Month: May 2025

Fred Grandy, who has played the character Gopher on “The Love Boat” for nine years, confirmed that he is leaving the ABC series to run for Congress in his native Sioux City, Iowa.

Grandy, 37, said he will run as a Republican in the state’s sixth congressional district, where he once worked as a congressman’s aide prior to beginning his acting career.

“The Love Boat” already has completed filming of this season’s episodes, so Grandy will continue to be seen on new shows scheduled to air through the spring.

“I like people having options, it’s healthy,” Bellamy said.

“He’s not ready for our squad yet. It’s something he’d like to go and have a look at, but I like to think we have done our work as well.

“At the end the decision will be his. He knows where we are and where he is. He’s not ready for first-team football with us at this moment.

“It’s his decision. I’ve known him since he was very young and I know his family really well. Whatever he does will be the right thing for him, it’s not a problem.”

Canada boss Jesse Marsch has praised Biancheri and compared him to his highly rated Lille striker Jonathan David.

The former Leeds boss told Canadian reporters last week: “He’s a dynamic player. He’s very good around the goal. You can see he’s an intelligent player.

“He’s a version of Jonathan David. He’s not exactly the same player but he’s a striker that can play up on the backline and is also good at coming underneath and connecting plays and being part of the build-up phase.

“I’ve had good conversations with Gabe and his family. He has several options to think about in what country he wants to represent.

“I think it’s really important that the family feels the connection to Canada.”

US president says Harvard must ‘show us their list’ of foreign students to make sure they are not ‘troublemakers’.

United States President Donald Trump has intensified his dispute with Harvard University, saying the college should cap foreign enrolments and share information with the government about its international students.

“Harvard has to show us their lists. They have foreign students, almost 31 percent of their students. We want to know where those students come from. Are they troublemakers? What countries do they come from?” Trump told reporters at the White House on Wednesday. According to university enrolment data, foreign students make up 27 percent of Harvard’s student body.

“I think they should have a cap of maybe around 15 percent, not 31 percent,” Trump said, adding that he wants universities to accept “people who are going to love our country”.

The Trump administration has sought to pressure Harvard into compliance on a number of demands, including greater control over the university’s curricula, information about foreign students and further steps to crack down on pro-Palestine student activism, which the administration has characterised as anti-Semitic.

“Harvard has got to behave themselves. Harvard is treating our country with great disrespect, and all they’re doing is getting in deeper and deeper,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

The university has resisted what it says is an effort to erode its independence from the government and commitment to academic freedom.

The Trump administration has severed grants worth billions of dollars to Harvard and announced that it would revoke Harvard’s ability to enrol international students entirely. The Department of Homeland Security said that order was a response to Harvard “fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party”.

The university said in a statement at the time that the order was part of a “series of government actions to retaliate against Harvard for our refusal to surrender our academic independence and to submit to the federal government’s illegal assertion of control over our curriculum, our faculty, and our student body”.

The university swiftly challenged the order in court, and it was temporarily blocked by a judge on Friday.

Patricia McGuire, president of Trinity Washington University, said on Wednesday that Trump’s actions against foreign enrolment at US universities “makes no sense”.

“It’s so irrational because higher education is one of the top US exports to the world and the international students who come to this country enrich American universities immensely and take their knowledge back to all of their countries around the globe for the improvement of their countries and their populations,” McGuire told Al Jazeera from Washington, DC.

However, McGuire said Trump’s actions are consistent with “an administration that has literally snatched students off the street and taken them to detention centres”, referring to Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk, who was forcibly taken into custody by masked federal agents in broad daylight on a street near her Massachusetts home in March.

This month, a court ordered the release of the 30-year-old Turkish doctoral student from the custody of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

“This is, in my view, completely anti-American values, and I think many academics are horrified by the fact that students are now being censored for their viewpoints,” McGuire said.

With the recent pivot in US foreign policy regarding Europe and NATO, it has become clear that NATO’s European members need to ramp up spending on defense, and the time of relying on the US for defense in Europe is over. Many would argue that it’s well overdue, with Trump saying that NATO members should boost their defense spending to 5% of their GDP versus the traditional 2% target set by NATO. This target for NATO members was first set at the 2006 Riga summit; however, that target was reaffirmed and made more concrete in the 2014 Defence Investment Pledge at their summit in Wales, with only four members hitting the target that year. In 2024, those numbers were up, with NATO estimating 22 out of 32 would hit the target that year, so it’s clear defense spending in Europe is on the up. The Secretary-General of NATO, Mark Rutte, said, “We will need more time to consult amongst Allies what exactly the new level should be. But it is considerably more than 2%,” when asked about higher spending targets.

Inevitably, it will come down to the middle powers of NATO—France, Germany, Poland, and the UK—to step up to the plate and take over the leadership roles. Ultimately, this shift in responsibility will largely shape the alliance and Europe for years to come. But is this realistic, and what hurdles will the middle powers overcome to get there?

The US is the glue that holds NATO together.

Since NATO’s inception, the US has acted as the glue that keeps the alliance together, and it is evident from recent events just how crucial that role is. And it’s significantly more than just manpower/firepower, as you may expect.

The middle powers of NATO face a series of challenges ahead in their effort to step up and take over that role from the US. One of these challenges is the fact that the US plays a monumental role in the hierarchy of NATO’s various operational commands, with the US holding a lot of key roles within that structure that NATO, without the US, would not be able to operate certainly anywhere near as efficiently as it is currently run.

 The US also has an integral part to play in NATO’s capability for intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), with most of the capability that NATO has being US-supplied and run. An example of this occurred during Operation Unified Protector (Libya, 2011): the US provided an estimated 75% of ISR assets, enabling NATO to carry out precision strikes and monitor Gaddafi regime movements.

All of this is said without even touching the subject of the US’s missile defense and general man/firepower capabilities, with the European nations currently not having an equivalent.

Defense spending and capabilities

The only way the middle powers will be able to step into the US’s shoes and fill the role Washington has traditionally played is through an increase in defense spending, resulting in a significant boost to their military capabilities. However, this necessity presents several challenges of its own, so what does the current situation look like, and how will it develop?

France has consistently maintained a capable military and spent a good amount of their GDP on defense. Fluctuations in their defense budget have meant they’ve fallen short of the 2% goal set by NATO in previous years.

President Macron announced plans in early 2023 to vastly increase military spending, pledging to spend 413 billion euros on defense in 2024-2030, an increase of 118 billion euros compared to the previous period.

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, we have seen a vast increase in defense budgets across NATO, none perhaps more noticeable than in Germany, with Chancellor Olaf Scholz wanting to inject 100 billion euros into the German military (Bundeswehr) to increase military capability and readiness. With the German Federal Minister of Defence, Boris Pistorius, pledging to make the German military “the backbone of deterrence and collective defense in Europe.”

It would seem this shift in defense policy is here to stay, with both German parliaments recently voting in favor of another boost to military spending.

Nevertheless, it’s not all plain sailing for Germany. With recent recruitment numbers falling short of their targets, the Bundeswehr still faces personnel shortages. It’s clear that the intention is there, but there are still many practical challenges for them to overcome.

Poland has quickly become a key player within NATO, from having a humble military at the time of the 2014 annexation of Crimea by Russian forces to boasting the third-largest military within NATO, only behind that of the US and Turkey. Their armed forces have undergone a significant modernization program at this time, too.

This rapid modernization has meant Poland has fast become one of the leading defense powers within NATO, playing a crucial role in securing their eastern flank; they have also become one of NATO’s highest spenders on defense, spending an impressive 4.12% of their GDP.

The UK has consistently hit the 2% target set by NATO and, for the past four years, has even slightly exceeded this, with projects such as the Challenger 3 and the Boxer armored vehicle receiving around £5 billion in funding.

As with Germany, this isn’t without its challenges. The UK has faced significant setbacks in recruitment, with it being reported in November 2024 that the British armed forces had “consistently fallen short of recruitment targets over the past five years,” with some saying that the armed forces were losing 300 people a month more than they were recruiting.

It is also worth mentioning that France and the UK both possess nuclear capabilities, although the UK’s Trident missile system is US-supplied and maintained. Meanwhile, the French “Force de dissuasion” is fully independent.

Whilst it is undoubtable that the middle powers and Europe as a whole are taking defense spending a lot more seriously, and, for the first time since the Cold War, it is being seen as a priority, there is still a long way to go before NATO without the US taking a primary role could even be considered comparable to the NATO we have known up until now.

No natural leader

Other issues the middle powers face when trying to take over these roles are cooperation, coordination of efforts, and political and military leadership. To put it simply, NATO risks lacking unified leadership without the US. There is no obvious alternative to U.S. leadership within NATO. This means the alliance’s future leadership will depend entirely on the ability of European members to cooperate. Historically, however, that cooperation has been difficult. Europe is often divided by differing political ideologies, national interests, and unresolved disputes between member states. Countries frequently prioritize their own agendas, making it hard to reach collective decisions. A key example of this is the long-standing tension between Turkey and Greece—both NATO members, yet frequently at odds due to their history of conflict and territorial disputes. There is also the issue of the European Union and NATO often failing to cooperate, causing frequent internal strife on key issues such as the situation with Turkey and Cyprus.

Nevertheless, there are recent examples of political cohesion, such as the UK stating it would back the potential incoming German chancellor Friedrich Merz in sending Taurus missiles to Ukraine come across more as a patchwork than cohesive leadership. Most of the middle powers appear to focus on strengthening their own national capabilities rather than fostering cohesion and building multinational capacity. The result is a fragmented and disorganized approach—unsurprising, given that NATO is fundamentally an alliance of countries with a long history of rivalry and conflict. However, one should never underestimate the power of an external threat in uniting nations and giving them a common enemy, and Russia certainly seems to be doing just that.

NATO going forward

What does all this mean going forward? Across the board, especially amongst the middle powers of NATO, the intention to take a more active role in defense is there. Generally, NATO isn’t in a terrible position, and the desire for collective defense amongst member states has become paramount.

