First Thing: Stock markets fall as US announces new tariff rates on dozens of countries
Donald Trump has signed an executive order imposing tariffs ranging from 10% to 41% on imports from dozens of trade partners, in his latest attempt to reshape the global economy.
However, in a minor reprieve that opens the door to further negotiations, the White House said these measures would take effect in a week, not Friday, the deadline previously set by Trump.
The new rates, which Trump sees as benefiting US exporters, unleash a fresh round of uncertainty for dozens of countries, including longtime US allies. It has also raised fears of inflation in the US.
Which countries have higher rates? Rates were set at 25% for India's US-bound exports, 20% for Taiwan and 30% for South Africa. Switzerland faces a rate of 39%. The deadline for a tariff deal with Mexico was extended by another 90 days.
The mathematics of famine are simple in Gaza. Palestinians cannot leave, war has ended farming and Israel has banned fishing, so practically every calorie its population eats must be brought in from outside.
Israel knows how much food is needed. It has been calibrating hunger in Gaza for decades, initially calculating shipments to exert pressure while avoiding starvation.
'The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger,' a senior adviser to the then prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said in 2006. An Israeli court ordered the release of documents showing the details of those macabre sums two years later.
What has Israel said? As Gaza has slid into famine this summer, Israeli officials have variously denied the existence of mass starvation, claimed without evidence that Hamas steals and hoards aid, or blamed hunger on UN distribution failures, sharing pictures of aid pallets awaiting collection inside the border.
The siblings of Virginia Giuffre, one of Jeffrey Epstein's most prominent accusers, who died this year, said their sister had wanted the so-called Epstein files to be released, and urged Trump not to pardon Epstein's longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell.
In an interview with NBC News on Thursday, Giuffre's family said she would have wanted the documents – a trove of materials related to the investigation into the late sex offender – made public.
'She had a little bit of hope in her because it was said that the files were going to be released,' Amanda Roberts, Giuffre's sister-in-law, told the network in an interview, saying Giuffre would have wanted 'transparency and justice' for his victims.
What did they say about Trump's comments this week that Epstein 'stole' Giuffre and others from Mar-a-Lago? 'She's not an object, she's a person,' Sky Roberts, Giuffre's brother, said through tears. 'She's a mom. She's a sister. And she was recruited by Maxwell. She wasn't stolen.'
Joe Biden said the US was facing an 'existential' fight and marginalized groups were 'dramatically under attack'. The former president said some politicians watched deportations of legal immigrants with 'glee', in a speech to the National Bar Association gala.
Justin Timberlake has said he is suffering from Lyme disease, a serious illness usually contracted after being bitten by a tick. There has been an upsurge in prevalence of the disease across a swathe of the US in recent years.
The historian Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said professor emeritus of modern Arab studies at Columbia University, has cancelled plans to teach this fall, in response to the school's recent agreement with the Trump administration.
The White House will soon begin construction of a new $200m ballroom to be ready before Donald Trump's term ends in early 2029. The press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said the building would be 90,000 sq ft (8,300 sq metres) and would hold up to 650 seats. It will be the latest change introduced to what's known as 'the People's House' since the Republican president returned to office in January.
The actor was born 100 years ago – and his performances still induce hysteria today. Fans and collaborators such as Michael Palin, Woody Allen and Lesley-Anne Down explain why. 'Spike was the imaginative genius who wrote The Goon Show but it was Sellers who brought me to tears with his gallery of unforgettable characters: Major Bloodnok, Bluebottle, Henry Crun, Hercules Grytpype-Thynne,' Palin says.
A 2024 mass monarch butterfly die-off in southern California was probably caused by pesticide exposure, new peer-reviewed research finds. Researchers discovered hundreds of butterflies that had died or were dying in January 2024. Testing of 10 of the insects revealed an average of seven pesticides in each, and at levels that researchers suspect were lethal.
Since hitting the market in 2019, Labubus have become a global phenomenon. Their popularity has been fueled by social media posts of live unboxings that showcase rare collections. Launches of new editions sell out on Pop Mart within minutes, sending the company's profits soaring over the past year. Avid collectors say that acquiring the dolls has become almost like a 'social currency', according to one meet-up attender.
