“the deal is a tidy illustration of how President Donald Trump has conducted his global trade war. With China, Trump hiked tariffs to astronomical levels while promising those taxes (which are paid by Americans) would unleash prosperity and create jobs. Then, the White House celebrated the agreement that reduced those tariffs as “the art of the deal.” They are literally doing the meme.
But the “deal” means that imports from China will be subjected to significantly higher tariffs than when Trump took office. Those tariffs will continue to be a serious economic burden for American businesses and consumers, and the threat of even higher tariffs remains—because the “deal” only pauses those tariffs for 90 days, and because Trump’s mercurial nature means no one can really be sure what is coming next.”
…
“the remaining 30 percent tariff, which is stacked on top of preexisting tariffs from Trump’s first term, “will still make for an expensive back to school and holiday season for most Americans,” Lamar said in a statement. “If freight rates spike due to the tariff-induced shipping disruptions—which will take months to unwind—we could see costs and prices creep up even further.””
…
“both America and China are still worse off than they were a few months ago. Trump has used constitutionally dubious economic powers to raise and then lower tariffs, creating huge costs and even greater uncertainty.
Rather than praising the president for backing down from an insane position, as the White House believes Americans should do, the proper response to Trump’s latest tariff maneuvers is the same as it has always been: Congress must take away his tariff powers.”
“A majority of people surveyed had an overall negative perception of the U.S., marking a steep decline from last year. America’s reputation took a particularly massive hit in EU countries — perhaps unsurprisingly, as U.S. President Donald Trump has called the bloc “horrible,” “pathetic” and “formed to screw the United States.””
…
“Meanwhile, China kept improving its global standing, overtaking the U.S. for the first time and recording mostly positive perceptions in all regions except Europe.”
…
“Trump’s reputation is in line with that of his country. The survey showed he’s less popular worldwide than his Russian and Chinese counterparts, Putin and Xi Jinping.”
…
“Israel emerged as the country with the worst global reputation of those included in the poll, especially in the Middle East and South Asia. Israel is unpopular even in European countries that have historically been its allies, such as Germany, signaling growing discomfort with its government’s conduct in Gaza and the West Bank.”
“An Israeli-American soldier held hostage for more than 19 months in the Gaza Strip was released Monday by Hamas in a goodwill gesture toward the Trump administration that could lay the groundwork for a new ceasefire with Israel.”
…
“Israel says it still plans to escalate its offensive”
“Federal law provides that the Register of Copyrights be appointed by and supervised by the Librarian of Congress, which is a position that requires presidential nomination and Senate confirmation. The previous Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden, was fired Thursday by the White House with no reason provided in a two sentence email.
Hayden was confirmed by the Senate in 2016 to serve a 10-year term. She appointed Perlmutter, who assumed her position in Oct. 2020.
Rep. Joe Morelle, the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee which oversees the Library of Congress and U.S. Copyright Office, is alleging it is “no coincidence [Trump] acted less than a day after [Perlmutter] refused to rubber-stamp Elon Musk’s efforts to mine troves of copyrighted works to train AI models.”
Perlmutter and her office issued a lengthy report about artificial intelligence that included some questions and concerns about the usage of copyrighted materials by AI technology, an industry which Musk is heavily involved in.
“This action once again tramples on Congress’s Article One authority and throws a trillion-dollar industry into chaos,” Morelle continued in a statement. “When will my Republican colleagues decide enough is enough?””
“A group of 49 white South Africans departed their homeland Sunday for the United States on a private charter plane having been offered refugee status by the Trump administration under a new program announced in February.
The group, which included families and small children, was due to arrive at Dulles International Airport outside Washington on Monday morning local time, according to Collen Msibi, a spokesperson for South Africa’s transport ministry.
They are the first Afrikaners — a white minority group in South Africa — to be relocated after U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order on Feb. 7 accusing South Africa’s Black-led government of racial discrimination against them and announcing a program to offer them relocation to America.
The South African government said it is “completely false” that Afrikaners are being persecuted.”
“President Donald Trump’s push to cut billions of dollars in government contracts is rattling the niche community of scientists who collect, study and share human brains.
Two of the country’s brain banks, which have worked with the government to store and distribute specimens to researchers studying diseases like Parkinson’s and ALS for more than a decade, told POLITICO they had temporarily stopped taking new donations for fear the administration would not renew their contracts. Even though both facilities — home to nearly 8,000 brains between them — eventually received six-month extensions from the National Institutes of Health, the relief came too close to a May 1 deadline.
The director of the University of Maryland Brain and Tissue Bank said it turned away as many as 30 brains from people hoping to do something positive with the remains of a loved one who lived with a neurological disease. The Mount Sinai Brain Bank in New York would have accepted roughly 10 more if it had known its contract was being renewed, according to its program director.
The funding whiplash demonstrates some of the practical consequences of the Trump administration’s rapid-fire approach to cutting federal spending, where even the potential for funding lapses create real setbacks.”
“The United States has generated $46.6 billion this year from tariffs as of May 8, the latest data available — 46.3% more than the same time last year. Federal income taxes, meanwhile, brought in $2.4 trillion in 2024.
And the $14.7 billion difference in tariff revenue year-on-year is just part of the story. High levies can cause huge surges in revenue that later level off as trade patterns shift and businesses seek to lower costs along their supply chains.”
“Coal’s decline was not caused by a federal plot to transition away from coal, like Trump thinks, but rather by markets and innovation. Advancements in renewable energy technologies—which were, and continue to be, supported by subsidies—made the energy source more attractive to investors. Breakthroughs in horizontal drilling in the early 2000s brought a flood of cheap and abundant natural gas to the market. These technologies priced coal out, which lowered energy bills for consumers and significantly reduced greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.
The energy source is also not as cost-effective as the executive order claims. Coal plants are expensive to build and operate, and transportation costs can exceed the price of coal at the mine. These economic factors have informed investors and utilities not to build coal-fired power plants—the most recent large plant was built in 2013—which has made the current fleet of these power plants less efficient than other energy sources.
To be sure, some regulatory barriers, including federal air quality standards and state-level bans, have made coal less competitive. However, “it is the market that explains coal’s decline better than regulations,” Philip Rossetti, an energy policy analyst at the R Street Institute, tells Reason.”