That said, the alliance still faces significant challenges ahead, especially when it comes to leadership; the US has long been the force that bridged the gap where the European members fell short. The US shifting its focus away from Europe has undoubtedly had a profound effect. It was perhaps not until this happened that it became clear just how much NATO relied on Washington for political direction, and whilst it is entirely possible for the middle powers to collectively take over that role, presently, that reality seems distant. Reaching that reality will be far from an overnight process. With Europe’s attention firmly focused on the war in Ukraine, many argue that the clock is already ticking, bringing the prospect of a conflict with Russia closer to reality.

Simon Calder was speaking on ITV’s This Morning as he discussed different destinations for Brits to consider over summer – and one place stood out in particular for value

Travel expert Simon Calder has revealed the ultimate cost-effective hotspot for sun-seekers looking for a bargain break, tipping Bulgaria as a top budget-friendly summer destination. Simon waxed lyrical about the beauty spot, emphasising that savvy travellers can bask in all-inclusive luxury while enjoying prices reminiscent of a bygone era. “Bulgaria. It’s a great, great destination. Cheap as chips,” he raved.

“This is an all-inclusive favourite. Great long beaches and prices which are kind of out of the 1980s.” Reassuring that Bulgaria offers tremendous value, he said that it’s roughly a third of the cost compared to a holiday in Italy, with just a slight language challenge thrown into the mix.

READ MORE: Natalie Portman’s makeup artist takes anti-ageing gadget ‘on every job’ to shrink wrinkles

“It’s really cheap when you get there,” Simon declared. “So whatever you want, whatever you’d be spending in Italy for instance, you just divide it by three and that’s what you’d pay in Bulgaria.

“You’ve got to master the Cyrillic alphabet though. Back to front Rs and all that but it’s a three hour flight so just do that on the plane.”

According to Muveone, a pint of local beer in Bulgaria will only cost you around 3.00 BGN, which is roughly £1.50. The country offers popular destinations such as Burgas, a city on the Black Sea Coast.

It boasts stunning beaches and is just a short distance from the lively Sunny Beach – a favourite amongst young Brits. Visitors can also explore the city’s Sea Gardens, home to a vast array of sea plants from across the globe, designed by landscape artist Georgi Duhtev.

Alternatively, head to Lake Atanasovsko for a relaxing dip in its black mud pools for a natural yet luxurious spa experience.

Further south of Burgas lies the ancient seaside town of Sozopol. Here, the Old Town provides a glimpse into local history and the tranquil Kavatsite Beach.

Sozopol offers breathtaking views of the Black Sea, and tourists can take a boat trip to St Ivan Island to spot monk seals and birds.

A MAJOR car brand is reportedly looking to raise £5billion including a loan guaranteed by the UK government after axing 20,000 jobs.

Cash-strapped Nissan, Japan’s third-largest carmaker, is already facing £4billion in losses – its worst annual loss in a quarter century.

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But now, the company are said to be considering raising more than 1 trillion yen – just over £5 billion – from debt and asset sales in a bid to prop up Nissan.

The struggling Japanese automaker plans to issue as much as 630 billion yen in convertible securities and bonds, including high-yielding US dollar and euro notes, according to Bloomberg News.

The move would also include a £1billion syndicated loan guaranteed by the British government, the documents show.

Sale-and-lease-back plans for its Yokohama headquarters, plus properties it owns in the United States, are also reportedly on the cards.

The aggressive fundraising plans underscore Nissan’s rapidly deteriorating financial and operational position, despite efforts by newly appointed chief executive Ivan Espinosa to turn the company around.

In addition, Nissan is reportedly seeking to sell part of the stakes it owns in Renault and battery maker AESC Group, as well as plants in South Africa and Mexico.

Bloomberg News cited sources as saying Nissan’s board did not appear to have approved the funding proposal yet, leaving it unclear whether it would happen.

The proposal was also slated to include the rollover of some debt, the report said.

A Nissan representative said the company does not comment on speculation.

It comes after Nissan said they could part ways with its global headquarters in Yokohama, Japan, to fund the company’s urgent restructuring plan.

After having moved to the 22-story high-rise in 2009, the car manufacturer is now facing mountains of debt and is on track to cut 20,000 jobs, shut several of its plants and slash billions in costs.

With a glitzy gallery, the flashy headquarters can showcase more than thirty motors and stands in stark contrast to their previous offices.

The company have said that part of their plan has called for reviewing assets that can be sold in a desperate bid to pay for the restructuring.

With its own headquarters in sight, thought to be worth approximately £500 million, Nissan would structure a deal so it could continue to use the site through a lease so its offices and operations remain in place.

A company spokesperson said: “Nissan is considering all possibilities to recover its business performance, but there are no specifics to share at this point of time.”

The move is not unprecedented, however, with McLaren doing something similar with its HQ in Woking in recent years.

Nissan confirmed in April that it was anticipating losses of up to £4 billion, its worst annual loss in a quarter century.

Nissan is also planning to close seven factories by 2027, including two domestic sites which are thought to be the Oppama and Shonan plants, saving £2.6 billion in the process.

There have also been reports of downsizing or a partial sale of its Tochigi assembly plan and test centre facility north of Tokyo which was recently equipped with manufacturing technologies to assemble electric vehicles.