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The Independent
19 minutes ago
- The Independent
Inside Ukraine's effort to produce more of its own weapons to fight Putin as Trump's support flip-flops
On Tuesday, Donald Trump gave Vladimir Putin a new deadline – agree to a ceasefire in the Ukraine war or face fresh sanctions. It appeared the US president had finally run out of patience with the Russian leader, declaring he was 'no longer interested in talks' and cutting a previous deadline of 50 days dramatically short. But regardless of how encouraging this apparent renewed sense of urgency might be to Ukraine, Mr Trump's views on the war and support for Kyiv are anything but consistent. From the infamous Oval Office ambush of Volodymyr Zelensky to fluctuating financial commitments from the US, Kyiv has been wise to look elsewhere for reliable supplies – preferably Ukraine's own burgeoning weapons industry. Ukraine has made no secret that a key priority is to build its own missiles that match the destructive power and long reach of the Shahed killer drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles that Moscow has been launching in recent weeks. Russia has launched huge mass aerial attacks against the capital and cities across Ukraine including Kharkiv, Dnipro, Odesa, Zaporizhzhia, Ivano-Frankivsk and Pavlohrad. Pavlohrad, in Ukraine's southeastern region of Dnipropetrovsk, recently suffered its biggest aerial attack since the start of the full-scale invasion. When The Independent drove into the city two days later, a huge plume of smoke, visible from miles away, hung over it as fires continued to rage. It is common knowledge that Pavlohrad has been home to missile production facilities since Soviet times, and Russia's defence ministry claimed, after the attack, it had struck facilities producing components for missiles and drones. Dima, who works in the local coal miners' union communications department, lives in the industrial area of the city that took the brunt of the attack. 'We experience explosions from Russian rockets and drones frequently,' he said. 'But this attack was the biggest and seemed to go on forever. The Russians have increased their aerial attacks and the targets are civilian more often than military to try to cause terror.' With Russia ramping up attacks regardless of any deadline Mr Trump attempts to impose, Kyiv has been looking at new ways to hit back. Ukraine has shown its advanced drones can destroy targets deep inside Russian territory, more than 1,000km from the Ukrainian border. And it is already producing and using a family of missile systems named 'Neptune', 'Palyanytsia,' 'Peklo,' and 'Ruta'. According to Kyiv, production multiplied eight times between 2023 and 2024 with even more growth planned for this year. Mr Zelensky has said Ukraine intends to produce 3,000 cruise and drone missiles in 2025. The homegrown R-360 Neptune cruise missile, with a 150kg warhead has been modified, according to Mr Zelensky, to give it an improved range. However, Neptunes and Ukraine's other missiles have explosive payloads that are only a fraction – sometimes a tenth – of those carried by Russian rockets. Ukrainian engineers are focused on long-range missiles able to inflict on Russia the sort of pain it is daily inflicting on Ukrainians. One of those is called 'Bars' (Leopard), first publicly mentioned at a Ukrainian weapons exhibition last April by the minister for strategic industries, Herman Smetanin. The scant information that has emerged about it suggests it is a hybrid between long-range drones and cruise missiles powered by a turbojet engine, giving it great speed and with a range of 700-800km with a warhead of 50-100kg of explosives. But it is not certain that Bars are the game-changing missiles on which Ukraine is pinning its hopes. A payload of only 100kg gives it a far weaker punch than that of Russian rockets, which often pack one-ton warheads. Mr Zelensky alluded last year to the successful test of an engine for a homemade ballistic missile. Military experts have speculated it is an offspring of the Sapsan Operational-Tactical Missile System – also known as Hrim and Hrim2 – that was conceived in the early 2000s but was dogged by funding problems and lack of political will. It was revived after Russia's 2014 invasion of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula and eastern Donbas region. One person, who did not want to be named and works with his country's defence industry, told The Independent information about missile development is probably Ukraine's most closely guarded secret. He said: 'Everyone, even senior officials, are forbidden to talk about this subject. If you do, you'll probably be arrested. The only person allowed to reveal anything is President Zelensky.' Strategic Industries minister Mr Smetanin, spearheads the efforts to grow the country's weapons production capacity. Adviser to the ministry, Yuri Sak, said that Ukraine heard the warning bells after the US first cut off support for Ukraine over the autumn and winter of 2023 to 2024. 