“A deal to spin off the U.S. assets of TikTok was put on hold after China indicated it would not approve the deal following President Donald Trump’s tariffs announcement this week, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Trump on Friday extended by 75 days a deadline for ByteDance to sell U.S. assets of the popular short video app to a non-Chinese buyer, or face a ban that was supposed to have taken effect in January under a 2024 law.”
‘Trump is post-literate, meaning he can use social media, but doesn’t read books. He doesn’t understand the origin, history, and nature of the Western alliance because he hasn’t taken the time to understand it. That would require reading.’
Trump doesn’t understand complex global supply chains.
““I’ve been talking about it for 40 years, because I saw what was happening,” he said, referencing old interviews from when he was “young, very handsome.”
“I’d be talking about how we were being ripped off by these countries,” he continued. “I mean, nothing changes very much. The only thing to change was the countries, but nothing really changes.””
“The list of 185 places hit Wednesday with a minimum 10 percent tariff include Heard Island and the McDonald Islands, Australian territories in the vast Indian Ocean between Africa and Antarctica.
Also on the list are tiny Norfolk Island in the South Pacific and an uninhabited spot in the Arctic Ocean called Jan Mayen, part of a Norwegian territory with the islands of Svalbard near the North Pole.
It’s all led to some head-scratching around the world as leaders digest Trump’s effort to punish countries that he says have taken advantage of U.S. trade policy to steal American jobs.”
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“The country that received the most severe tariffs, Lesotho, is one that “nobody had ever heard of,” according to Trump. The White House list said the landlocked African kingdom has its own tariffs of 99 percent — and thus will face a 50 percent penalty from the U.S.”
“Experts say they see peaks and valleys with these kinds of illnesses over the years, but there have been about 6,600 cases already in 2025, almost four times the number at this point last year.”
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“Concerned about increasing cases, experts are urging vaccination.
The US had more than 200,000 cases of whooping cough every year before the vaccine was introduced. By 1948, the vaccine was widely used, and infection rates began to drop.”
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“Boosters are recommended because protection from the vaccine can fade over time, which may be one reason for the ongoing outbreaks.
Declining vaccination rates are another reason. The percentage of US kindergartners who received the DTaP vaccine has steadily declined over the past five years, leaving thousands vulnerable to infection.
Organizers within the state say that although many people have become hesitant about vaccinations, another issue is a lack of access.”
“President Donald Trump has fired several White House National Security Council officials after he was urged by far-right activist Laura Loomer to purge staffers she deemed insufficiently loyal to his “Make America Great Again” agenda, several people familiar with the matter said Thursday.”
“A third major law firm has reached an agreement with the Trump administration to escape a punishing executive order that would cost it government business.
Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, which has more than 1,200 attorneys, will provide at least $100 million in legal services to causes favored by the White House and end diversity programs under terms of a deal President Donald Trump announced Tuesday on social media.”
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“Trump has deployed executive orders and memos to punish law firms he views as adversaries. Among them are longtime Democratic Party partner Perkins Coie and Covington and Burling — which provided legal services to former special counsel Jack Smith.
Several firms, including Jenner & Block and WilmerHale, have fought back against Trump’s punishing orders, suing to block the orders.”
“In recent weeks, two large law firms reached settlements with the Trump administration that stunned the legal profession — the first with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, which pledged to commit $40 million in free legal work “to support the Administration’s initiatives,” and the second with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, which upped the ante to a $100 million commitment. The deals allowed the firms to avoid sanctions imposed by Trump’s executive orders, including revocations of government security clearances held by the firms’ lawyers and prohibitions on entering federal buildings.”
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“You can attribute the two deals mostly to the fact that what Trump is doing — using the power of the presidency to target law firms that he personally dislikes — is legitimately unprecedented. The full scope of the consequences from Trump’s orders are far from clear, and large law firms are temperamentally conservative by nature. Faced with such uncertainty, surrender becomes an option.
The bottom line is that large law firms exist to make money — ideally lots of it — and they are generally not paragons of virtue, principle or self-sacrifice.”
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“it is a crime under federal law for public officials to engage in extortion, and the Justice Department’s public guidance explains that the theory has been used against public officials “serving on the federal, state and local levels.”
Trump is not the direct beneficiary of the pro bono work agreed to by the firms, but the DOJ guidance explains that the law applies even if the “corrupt payment went to a third party.” Moreover, a person or company can be liable under the law if they are “truly the instigator of the transaction,” so both sides of these deals could conceivably be held accountable.
You could make similar arguments under federal bribery law — the line between bribery and extortion is often hard to parse in particular fact patterns — but of course, the Justice Department is not going to do anything about it, and Trump enjoys broad criminal immunity even after he leaves office. In theory, the law firms are at greater risk — a Justice Department in a new administration could always take an interest — but that seems highly unlikely.”
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“two effects are conceivable, at least at the margins. The first is that law firms will be less willing to take on political clients. The second is that law firms may prove less willing to hire former government lawyers involved in politically controversial cases — or even lawyers who they think may go on to do that sort of work.
More broadly, law firms may pull back on supporting pro bono work that could be controversial with the Trump administration or the Republican Party, including immigration-related cases.”
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” In a democratic society, lawyers should not have to worry about whether the government will punish them for having clients or colleagues who are somehow associated with the political opposition. Likewise, private parties should be free to choose their own lawyers without having to worry that the government will be biased against their attorneys or will hamper their work for improper reasons.”