To underline the dire financial situation, the motor company is even halting the development of certain models to cut its expenses.

While the car company has been hit hard by the effects of Donald Trump’s tariff war, Nissan’s new CEO, Ivan Espinosa, has admitted the company’s financial trouble started a decade ago.

He said: “This is not something that happened in the last couple of years.

“It’s more of a fundamental problem that probably started back in 2015, when management thought this company could reach [annual global vehicle sales] of around eight million.

“There were heavy investments both in terms of planned capacity as well as in human resources, but the reality today is we are running at around half that volume. And nobody did anything to fix that until now.”

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WASHINGTON — A Starship spun out of control in suborbital flight on Tuesday, failing to meet critical testing goals set by SpaceX in its plans for a mission to Mars. A poll released last week showed the national brand reputation for Tesla, once revered, had cratered. And later that same day, House Republicans passed a bill that would balloon the federal deficit.

It has been a challenging period for Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who not long ago thought he had conquered the private sector and could, in short order, do the same with the federal government. That all ended Wednesday evening with his announcement he is leaving the Trump administration.

“As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President @realDonaldTrump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending,” Musk wrote on X, his social media platform.

The mission of the program he called the Department of Government Efficiency “will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government,” he added.

Musk’s departure comes on the heels of a ruling from a federal judge in Washington on Wednesday questioning Musk’s initial appointment as a temporary government employee and, by extension, whether any of his work for DOGE was constitutional.

“I thought there were problems,” Musk said in a recent interview with the Washington Post, “but it sure is an uphill battle trying to improve things in D.C., to say the least.”

Growing conflicts with Trump

Musk’s role as an omnipresent advisor to President Trump began to wane weeks ago, amid public backlash against DOGE’s cuts to treasured government programs — from cancer research to the National Park Service — and after Trump bucked Musk’s counsel on economic policy, launching a global trade war that jolted supply chains and financial markets.

But the entrepreneur has grown increasingly vocal with criticism of the Trump administration this week, stating that a megabill pushed by the White House proposing an overhaul to the tax code risks undermining his efforts to cut government spending.

Musk responded to a user on X, his social media platform, on Monday lamenting that House Republicans “won’t vote” to codify DOGE’s cuts. “Did my best,” he wrote.

“I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not decrease it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,” Musk explained further in an interview with “CBS Sunday Morning” later in the week. “I think a bill can be big, or it can be beautiful, but I don’t know if it can be both. My personal opinion.”

The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” would increase border security and defense spending, renew tax cuts passed in 2017 and extend a new tax deduction to seniors, while eliminating green energy tax benefits and cutting $1 trillion in funding to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Despite the cuts, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the bill would add so much money to the debt that Congress may be forced to execute cuts across the board, including hundreds of billions to Medicare, in a process known as sequestration.

Hours after the CBS interview aired, the White House appeared to respond directly to Musk with the release of a press release titled “FACT: One, Big, Beautiful Bill Cuts Spending, Fuels Growth.” And Trump responded directly from the Oval Office, noting Democratic opposition and the challenges of unifying a fractious GOP caucus. Negotiations with the Senate will result in changes to the legislation, Trump said.

“My reaction’s a lot of things,” Trump said. “I’m not happy about certain aspects of it, but I’m thrilled by other aspects of it.”

“That’s the way they go,” he added. “It’s very big. It’s the big, beautiful bill.”

Cuts in question

It is unclear whether Musk succeeded in making the government more efficient, regardless of what Congress does.

While the DOGE program originally set a goal of cutting $2 trillion in federal spending, Musk ultimately revised that target down dramatically, to $150 billion. The program’s “wall of receipts” claims that $175 billion has been saved, but the Treasury Department’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service has documented an increase in spending over last year.

“DOGE is just becoming the whipping boy for everything,” Musk said in the Post interview this week. “So, like, something bad would happen anywhere, and we would get blamed for it even if we had nothing to do with it.”

Musk had been brought into the Trump administration designated as a special government employee, a position limited to 130 days that does not require Senate approval.

But the legal case making its way through the Washington courtroom of U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan is questioning the entire arrangement.

The White House attempted to “minimize Musk’s role, framing him as a mere advisor without any formal authority,” Chutkan wrote, while granting him broad powers that gave him “unauthorized access” to “private and proprietary information,” like Social Security numbers and medical records. Those actions, Chutkan added, provide the basis for parties to claim Musk inflicted substantial injury in a legal challenge.

‘I think I’ve done enough’

Musk was scheduled to speak on Tuesday after SpaceX’s Starship test launch, setting out the road ahead to “making life multiplanetary.” But he never appeared after the spacecraft failed early on in its planned trajectory to orbit Earth.

The SpaceX Starship rocket is launched Tuesday in Texas. It later disintegrated over the Indian Ocean, officials said.

(Sergio Flores / AFP / Getty Images)

Starship is supposed to be the vehicle that returns Americans to the moon in just two years. NASA, in conjunction with U.S. private sector companies, is in a close race with China to return humans to the moon for the first time since the end of the Apollo program.

