‘We need to empty Russia's war chest': Ukrainian MP calls for sanctions against Russia
Ukrainian MP Yevhenniia Kravchuk discusses U.S. President Trump sending military aid as Russia questions the motives behind Trump's tariff threats.
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Global News
39 minutes ago
- Global News
Trump unveils new investments in energy and tech at Pennsylvania summit
President Donald Trump touted tens of billions of dollars of recent energy and technology investments Tuesday in Pennsylvania while boasting of a 'true golden age for America' in energy policy and artificial intelligence. Trump traveled to Pittsburgh at a summit helmed by Republican Sen. David McCormick that included dozens of top executives from companies aiming to make the city and the state a hot spot for advancements in robotics, artificial intelligence and energy. McCormick announced more than $90 billion of investments in the state — spurring tens of thousands of jobs — although some of the projects had already been in progress ahead of the summit. 'I think we have a true golden age for America. And we've been showing it, and it truly is the hottest country anywhere in the world,' Trump said at the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit, held at Carnegie Mellon University. Story continues below advertisement 'I'm honored to be in Pennsylvania, and I'm honored to be in Pittsburgh. And you're going to see some real action here. So get ready.' Trump has repeatedly pledged U.S. 'energy dominance' in the global market, and Pennsylvania — a swing state critical to his wins in 2016 and 2024 — is at the forefront of that agenda, in large part due to its coal and gas industry that the Republican administration has taken steps to bolster. Both the president and senior administration officials on Tuesday framed the investments as part of a race against China for the most advanced deployment of artificial intelligence, with Trump saying, 'We are way ahead of China, I have to say.' 'China and other countries are racing to catch up to America on AI, and we're not going to let them do it,' Trump said during the hourlong roundtable held in a university gymnasium, speaking often from prepared notes. Flanked by several of his Cabinet members, company executives and local political leaders, Trump added that the U.S. will be 'fighting them in a very friendly fashion.' Get breaking National news For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen. Sign up for breaking National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy Before Trump spoke, his Cabinet members spoke of the need to produce as much energy as possible — especially from coal and natural gas — to beat China in the AI race for the sake of economic and national security. 'The AI revolution is upon us,' Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said during an earlier panel discussion. 'The Trump administration will not let us lose. We need to do clean, beautiful coal. We need to do natural gas, we need to embrace nuclear, we need to embrace it all because we have the power to do it and if we don't do it we're fools.' Story continues below advertisement 0:31 Nvidia becomes 1st company to top $4 trillion valuation Some of the investments on a list released by McCormick's office were not necessarily brand-new, while others were. Some involve massive data center projects — such as a $15 billion project in central Pennsylvania — while others involve building power plants, expanding natural gas pipelines, upgrading power plants or improving electricity transmission networks. Google said it would invest $25 billion on AI and data center infrastructure over the next two years in PJM's mid-Atlantic electricity grid, while investment firm Brookfield said it had signed contracts to provide more than $3 billion of power to Google's data centers from two hydroelectric dams on the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania. Frontier Group said it would transform the former Bruce Mansfield coal-fired power plant in western Pennsylvania into a new natural gas-fired plant, and AI cloud computing firm CoreWeave said it will spend more than $6 billion to equip a data center in south-central Pennsylvania. Story continues below advertisement Blackstone plans to spend $25 billion on data centers and building new natural gas-fired power plants in northeastern Pennsylvania, and the company will start construction by the end of 2028, said Jon Gray, its CEO. McCormick, a first-term Republican senator who organized the inaugural event, said the summit was meant to bring together top energy companies and AI leaders, global investors and labor behind Trump's energy policies and priorities. The list of participating CEOs includes leaders from global behemoths like Blackstone, Bridgewater, SoftBank, Amazon Web Services, BlackRock and ExxonMobil and local companies such as the Pittsburgh-based Gecko Robotics, which deploys AI to bolster energy capacity. 'What's exciting about this event is it's a great catalyst for investments and closing deals in the region,' said Jake Loosararian, the founder and CEO of Gecko Robotics. Administration officials at the summit included White House crypto czar David Sacks, Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Lutnick. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum also attended. Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, also spoke. McCormick credited his wife, Dina Powell McCormick, with the idea for a summit. Powell McCormick served as Trump's deputy national security adviser in his first term and is a former Goldman Sachs executive who is now at BDT & MSD Partners, a merchant bank. Pittsburgh is home to Carnegie Mellon University, a prestigious engineering school, plus a growing industry of small robotics firms and a so-called AI Avenue that's home to offices for Google and other AI firms. It also sits in the middle of the prolific Marcellus Shale natural gas reservoir. Story continues below advertisement 'What's going on is a rewiring of the economy, of the world over the next 15 years and that takes trillions and trillions and tens of trillions of dollars, and it starts with power,' said Bruce Flatt, CEO of Brookfield, during a panel discussion. Pennsylvania has scored big investment wins in recent months, some driven by federal manufacturing policy and others by the ravenous need for electricity from the fast-growing AI business. Nippon Steel just bought U.S. Steel for almost $15 billion, getting Trump's approval after pledging to invest billions alone in U.S. Steel's Pittsburgh-area plants. Amazon will spend $20 billion on two data center complexes in Pennsylvania, while the one-time Homer City coal-fired power plant is being turned into the nation's largest gas-fired power plant to fuel a data center campus. Meanwhile, Constellation Energy is reopening the lone functional nuclear reactor on Three Mile Island under a long-term power supply agreement for Microsoft's data centers.
