While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, July 7, 2025
If trading partners from Taiwan to the EU do not strike deals with Washington, tariffs will start on Aug 1, said US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
Tariffs will kick in on Aug 1 barring trade deals
US tariffs will kick in on Aug 1 if trading partners from Taiwan to the European Union do not strike deals with Washington, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on July 6.
The rates will 'boomerang back' to the sometimes very high levels which President Donald Trump had announced on April 2 – before he suspended the levies to allow for trade talks and set a July 9 deadline for agreement, Mr Bessent told CNN.
He confirmed comments by Mr Trump to reporters aboard Air Force One on July 4 in which he also cited a new deadline: 'Well, I'll probably start them on August 1. Well, that's pretty early. Right?'
The president said he had signed 12 letters to be sent out, likely on July 7.
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Death toll from Texas floods in US reaches 69
A volunteer looking for missing people in Hunt, Texas, on July 6, following severe flash flooding on the July 4 holiday.
PHOTO: AFP
The death toll from catastrophic floods in Texas reached at least 69 on July 6, including at least 21 children, as the search for girls missing from a summer camp entered a third day.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott, speaking at a press conference on the afternoon of July 6, said the death toll in Kerr county, the epicentre of the flooding, had reached 59, while another 10 had died elsewhere in Texas and 41 remained missing.
Among the most devastating impacts of the flooding occurred at Camp Mystic summer camp, a nearly century-old Christian girls camp, where 11 girls and a counsellor are still missing.
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Israel to call up 54,000 ultra-Orthodox students
A decades-old military conscription exemption for ultra-Orthodox students was overturned in 2024.
PHOTO: AFP
Israel's military said it would issue 54,000 call-up notices to ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students following a Supreme Court ruling mandating their conscription and amid growing pressure from reservists stretched by extended deployments.
The Supreme Court ruling in 2024 overturned a decades-old exemption for ultra-Orthodox students, a policy established when the community comprised a far smaller segment of the population than the 13 per cent it represents today.
Military service is compulsory for most Israeli Jews from the age of 18, lasting 24-32 months, with additional reserve duty in subsequent years. Members of Israel's 21 per cent Arab population are mostly exempt, though some do serve.
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Tourist leaves dog in hot locker to tour German castle
Tourists objected and security staff were alerted when a woman shut her dog inside a hot locker so she could tour Germany's Neuschwanstein Castle.
PHOTO: REUTERS
A dog was rescued from a locker for valuables at Neuschwanstein Castle in southern Germany after its owner shut her pet inside over the objections of other tourists so that she could visit the famous attraction, police said on July 6.
Neuschwanstein, a picture-postcard castle with surging turrets nestled in the Alps near the border with Austria, is one of Germany's top tourist attractions.
Despite it being a hot summer's day and half the locker already having been filled by a pram, the woman locked the dog inside the small space and left to tour the castle, police in the nearby town of Fuessen said in a statement.
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British driver Lando Norris wins home grand prix
Lando Norris won a treacherous rain-hit British Grand Prix at Silverstone on July 6 from his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri.
Sauber's Nico Hulkenberg, meanwhile, took third spot for the veteran German's first podium in 239 races.
Norris returned to a rapturous reception from British fans as he won his home race for the first time and moved to within eight points of leader Piastri in the drivers' standings.
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