But none of Musk’s endeavors has suffered more than his electric car company, Tesla, which saw a 71% plunge in profits in the first quarter of 2025 and a 50% drop in stock value from its highs in December. An Axios Harris Poll released last week found that Tesla dropped in its reputation ranking of America’s 100 most visible companies to 95th place, down from eighth in 2021 and 63rd last year.

The reputational damage to Tesla, setbacks at SpaceX and limits to his influence on Trump appear to be cautioning Musk to step back from his political activity.

“I think in terms of political spending, I’m going to do a lot less in the future,” Musk told Bloomberg News on May 20, during the Qatar Economic Forum. “I think I’ve done enough.”

What else you should be reading

The must-read: 217 days and counting: Trump’s rules slow the release of migrant children to their families
The deep dive: Villaraigosa, despite climate credentials, pivots toward oil industry in run for governor
The L.A. Times Special: Supreme Court clears way for massive copper mine on Apache sacred land

More to come,
Michael Wilner

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A WNBA investigation was unable to substantiate a “report of racist fan behavior in the vicinity of the court” during a game between the Chicago Sky and Indiana Fever on May 17 in Indianapolis.

The investigation reportedly was started in response to allegations that a fan had made racist comments toward Sky star Angel Reese. It remains unclear as to who made the allegations.

“Based on information gathered to date, including from relevant fans, team and arena staff, as well as audio and video review of the game, we have not substantiated it,” the league said Tuesday in a statement. “The WNBA is committed to fostering a safe and inclusive environment for everyone and will continue to be vigilant in enforcing our fan code of conduct.”

Reese remained reticent about the situation. The second-year player responded that she was “focused on the game today” when asked about the league’s findings before the Sky’s game Tuesday night in Phoenix. Reese said she was more concerned with helping her team achieve its first win of the season.

Chicago coach Tyler Marsh said he felt the same way before Tuesday’s game.

“We appreciate the investigation being done and we hope that the league continues to make the steps necessary moving forward to ensure a safe environment for everyone, all players included,” he said. “But tonight, the focus is on the game.”

The Sky ended up losing to the Mercury 94-89 to drop to 0-4 this season, but Reese made WNBA history by becoming the player to reach 500 points and 500 rebounds the fastest. She finished the game with 13 points and 15 rebounds to bring her totals in both categories to 502 after 38 career games.

The season-opening game on May 17 was the latest marquee matchup between Reese and Fever star Caitlin Clark. During the third quarter, Reese appeared upset after Clark committed a flagrant 1 foul on her. After the game, however, Reese referred to Clark’s foul as a “basketball play” and added that the ‘‘refs got it right.”

Clark said after the game that she “wasn’t trying to do anything malicious.”

The WNBA announced its investigation the next day, on May 18.

“The WNBA strongly condemns racism, hate and discrimination in all forms — they have no place in our league or in society,” the league’s statement read. “We are aware of the allegations and are looking into the matter.”

The Women’s National Basketball Players Assn. said in a statement the same day, specifying that the league was investigating “hateful comments” allegedly made at the Fever-Sky game. Multiple media outlets added detail, reporting that the alleged comments were racial and directed at Reese.

May 28 (UPI) — A three-judge panel on Wednesday struck down President Donald Trump‘s unilateral tariffs, including 10% imposed on most U.S. trading partners, calling them “contrary to law.”

Despite several lawsuits filed in different courts, this is the first time a federal court has blocked them.

The New York-based Court of International Trade, in a 49-page opinion, said the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not give him the “unlimited” power to levy across-the-board tariffs.

The Trump administration can appeal the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and, ultimately, the Supreme Court.

White House spokesperson Kush Desai said the U.S. trade deficits with other countries have “created a national emergency that has decimated American communities.”

“It is not for unelected judges to decide how to properly address a national emergency. President Trump pledged to put America First, and the Administration is committed to using every lever of executive power to address this crisis and restore American Greatness,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement to CBS News.

The judges’ decision was based on two cases brought by a group of small businesses and 12 Democratic state attorneys general.

The judges were appointed by three presidents: Gary Katzmann by Barack Obama, Timothy Reif by Donald Trump and Jane Restani by Ronald Reagan.

“The President’s assertion of tariff-making authority in the instant case, unbounded as it is by any limitation in duration or scope, exceeds any tariff authority delegated to the President under IEEPA,” the judge wrote. “The Worldwide and Retaliatory tariffs are thus ultra vires and contrary to law.”

Separate tariffs against China, Canada and Mexico “do not deal with the threats set forth in those orders,” the court also found. These went into effect on March 4.

Trump imposed a 25% tariff against Canadian and Mexican goods, except for items compliant with the United States-Mexico-Canada, and 10% for energy and potash from the U.S. northern neighbor. China was hit with a 30% tariff.

The 10% duties went into effect on April 5.

The president has the right to impose tariffs, based on a 1970s court decision involving the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, which preceded the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

The judges said the president’s tariffs do not meet the limited condition of an “unusual and extraordinary threat” that would allow him to act alone without approval by Congress.

“Because of the Constitution’s express allocation of the tariff power to Congress, we do not read IEEPA to delegate an unbounded tariff authority to the President,” they wrote. “We instead read IEEPA’s provisions to impose meaningful limits on any such authority it confers,” the ruling said.

Earlier this month, T. Kent Wetherell II, a district judge in Florida nominated by Trump, said the president has the authority on his own to impose tariffs, but opted to transfer the case to the Court of International Trade.

Several lawsuits have been filed since Trump announced the tariffs on April 2 as “Liberation Day.”

Trump also announced on April 2 plans for harsher tariffs against the so-called worst offenders but one week later he paused them for 90 days until July. They include ones against America’s greatest allies: 26% against India, 25% against South Korea, 24% against Japan and 20% against the 27 members of the European Union.

Trump also had announced a 125% tariff on top of 30% against China but he suspended that. He also excluded tariffs on electronic products in China but last week threatened a 25% one on Apple products not made in the United States.

Last week Trump suggested 50% tariffs on the EU by June but paused them until July 9 on Sunday.

The tariffs have rattled U.S. stocks.

Gaza has been under total blockade by Israel for nearly three months.

Aid agencies have been stopped from delivering the most basic of supplies, leaving 2.3 million people starving.

Now, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is delivering food packages, but it is backed by Israel and the US. Its first attempt turned into chaos.

The foundation has also faced strong criticism from the UN and other aid agencies. They say it does not follow humanitarian principles and appears to be “weaponising” aid.

So why has Israel decided to let in some aid, yet only under an agency it backs?

Presenter:

Folly Bah Thibault

Guests:

Chris Gunness – Former director of communications for UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees

Amjad Shawa – Director of the Palestinian NGOs Network

Eyal Weizman – Director of the research agency Forensic Architecture at Goldsmiths at the University of London; author of The Least of All Possible Evils: Humanitarian Violence from Arendt to Gaza

Will Hoda Kotb replace Kelly Clarkson as a talk-show host, giving rise to “Hoda in the Afternoon”? The retired morning-show anchor quickly shut down that rumor Wednesday when she popped back up on “Today” for the first time since her January departure from the show.

“Do y’all think — I want to ask y’all a real question — do you think, if I ever came back to TV, do you know where the only place I would ever come back to is?” Kotb asked her former colleagues after replacement co-host Craig Melvin inquired about that rumor. “Right here. This is the spot.”

“Delete, not true,” she said of the Clarkson rumor.

Something that is true? Kotb revealed that she left “Today” in part to take care of 6-year-old daughter Hope, who was diagnosed about two years ago with Type 1 diabetes. Previously known as juvenile diabetes because it’s most often diagnosed in childhood, the autoimmune disorder can occur in adults as well.

Hope’s health issues arose more than two years ago, she said. Now the child has to use synthetic insulin regularly to stay well, since her condition prevents insulin production by her pancreas.

“As anyone with a child who has Type 1 [knows], especially a little kid, you’re constantly watching, you’re constantly monitoring, you’re constantly checking, which is what I did all the time when I was [at ‘Today’],” she told Melvin and Savannah Guthrie. “You’re distracted.”

Hope, however, is just like “every other kid” except for about five minute at breakfast, lunch, dinner and sometimes overnight, Kotb said.

But being there for her daughter had become nonnegotiable, she told People in a story published Wednesday, so “Today” had to become part of yesterday. No more alarms going off at 3:15 a.m. every morning.

Now she sleeps in until 4:30 a.m. She also just launched a new wellness venture, Joy 101. But her children remain her focus.

“I really wanted to and needed to be here to watch over [Hope]. So, whenever she needs anything, and it can happen at night, multiple times, I’m up — I’m up up up,” she said.

“But I would never, ever want Hope to one day grow up and say, ‘Oh, my mom left her job because [of me].’ It wasn’t that alone. But if you look at it cumulatively, it was a part of that decision.”

Kotb, 60, and ex-fiancé Joel Schiffman adopted Hope in 2019 and sister Haley in 2017. The couple split up in 2022 but remain friends and co-parents.

Hope, Kotb told People, “is a happy, healthy, rambunctious, amazing kid, and we have to watch her. Diabetes is a part of her, but not all of her. I hope it shapes her but never defines her.”

BREAKINGBREAKING,

Musk announced the news on X, where he declared his controversial government cost-cutting measures a victory.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk has announced that he is leaving the administration of United States President Donald Trump, where he led a months-long project to cut costs in the federal government.

“As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President @realDonaldTrump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending,” he wrote on the social media platform on Wednesday evening.

“The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government,” Musk said, referring to the Department of Government Efficiency, which he was a top figure in.

An unnamed White House official confirmed the news with the Associated Press.

Musk’s departure comes just days after he publicly expressed concerns about Trump’s flagship “big, beautiful bill”– a 1,000-page piece of legislation that extends the president’s 2017 tax cuts while adding work requirements for food assistance and Medicaid.

The bill also allocates spending for some of Trump’s signature projects, like building a wall between the US and Mexico and raising funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The “big, beautiful bill” passed in the House of Representatives last week and will next be discussed by the Senate.

As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President @realDonaldTrump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending.

