The Trump administration halted construction on a nearly complete offshore wind project near Rhode Island as the White House continues to attack the battered U.S. offshore wind industry that scientists say is crucial to the urgent fight against climate change.

Danish wind farm developer Orsted says the Revolution Wind project is about 80% complete, with 45 out of its 65 turbines already installed.

Despite that progress — and the fact that the project had cleared years of federal and state reviews — the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management issued the order Friday, saying the federal government needs to review the project and “address concerns related to the protection of national security interests of the United States.”

It did not specify what the national security concerns are.

President Donald Trump has made sweeping strides to prioritize fossil fuels and hinder renewable energy projects. Trump recently called wind and solar power “THE SCAM OF THE CENTURY!” in a social media post and vowed not to approve wind or “farmer destroying Solar” projects. “The days of stupidity are over in the USA!!!” he wrote on his Truth Social site this week.

Scientists across the globe agree that nations need to rapidly embrace renewable energy to stave off the worst effects of climate change, including extreme heat and drought; larger, more intense wildfires and supercharged hurricanes, typhoons and rainstorms that lead to catastrophic flooding.

Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee criticized the stop-work order and said he and Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont “will pursue every avenue to reverse the decision to halt work on Revolution Wind” in a post on X. Both governors are Democrats.

Construction on Revolution Wind began in 2023, and the project was expected to be fully operational next year. Orsted says it is evaluating the financial impact of stopping construction and is considering legal proceedings.

Revolution Wind is located more than 15 miles (24 kilometers) south of the Rhode Island coast, 32 miles (51 kilometers) southeast of the Connecticut coast and 12 miles (19 kilometers) southwest of Martha’s Vineyard. Rhode Island is already home to one offshore wind farm, the five-turbine Block Island Wind Farm.

Revolution Wind was expected to be Rhode Island and Connecticut’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm, capable of powering more than 350,000 homes. The densely populated states have minimal space available for land-based energy projects, which is why the offshore wind project is considered crucial for the states to meet their climate goals.

“This arbitrary decision defies all logic and reason — Revolution Wind’s project was already well underway and employed hundreds of skilled tradesmen and women. This is a major setback for a critical project in Connecticut, and I will fight it,” Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, said in a statement.

Wind power is the largest source of renewable energy in the U.S. and provides about 10% of the electricity generated in the nation.

“Today, the U.S. has only one fully operational large-scale offshore wind project producing power. That is not enough to meet America’s rising energy needs. We need more energy of all types, including oil and gas, wind, and new and emerging technologies,” said Erik Milito, president of the National Ocean Industries Association, a group that supports offshore oil, gas and wind.

Green Oceans, a nonprofit that opposes the offshore wind industry, applauded the BOEM’s decision. “We are grateful that the Trump Administration and the federal government are taking meaningful action to preserve the fragile ocean environment off the coasts of Rhode Island and Massachusetts,” the nonprofit said in a statement.

This is the second major offshore wind project the White House has halted. Work was stopped on Empire Wind, a New York offshore wind project, but construction was allowed to resume after New York Sen. Chuck Schumer and Gov. Kathy Hochul, both Democrats, intervened.

“This administration has it exactly backwards. It’s trying to prop up clunky, polluting coal plants while doing all it can to halt the fastest growing energy sources of the future – solar and wind power,” said Kit Kennedy, managing director for the power division at Natural Resources Defense Council, in a statement. “Unfortunately, every American is paying the price for these misguided decisions.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Seth Wenig—AP Photo

The end of an exemption on tariff duties for low-value packages coming into the United States is causing multiple international postal services to pause shipping as they await more clarity on the rule.

The exemption, known as the “de minimis” exemption, allows packages worth less than $800 to come into the U.S. duty free. A total of 1.36 billion packages were sent in 2024 under this exemption, for goods worth $64.6 billion, according to data from the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol Agency.

It is set to expire on Friday. On Saturday, postal services around Europe announced that they are suspending the shipment of many packages to the United States amid confusion over new import duties.

Postal services in Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Italy said they will stop shipping most merchandise to the U.S. effective immediately. France and Austria will follow on Monday.

The U.K.’s Royal Mail said it would halt shipments to the U.S. on Tuesday to allow time for those packages to arrive before duties kick in. Items originating in the United Kingdom worth over $100 — including gifts to friends and family — will incur a 10% duty, it said.

“Key questions remain unresolved, particularly regarding how and by whom customs duties will be collected in the future, what additional data will be required, and how the data transmission to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection will be carried out,” DHL, the largest shipping provider in Europe, said in a statement.

The company said starting Saturday it “will no longer be able to accept and transport parcels and postal items containing goods from business customers destined for the US.”

A trade framework agreed on by the U.S. and the European Union last month set a 15% tariff on the vast majority of products shipped from the EU. Packages under $800 will now also be subject to the tariff.

The U.S. duty-free exemption for goods originating from China ended in May as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to curb American shoppers from ordering low-value Chinese goods. The exemption is being extended to shipments from around the world.

Many European postal services say they are pausing deliveries now because they cannot guarantee the goods will enter the U.S. before Aug. 29. They cite ambiguity about what kind of goods are covered by the new rules, and the lack of time to process their implications.

Postnord, the Nordic logistics company, and Italy’s postal service announced similar suspensions effective Saturday.

“In the absence of different instructions from US authorities … Poste Italiane will be forced, like other European postal operators, to temporarily suspend acceptance of all shipments containing goods destined for the United States, starting August 23. Mail shipments not containing merchandise will continue to be accepted,” Poste Italiane said Friday.

Shipping by services such as DHL Express remains possible, it added.

Björn Bergman, head of PostNord’s Group Brand and Communication, said the pause was “unfortunate but necessary to ensure full compliance of the newly implemented rules.”

In the Netherlands, PostNL spokesperson Wout Witteveen said the Trump administration is pressing ahead with the new duties despite U.S. authorities lacking a system to collect them. He said that PostNL is working closely with its U.S. counterparts to find a solution.

“If you have something to send to America, you should do it today,” Witteveen told The Associated Press.

Austrian Post, Austria’s leading logistics and postal service provider, stated that the last acceptance of commercial shipments to the U.S., including Puerto Rico, will take place Tuesday.

France’s national postal service, La Poste, said the U.S. did not provide full details or allow enough time for the French postal service to prepare for new customs procedures.

″Despite discussions with U.S. customs services, no time was provided to postal operators to re-organize and assure the necessary computer updates to conform to the new rules,″ it said in a statement.

PostEurop, an association of 51 European public postal operators, said that if no solution can be found by Aug. 29 all its members will likely follow suit.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Nati Harnik—AP Photo

On the Mercator projection, one of the world’s most popular maps, