress has recently held hearings on UAPs, where military officials provided testimony on their experiences and ongoing investigations.
The release of the new footage could play a pivotal role in shaping public perception of UFOs and UAPs. While many of these sightings have traditionally been dismissed as mere anomalies, the increasing number of credible reports from military personnel and government officials is slowly shifting the narrative. This video may serve as yet another step toward broader policy changes concerning the government's stance on UAP investigations.
#UFOx #UFOtwitter #UAP #NHI
NBC News –
New video of unidentified flying object recorded near California released.
Documentary filmmaker Jeremy Corbell spoke with NBC News' Gadi Schwartz about a new video of an unidentified tic tac object possibly recorded by a Navy ship near… pic.twitter.com/kBEXEGWruN
— wow (@wow36932525) April 9, 2025
The question remains: What exactly are these objects? Are they advanced military technology, extraterrestrial in nature, or something else entirely? The new video is part of a much larger puzzle that continues to captivate both experts and the general public alike. As more footage and reports surface, the mystery of UAPs grows, and so too does the curiosity surrounding their origin and purpose. With each new revelation, we edge closer to uncovering the truth behind these enigmatic sightings.
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Dutch darts player Michael van Gerwen hurt himself trying on shirts. Photo: Pieter Verbeek/BSR Agency/Getty Images
The bizarre injury that forced Michael van Gerwen to miss the most recent night of Premier League Darts action has now been revealed.
Three-time world champion Van Gerwen was due to face Gerwyn Price in his quarter-final on night nine in Berlin last Thursday but pulled out just minutes before the match got underway, with the Welshman given a bye straight to the semi-finals.
Remarkably, Stephen Bunting was ultimately victorious on the night, despite not having won a single match in the previous eight events, while Luke Littler is still in control at the top of the overall table.
And it has now come to light that Van Gerwen suffered a neck injury ahead of the event, which occurred in freak circumstances – namely when he was putting on a shirt.
"Michael hurt himself in the afternoon, it was really unfortunate," veteran darts player Vincent van der Voort, who is Van Gerwen's friend, told the Darts Draait Door podcast.
"He was trying on some shirts for his sponsor, and as soon as he put one on, he said something didn't feel right. He could barely move his neck.
“He went to a physiotherapist, had a massage, even took muscle relaxants. He gave it a go, but it just wasn't happening. We ended up going back to the hotel, packed up, and drove home. I was back home by 2am."
The injury went on to rule Van Gerwen out of the International Darts Open in Riesa and also dented his prospects of reaching the Premier League Play-Offs as he chases an all-important top-four spot.
The Dutchman is currently third in the table, just a point ahead of those chasing him, but he is fit to compete at night 10 in Manchester this evening, where he will hope to regain momentum.
He faces Chris Dobey in the quarter-finals, while local favourite Littler starts his quest for a fifth nightly win.
THIS is the eerie moment terrified Russians shoot at a mysterious "UFO helicopter" darting over Moscow.
The ominous drone was blasted by paranoid Russian air defences as they suffered a separate drone strike early on Thursday.
Sinister footage shows a strange rotating object spinning over the Moscow region.
It has a red centre and is surrounded by a spinning white circular shell.
Then in a dramatic scene, mad Vlad's air defence systems appear to blast towards the drone, attempting to take it out.
They clearly miss a lot of their shots, as the undamaged aircraft seemingly carries on.
The body appears to be separate from the rotating "wings", which are also emitting small particles in their path.
Some suspected the red and white spinning aircraft was one of Ukraine's "new helicopter-drones".
One war channel said the bizarre aircraft might be a "helicopter-type drone RZ-500 or something similar".
But the RZ-500 has a maximum range of 186 miles, which is not far enough to reach Moscow.
Russians were then mocked by several Ukrainian reports over the brazen volley of fire into the night sky over Naro-Forminsk.
One Ukrainian Military channel claimed the aircraft was a Russian helicopter.
The channel said: "Russian air defence near Moscow tried to take down its own helicopter, mistaking it for enemy UAV."
Another report claimed: "It's a helicopter, dumb**** - in the Moscow region they were hunting drones so hard that they almost shot down their own helicopter."
There were no reports of a helicopter or a drone being downed, nor damage from a drone explosion hitting a target.
Over Wednesday night, Russia shot down 48 Ukrainian drones headed towards Vladimir Putin's regime.
13 were downed over the Bryansk and Kursk region, while 12 were shot down over the Kaluga region.
Locals on Telegram said they witnessed drones approaching from the south-west of the city, and loud explosions were heard in Naro-Forminsk.
Some Ukrainian military aircraft circled the Moscow area for an extended period - consistently evading Russian air defence missiles.
Several of these aircraft managed to escape without any damage.
On Thursday Ukraine also stormed Putin's frontline as they invaded Russia again.
Ukrainian forces seized mad Vlad's land in the Belgorod region.
It comes after a Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow in March.
Drones blitzed Moscow in a massive assault, and struck a major Russian oil refinery.
And Ukraine swarmed Russia with drones in early March as Volodymyr Zelensky's negotiators were due to start talks with Donald Trump's team in Saudi Arabia.
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Floating Points, Ben UFO, Jamz Supernova, and more will perform at intimate London venue Fold to benefit the War Child charity on May 4. War Child Presents: The Right to Dance will also feature Isaac Carter, Love Remain, and other guests, with tickets available exclusively through a raffle system, starting at £10 per entry for a chance to win a pair of tickets. More entries increase your chances, and there are discounts for bulk entries. Buy your raffle tickets via Crowdfunder, with all proceeds benefitting War Child.
War Child is co-promoting the show with Eat Your Own Ears, with support from south London's Gala festival. The charity helps children around the world who are living in or fleeing conflict to “rebuild their lives, access education, and heal from trauma.”
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American military ships may have recorded fresh examples of ‘alien activity' — with newly released footage showing ‘tic-tac' shaped UFOs flying off the coast of California. The radar video was purportedly recorded by active duty naval officers in 2023 as they witnessed one of the unidentified flying objects with their own eyes.
“Personnel from the USS Jackson in the CIC (Combat Information Center) filmed them. One of the vehicles of unknown origin was observed exiting the water, transitioning directly into flight, demonstrating transmedium capability. No flight control surfaces or conventional propulsion signatures (heat plumes, exhaust) were detected. The UAPs executed an observed instantaneous, synchronized departure,” ufologist Jeremy Corbell wrote on X while sharing the clip.
According to the details shared on his podcast, the first of these “self-illuminated” UFOs was observed at night on February 13, 2023 by officials stationed on the USS Jackson. It was seen emerging from the Pacific Ocean and seamlessly transitioning into air-flight ‘without any plumes or exhaust signatures of conventional propulsion'. The Naval officer had subsequently rushed to track the anomalous object using forward-looking infrared radar.
The clip shared by Corbell showed several white cruciform signatures popping up on the radar interface as Naval operators tried to monitor the situation. Witnesses said that the four ‘tic-tac' forms eventually departed in an ‘instantaneous' and ‘synchronized' manner.
The US Pentagon had previously confirmed in 2021 that footage of unidentified aerial phenomena (a blinking triangular object in the sky as well as those categorised as sphere, acorn and metallic blimp) were legitimate and taken by Navy personnel. Later came the historic US congressional hearing on UFOs following claims that the government was concealing a longstanding programme that retrieves and reverse engineers UFOs. Three retired military veterans had testified during the widely-followed 2023 hearings — and even claimed that that the US had recovered non-human “biologics” from alleged crash sites.