The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 29, 2025

“I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,” Musk told the news programme CBS Sunday Morning, using an acronym for the “Department of Government Efficiency.”

The billionaire joined the Trump Administration in January with the promise of slashing at least $1tril from the US federal budget, although the DOGE website shows that it has only achieved around $175bn in savings, or $1,088.96 per US taxpayer.

If passed in its current format, Trump’s spending bill would cancel out DOGE’s work because it is expected to raise the US deficit by $3.9tril by 2034, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

“I think a bill can be big, or it can be beautiful, but I don’t know if it can be both. My personal opinion,” Musk told CBS.

DONALD Trump’s sweeping global tariffs are now at risk after a court has said he doesn’t have the power to impose the levies himself.

A US federal court in New York on Wednesday blocked most of the import taxes from going into effect, ruling that the president had overstepped his authority.

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The Court of International Trade ruling is a big setback for Trump, who has sought to reshape global trade and put America first by using its economic heft to cut deals.

Trump has started a global trade war with nearly every country by instituting a minimum 10 per tariff on their exports into the US.

He also slapped a 25 per cent tariff on Mexico and Canada, saying he needed to levies to stop the flow of illegal immigrants and the horror drug Fentanyl.

The court’s order could spell an end to Trump’s international trade war as it bars Trump’s most sweeping tariffs, effectively erasing most of the trade restrictions Trump has announced since taking office.

But Trump is likely to appeal and take the fight all the way to the Supreme Court.

White House spokesman Kush Desai said: “Foreign countries’ nonreciprocal treatment of the Unites States has fueled America’s historic and persistent trade deficits.

“These deficits have created a national emergency that has decimated American communities, left our workers behind, and weakened our defense industrial base – facts that the court did not dispute.

“It is not for unelected judges to decide how to properly address a national emergency. President Trump pledged to put America First, and the Administration is committed to using every lever of executive power to address this crisis and restore American Greatness.”

The ruling does not state that tariffs themselves are illegal, but that the executive branch does not have the authority to impose them without Congress.

The president used a 1977 federal economic emergency law to justify a range of levies.

The three-judge panel wrote in an unsigned opinion: “The question in the two cases before the court is whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (“IEEPA”) delegates these powers to the president in the form of authority to impose unlimited tariffs on goods from nearly every country in the world.

“The court does not read IEEPA to confer such unbounded authority and sets aside the challenged tariffs imposed thereunder.”

One of Trump’s key aides, Stephen Miller, attacked the ruling in a post on social media saying: “The judicial coup is out of control.”

Trump memorably held up a board showing rates he was about to set individual trading partners in the White House’s Rose Garden when he announced the tariffs as part of a “liberation day”.

China was clobbered with 34 per cent tariffs, Vietnam 46 per cent, Thailand 36 per cent and Cambodia 49 per cent.

Tariffs on China were eventually increased to a whopping 145 per cent as Trump sought to begin negotiations.

The ten per cent on Britain was at the bottom of the sliding scale devised by Trump’s officials.

Markets were thrown into turmoil but calmed after he paused the larger tariffs for 90 days.

He also suspended some of the higher duties pending negotiations with individual countries and blocs.

Britain has signed a new trade deal with Trump following the imposition of the tariffs – how that will be affected is not yet clear.

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WASHINGTON — Dressed in a pink pullover, the 17-year-old girl rested her head in her hands, weighing her bleak options from the empty room of a shelter in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

During a video call into an immigration courtroom in Manhattan, she listened as a lawyer explained to a judge how new regulations imposed by President Trump’s administration — for DNA testing, income verification and more — have hobbled efforts to reunite with her parents in the U.S. for more than 70 days.

As the administration’s aggressive efforts to curtail migration have taken shape, including unparalleled removals of men to prisons in other countries, migrant children are being separated for long periods from the relatives they had hoped to live with after crossing into the U.S.

Under the Trump rules, migrant children have stayed in shelters an average of 217 days before being released to family members, according to new data from the Health and Human Services Department’s Office of Refugee Resettlement. During the Biden administration, migrant children spent an average of 35 days in shelters before being released to relatives.

“Collectively, these policy changes have resulted in children across the country being separated from their loving families, while the government denies their release, unnecessarily prolonging their detention,” lawyers for the National Center for Youth Law argued in court documents submitted May 8.

The Trump administration, however, has argued that the new rules will ensure the children are put in safe homes and prevent traffickers from illegally bringing children into the country.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Health secretary, told lawmakers in Congress this month: “Nobody gets a kid without showing that they are a family member.”

The family situation for the 17-year-old, and her 14-year-old brother who came with her from the Dominican Republic, is complicated. Their parents, who were living apart, were already in the U.S. Their children were trying to reunite with them to leave behind a problematic living situation with a stepmother in their home country.

After 70 days in detention, the teen girl seemed to wonder if she would ever get back to her mother or father in the U.S. If she agreed to leave America, she asked the judge, how quickly would she be sent back to her home country?

“Pretty soon,” the judge said, before adding: “It doesn’t feel nice to be in that shelter all the time.”