Winnipeg Free Press
an hour ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Global views of China and Xi improve, while they decline about the US and Trump, survey says
WASHINGTON (AP) — Views of China and its leader, Xi Jinping, have improved in many countries worldwide, while those of the U.S. and President Donald Trump have deteriorated, according to a new survey of about two dozen countries by the Pew Research Center. Released Tuesday, the survey shows that international views of the two superpowers and their leaders are closer than ever. The results are a drastic departure from those in the past several years when the U.S. and its leader — then-President Joe Biden — enjoyed more favorable international views than China and its president. In its latest survey of 24 countries, Pew found that the U.S. was viewed more favorably than China in eight countries, China was viewed more favorably in seven, and the two were viewed about equally in the remainder. Pew did not provide definitive explanations for the shifts, but Laura Silver, associate director of research, said it's possible that views of a country may change when those of another superpower shift. 'As the U.S. potentially looks like a less reliable partner and people have limited confidence, for example, in Trump to lead the global economy, China may look different in some people's eyes,' Silver said. Also, China's human rights policies and its handling of the pandemic — which were related to negative views of the country in the past — may not weigh as much this time, she said. A group of Democratic senators this week accused the Trump administration of ceding global influence to China by shuttering foreign aid programs, imposing tariffs on allies, cracking down on elite universities and restricting visas for international students. In the Pew findings, 35% of those in 10 high-income countries surveyed consistently — including Canada, France, Germany and Italy — have favorable opinions of the U.S., down from 51% from last year. By comparison, 32% of them have positive views of China, up from last year's 23%. And 24% of them say they have confidence in Trump, compared with 53% last year for Biden. Xi scored a slight improvement: 22% of those in these rich countries say they have confidence in the Chinese president, up from last year's 17%. However, people in Israel have far more favorable views of the U.S. than of China: 83% of Israelis like the U.S., compared with 33% who say they have positive views of China. And 69% of them say they have confidence in Trump, while only 9% express confidence in Xi. Pew surveyed more than 30,000 people across 25 countries — including the U.S., which was excluded from the comparison — from Jan. 8 to April 26. The margins of error for each country ranged from plus or minus 2.5 to plus or minus 4.7. ___ AP writers Emily Swanson and Linley Sanders contributed to this report.
CTV News
an hour ago
- CTV News
With Epstein conspiracy theories, Trump faces a crisis of his own making
Attorney General Pam Bondi, left, listens as President Donald Trump, right, speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House, Tuesday, July 8, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) NEW YORK — As his supporters erupt over the Justice Department's failure to release much-hyped records in Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking investigation, U.S. President Donald Trump's strategy has been to downplay the issue. His problem? That nothing-to-see-here approach doesn't work for those who've learned from him they must not give up until the government's deepest, darkest secrets are exposed. Last week, the Justice Department and the FBI abruptly walked back the notion there's an Epstein client list of elites who participated in the wealthy New York financier's trafficking of underage girls. Trump quickly defended Attorney General Pam Bondi and chided a reporter for daring to ask about the documents. The online reaction was swift, with followers calling the Republican president 'out of touch' and demanding transparency. On Saturday, Trump used his Truth Social platform to again attempt to call supporters off the Epstein trail amid reports of infighting between Bondi and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino over the issue. He suggested the turmoil was undermining his administration — 'all over a guy who never dies, Jeffrey Epstein.' That did little to mollify Trump's supporters, who urged him to release the files or risk losing his base. The political crisis is especially challenging for Trump because it's one of his own making. The president has spent years stoking dark theories and embracing QAnon-tinged propaganda that casts him as the only savior who can demolish the 'deep state.' Now that he's running the federal government, the community he helped build is coming back to haunt him. It's demanding answers he either isn't able to or doesn't want to provide. Asked Tuesday whether Bondi had told him his name was in the Epstein files, Trump said no. He praised her handling of the case and said she should release 'whatever she thinks is credible.' But he also claimed there were credibility issues with the documents, suggesting without citing evidence they were 'made up' by former FBI Director James Comey and former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, both Democrats. Bondi declined to discuss the Epstein files Tuesday during a press briefing about drug trafficking. 'The faulty assumption Trump and others make is they can peddle conspiracy theories without any blowback,' said Matt Dallek, a political scientist at George Washington University. 