'We realised that we had to start moving towards becoming self-sufficient and as a result our ministry was tasked with pretty much resuscitating Ukraine's defence industry. We began to make contingency plans, which we have in place now. 'Despite the war, despite the missile attacks, despite the hundreds of Shahed drones that are launched against Ukraine pretty much every night, we were able to increase our defence industry output by 35 times during the last three years.' Russia's stocks of arms and ammunition and her high capacity to manufacture weapons of all kinds meant it massively outgunned Ukraine initially, but Western-supplied weapons helped dramatically even up the odds. Mr Sak said that, since Russia's initial invasion in 2014, the number of weapons-related companies in Ukraine has mushroomed to about 100 state-owned defence industry enterprises and almost 700 private companies. From producing one howitzer per month in 2022, Mr Sak said Ukraine is now delivering 15 each month. The conflict in Ukraine has changed the nature of warfare and seen a profound shift toward drones, with Ukraine planning to produce five million this year. 'We are also producing domestically the full spectrum of unmanned and robotic systems, land drones, naval drones, aerial drones, which include both reconnaissance drones and bombers, and drones with ranges of up to 2,000km,' Mr Sak said. 'These very successfully target Russian war machinery and their oil refineries and depots because all the profits from their oil trade go to finance their war and to prosecute war crimes.' But the Russians know Ukraine is ploughing huge resources into producing its own missiles and other weapons and are trying to destroy any locations they identify where those are being developed or manufactured. Mr Sak said: 'We try to be as quiet as possible about the locations of our defence industry. Where possible, we have relaunched existing facilities that have been idle for the last 20-plus years and, in other cases, we are building new facilities. All this is kept confidential because the Russians are targeting our defence industry enterprises.' Much of Ukraine's defence production has been split up, so that three or four smaller, concealed sites replicate the same weapons system and, if one is hit, overall production continues. The Independent visited one such facility in western Ukraine on condition that no details were published that would allow its location to be identified. Concealed within a sprawling, somewhat dilapidated, Soviet-era industrial zone, the facility produces BTR-4E 'Bucephalus' armoured personnel carriers. The eight-wheeled Ukrainian design went into production in 2012. Until 2022, it was produced at a large plant in the east Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, targeted by Russia early in the full-scale war. The owner of the plant, calling himself Andriy for this article, is a former soldier who has himself seen action against the invading Russian forces. His factory previously produced heavy precision machinery and engine parts and converted to weapons manufacture in early 2024 to become one of three concealed facilities scattered across Ukraine producing Bucephalus APCs. Speaking with the glow of the plant's foundry behind him, Andriy said: 'We cast and produce almost everything for the construction of the APC, hull, turret, wheels, axles. The engines are brought in from Germany and the weapons are fitted elsewhere. We produce four per month and plan to increase that number.' In addition to the 300 plant employees, inspectors working for the Ukrainian defence ministry, minutely scrutinise each component produced there. The concealed sites are protected by air defences to counter Russian missiles and drones. Such secret weapons production sites are keenly sought out by Russian spies and informers on the ground and by satellite surveillance, and Andriy has security guards and equipment watching the perimeter of the plant. 'But mostly we rely on trust,' he explained. 'That people who live in the same community and know each other will not betray each other or their country.'