The siblings, whom the Associated Press agreed not to identify at the request of their mother and because they are minors, are not alone. Thousands of children have made the trek from Guatemala, Haiti, Mexico and other countries, often alone on the promise of settling with a family member already in the U.S.

They’ve faced longer waits in federal custody as officials perform DNA testing, verify family members’ incomes and inspect homes before releasing the children. The new rules also require adults who sponsor children to provide U.S.-issued identification.

The federal government released only 45 children to sponsors last month, even as more than 2,200 children remained in custody.

Child stays in shelter as Trump requires DNA testing

Under the Biden administration, officials tried to release children to eligible adult sponsors within 30 days, reuniting many families quickly. But the approach also yielded errors, with some children being released to adults who forced them to work illegally, or to people who provided clearly false identification and addresses.

Trump’s Republican administration has said its requirements will prevent children from being placed in homes where they may be at risk for abuse or exploited for child labor. Officials are conducting a review of 65,000 “notices of concerns” that were submitted to the federal government involving thousands of children who have been placed with adult sponsors since 2023.

Already, the Justice Department indicted a man on allegations he enticed a 14-year-old girl to travel from Guatemala to the U.S., then falsely claimed she was his sister to gain custody as her sponsor.

DNA testing and ID requirements for child protection are taking time

Immigration advocacy groups have sued the Trump administration seeking to block the more rigorous requirements on behalf of parents and adult siblings who are waiting to bring migrant children into their homes.

“We have a lot of children stuck … simply because they are awaiting DNA testing,” immigration lawyer Tatine Darker, of Church World Service, told the Manhattan judge as she sat next to the Dominican girl.

Five other children appeared in court that day from shelters in New York and New England, all saying they experienced delays in being released to their relatives.

The Trump administration’s latest guidance on DNA testing says the process generally takes at least two weeks, when accounting for case review and shipping results.

But some relatives have waited a month or longer just to get a test, said Molly Chew, a legal aide at Vecina. The organization is ending its work supporting guardians in reunification because of federal funding cuts and other legal and political challenges to juvenile immigration programs. DNA Diagnostics Centers, which is conducting the tests for the federal government, did not respond to a request for comment.

Plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit filed by the National Center for Youth Law have also cataloged long wait times and slow DNA results. One mother in Florida said she had been waiting at least a month just to get a DNA appointment, according to testimony submitted to the court.

Another mother waited three weeks for results. But by the time those came through in April, the Trump administration had introduced a new rule that required her to provide pay stubs she doesn’t have. She filed bank statements instead. Her children were released 10 weeks after her application was submitted, according to court documents filed Tuesday.

Many parents living in the U.S. without work authorization do not have income documents or U.S. identification documents, such as visas or driver’s licenses.

The siblings being held at the Poughkeepsie shelter are in that conundrum, said Darker, the New York immigration lawyer. They crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in March with their 25-year-old sister and her children, who were quickly deported.

Their mother said she moved to New Jersey a few years ago to earn money to support them. She couldn’t meet the new income reporting requirements. Their father, also from the Dominican Republic, lives in Boston and agreed to take them. But the DNA testing process has taken weeks. The AP could not reach him for comment.

She said her children are downcast and now simply want to return to the Dominican Republic.

“My children are going to return because they can’t take it anymore,” the mother said in Spanish. She noted that her children will have been in the shelter three months on Sunday.

Attanasio and Seitz write for the Associated Press.

No one needed this moment more than Chelsea striker Nicolas Jackson.

Before the match, even Maresca said Jackson owed a “debt” to his team-mates after getting sent off in the 2-0 defeat at Newcastle on 11 May, a red card that could well have cost Chelsea qualification for the Champions League.

After the match, Maresca said “this is the Nico that the team needs”.

He is among those who have struggled to convince the Stamford Bridge fanbase – and the club are looking to sign a striker, with Ipswich Town’s Liam Delap among their targets.

However, in that regard, the Senegal international is just like the head coach and the owners, who have all banked credit by winning a trophy.

For Maresca, this was his chance to show the club could build a winning mentality after a season during which he has faced criticism for his style of football and a run of poor results over the winter.

For the US consortium, their ownership was tarnished by 1,201 days without silverware but the moment captain Reece James lifted the Conference League trophy, the first in his captaincy, they earned valuable breathing room.

Boehly was the first to go and celebrate with the team, followed reluctantly by influential Clearlake Capital duo Behdad Eghbali and Jose Feliciano.

Boehly and Clearlake have not always seen eye-to-eye this season but this is a period of relative stability after the club decided they would stick with Maresca regardless of the result of their last two matches of the season.

Chelsea beat Nottingham Forest to qualify for the Champions League and won against Betis to add silverware.

But Chelsea didn’t sell out their allocation in Poland, for what was the final of European club football’s third-tier competition, and fans will quickly move on if it is not backed up with both progress and further success next season.

Maresca told TNT after the match: “I feel good – but also the fans, they deserve that. They have been waiting a few years for that so they deserve it.

“The club have invested a lot of money in the last two, three years so they are also waiting for results. Hopefully this can be a starting point. From tonight, from this season, building something important.”

Substitute Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall said: “There’s a lot more to come from me. Getting a taste of silverware makes you more hungry.”