'The Epstein case is a neat encapsulation that it is hard to put the genie back in the bottle.' A problem that's not going away Last week's two-page statement from the Justice Department and the FBI saying they had concluded Epstein didn't possess a client list roiled Trump's supporters, who pointed to past statements from several administration officials that the list ought to be revealed. Bondi had suggested in February such a document was sitting on her desk waiting for review, though last week she said she'd been referring generally to the Epstein case file, not a client list. Conservative influencers have since demanded to see all the files related to Epstein's crimes, even as Trump has tried to put the issue to bed. Far-right commentator Jack Posobiec said at Turning Point USA's Student Action Summit on Saturday he wouldn't rest 'until we go full Jan. 6 committee on the Jeffrey Epstein files.' Trump's weekend post called on supporters to focus on investigating Democrats and arresting criminals rather than 'spending month after month looking at nothing but the same old, Radical Left inspired Documents on Jeffrey Epstein.' His first-term national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, pleaded with him to reconsider. '@realdonaldtrump please understand the EPSTEIN AFFAIR is not going away,' Flynn wrote. Other Trump allies continue to push for answers, among them far-right activist Laura Loomer, who has called for Bondi to resign. She told Politico's Playbook newsletter on Sunday a special counsel should be appointed to investigate the handling of the files on Epstein, who was found dead in his federal jail cell in 2019 weeks after he was arrested. House Speaker Mike Johnson told right-wing influencer Benny Johnson in an interview released Tuesday that he is 'for transparency,' and wants Bondi to 'put everything out there and let the people decide.' He said the Justice Department needs to focus on crime and other priorities, including elections and investigating ActBlue, the Democrats' top fundraising platform. Experts who study conspiracy theories warned more sunlight doesn't necessarily make far-fetched narratives disappear. 'For some portion of this set of conspiracy theory believers, no amount of contradictory evidence will ever be enough,' said Josephine Lukito, who studies conspiracy theorists at the University of Texas at Austin. Trump and his colleagues set their own trap The president and many figures in his administration — including Bondi,Bongino and FBI Director Kash Patel — earned their political capital over the years in part by encouraging disproven conspiracy theories. Now, they're tasked with trying to reveal the evidence they'd long insisted was there — a challenge that's reached across the government. Last week, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin posted on X what seemed like an endorsement of a conspiracy theory that the contrails left by aircraft are releasing chemicals for potentially nefarious reasons. But a second post from Zeldin underscored the fine line the Trump administration is trying to walk by linking to a new page on the EPA website that essentially debunked the theory. The value of conspiratorial fabrications is they help people get political power, said Russell Muirhead, who teaches political science at Dartmouth College. He said Trump has been skilled in exploiting that. But the Epstein case brings unique challenges, he said. That's because it's rooted in truth: A wealthy and well-connected financier did spend years abusing large numbers of young girls while escaping justice. So, Trump needs to come forward with truth and transparency on the topic, Muirhead said. If he doesn't, 'large segments of his most enthusiastic and devoted supporters are going to lose faith in him.' A potentially costly distraction Trump's rivals have been taking advantage of right-wing fissures over Epstein. Democrats sought to capitalize on the controversy, with several lawmakers calling for the release of all Epstein files and suggesting Trump could be resisting because he or someone close to him is featured in them. The Democratic House Majority PAC on Tuesday emailed a memo that called out some House Republicans by name. It said they are 'complicit' with the Trump administration because they had called for the Epstein files to be made public but then voted against a Democratic amendment to force their release. Conservatives expressed concerns Trump's approach on Epstein could hurt them in the midterms. 'For this to go away, you're going to lose 10% of the MAGA movement,' right-wing podcaster Steve Bannon said during the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit on Friday. There's also the challenge of governing. Bondi and Bongino had a tense exchange last week at the White House over a story about Epstein, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a private conversation. And Loomer, who's close to Trump, said Friday she was told Bongino was 'seriously thinking about resigning.' The FBI declined to comment. Dallek, the George Washington University professor, said it's alarming that the country's top law enforcement officials are feuding over a conspiracy theory. 'It's possible at some time voters are going to notice the things they want or expect government to do aren't being done because the people in charge are either incompetent or off chasing rabbits,' he said. 'Who is fulfilling the mission of the FBI to protect the American people?' Ali Swenson And Nicholas Riccardi, The Associated Press Riccardi reported from Denver. Associated Press writers Eric Tucker, Melissa Goldin and Gary Fields in Washington contributed to this report.