Daily Mail
20 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Nashville hands over land beneath city to Elon Musk
Nashville is getting a serious makeover thanks to Tesla billionaire Elon Musk. Musk's The Boring Company has plans to build a futuristic underground tunnel in Tennessee that will transport passengers from the city center to the airport in just eight minutes using electric vehicles. But while the project has support from the state's federal lawmakers, local leaders aren't so sure. One representative called it a 'vanity project for the wealthy' and it has been dubbed the 'Music City Loop'. The tunnel will run 10 miles from the city center to the airport on Nashville's south-east corridor, with its entrance just steps from the airport. The privately funded project will supposedly shuttle Tennesseans between downtown and the airport in only eight minutes. That's a big saving in time from downtown to the airport, which takes about 30 minutes by taxi, rideshare, or bus. The company plans to use electric vehicles to connect city hotspots, similar to an already operating Boring system in Las Vegas. Musk and The Boring Company seemed to have the full support of Republican lawmakers at a press conference announcing the project on July 28. Republican Tennessee Governor Bill Lee said he was excited by the tunnel. 'They could have taken their next underground loop anywhere, but they saw something unique about Tennessee,' he said. 'The best part of all of it is it's 100 percent privately funded. There will be no cost to Tennessee taxpayers.' John Ray Clemens, chair of the Tennessee House Democratic Caucus, hammered the privately funded project as 'fiscally irresponsible and legally suspect'. 'No responsible executive would give away unrestricted and unlimited underground property rights to an unhinged billionaire, who Donald Trump doesn't even trust anymore, and grant him and his company exclusive access rights beneath our city and a monopoly to profit in perpetuity.' The project has yet to receive approval from the Metro Nashville Council or the mayor's office, and Nashville Mayor Freddie O'Connell was notably absent from the event. In a brief statement about the project, he said: 'We are aware of the state's conversations with The Boring Company, and we have a number of operational questions to understand the potential impacts on Metro and Nashvillians.' Yet, United States Senator Marsha Blackburn seemed to think the impact would be overwhelmingly positive. She posted on X that the company 'couldn't have picked a better new home for their state-of-the-art tunneling technology than Nashville'. She wrote: 'I look forward to seeing the tremendous impact of this investment in our city!' State Representative Aftyn Behn called the tunnel a 'privatization of public infrastructure,' noting that it was designed to benefit a select few 'not the people who actually live and work here'. In his press release about the 'Music City Loop' Behn wrote, 'It's a vanity project for the wealthy, and once again, the Lee administration is rolling out the red carpet for billionaires while working families are stuck in traffic.' 'We rank at the bottom in livability, and yet instead of investing in roads, schools, and transit that benefit everyday Tennesseans, they're floating billion-dollar boondoggles for the ultra-rich,' stated state Senator Heidi Campbell. The decision seems to be just as divisive among citizens as it is among local lawmakers. One local posted on Reddit afterwards: 'And the grift continues. This isn't a much-needed or desirable project. This is a grift meant to line the pockets of the world's richest person. The goal was never providing a decent or even acceptable transit service.' Another commented: 'Could've had a great light rail system and instead get this utter nonsense.' A third wrote: 'What a complete waste of money that could be going to build transit that's actually useful.' Regardless of the public's opinion, The Boring Company is ready to go full speed ahead. Construction will begin immediately following the approval process, according to the Tennessee state government. It could be operational as early as Fall 2026.
Reuters
20 minutes ago
- Reuters
Latest Trump tariffs unlikely to budge, top negotiator says
Aug 3 (Reuters) - The tariffs U.S. President Donald Trump imposed last week on scores of countries are likely to stay in place rather than be cut as part of continuing negotiations, Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said on Sunday. Ahead of a Friday deadline, Trump set rates including a 35% duty on many goods from Canada, 50% for Brazil, 25% for India, 20% for Taiwan and 39% for Switzerland, according to a presidential executive order. In trade talks since Trump returned to office, the White House has lowered some rates from levels initially announced, including halving import duties set last week as part of a deal with the European Union. Greer told CBS's Face the Nation on Sunday, however, that this would not be the case on the most recent round of tariffs. "A lot of these are set rates pursuant to deals. Some of these deals are announced, some are not, others depend on the level of the trade deficit or surplus we may have with the country," he said. "These tariff rates are pretty much set." Greer also said recent trade talks with Beijing had been "very positive" and were focused on the supply of rare earth magnets and minerals. "We're focused on making sure that the flow of magnets from China to the United States and the- and the adjacent supply chain can flow as freely as it did before ... and I'd say we're about halfway there."
