Author: potus

President Donald Trump’s tariffs on the imports of steel and aluminium by the United States are sending shockwaves through global markets and escalating tensions with key trading partners, including Canada, Mexico and the European Union. Some countries are fighting back with retaliatory tariffs, others are seeking exemptions, and a few are trying to negotiate their way out of the 25 percent tariffs. So, who is escalating the trade war, who is trying to avoid it, and what does this mean for the industries that rely on these metals? Who supplies steel and aluminium to the US? Canada, Brazil, and Mexico…

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Lately it feels as if the human beings in Gaza are increasingly lost from our understanding. The physicality of their plight fades into the background, then creeps back. Hamas will cling to these 59 human beings it dragged from their home as bargaining chips, dead or alive — its only leverage. And the people of Gaza have themselves been caught for decades in that claustrophobic run of land.It may be futile to point this out during a war so thick with atrocities, but the deliberate starvation of civilians is a war crime, and so, too, is the taking of civilian…

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Starlink, Elon Musk’s satellite communications company, fought behind the scenes for months to break into India’s internet business. The market is dominated by two local giants, Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel, which seemed united in trying to keep Starlink out.Then, suddenly, this week each of them announced a partnership to bring Starlink into India, pending the government’s approval.Jio, a branch of India’s biggest corporation, said on Tuesday that it would team up with Starlink “to deliver reliable broadband services across the country, including in the most remote and rural regions.” Hours earlier, Airtel had celebrated a deal in similar terms.The…

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The Education Department’s civil rights branch is losing nearly half its staff in the Trump administration’s layoffs, effectively gutting an office that already faced a backlog of thousands of complaints from students and families across the nation.Among a total of more than 1,300 layoffs announced Tuesday were roughly 240 in the department’s Office for Civil Rights, according to a list obtained and verified by The Associated Press. Seven of the civil rights agency’s 12 regional offices were entirely laid off, including busy hubs in New York, Chicago and Dallas. Despite assurances that the department’s work will continue unaffected, huge numbers…

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Majority of Americans disapprove of Trump’s economic management amid stock market turmoil, polls show.United States President Donald Trump’s handling of the economy is facing growing pushback from Americans amid wild swings in the stock market and growing fears of a recession, new polling shows. In a CNN/SSRS poll released on Wednesday, 56 percent of respondents said they disapproved of Trump’s economic management – higher than at any point during his first term in office. The poll had better news for Trump on his other signature issue of immigration, with 51 percent of respondents expressing support for his strict enforcement policies.…

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Taipei, Taiwan – Until recently, Southeast Asia’s Mekong sub-region seemed to be on track to reach its goal of eliminating malaria by 2030. Named for the 4,900-kilometre (3,000-mile) river that runs from southwest China through Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, the area has long been afflicted by the mosquito-borne illness. From 2010 to 2023, the number of cases caused by the most common malaria parasite declined from nearly half a million to fewer than 248,000, according to the Global Fund, a United States government-funded organisation that is the world’s largest financier of programmes to prevent, treat and care for…

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The Binance logo is displayed on a screen in San Anselmo, California, June 6, 2023.Justin Sullivan | Getty ImagesEmirati state-owned investment firm MGX announced a $2 billion investment into Binance, in what marks the cryptocurrency exchange’s first institutional investment and the “single largest investment” ever paird in crypto.In a joint press release, the firms said the minority stake would be paid for in stablecoins, making it the “largest investment ever” paid in cryptocurrency. Stablecoins are a type of digital asset designed to hold a constant value, typically with a peg to a fiat currency. Abu Dhabi launched the MGX investment firm last year…

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Release of prisoners comes amid push by Trump administration to bring home US citizens jailed overseas.Kuwait has released a group of American prisoners, including veterans and military contractors jailed for years on drug-related charges, in a move seen as a gesture of goodwill between two allies, a representative for the detainees told The Associated Press news agency on Wednesday. The release follows a recent visit to the region by Adam Boehler, the Trump administration’s top hostage envoy, and comes amid a continued US government push to bring home American citizens jailed in foreign countries. Six of the newly freed prisoners were…

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The prime minister of Ireland, Micheal Martin, is the latest European leader to visit United States President Donald Trump during his second term in the White House. But the occasion was a markedly light-hearted one: to hold receptions and events in advance of St Patrick’s Day, a popular Irish holiday held each year on March 17. Still, Wednesday’s visit was clouded by many of the same looming issues that accompanied other European leaders to the White House, among them Russia’s war in Ukraine and the fate of the delicate ceasefire in Gaza. Trump took up much of the spotlight, holding…

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This photo illustration created Jan. 7, 2025, shows an image of Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, and an image of the Meta logo.Drew Angerer | Afp | Getty ImagesMeta is seeking to stop the promotion of a new memoir by a former staffer that paints the social media company in an unflattering light, including allegations of sexual harassment by the company’s policy chief. An emergency arbitrator ruled Thursday that Sarah Wynn-Williams is prohibited from promoting “Careless People,” her book that was released Tuesday by Flatiron Books, an imprint of publisher Macmillan Books.The memoir chronicles Wynn-Williams’ tenure at Facebook from 2011 through…

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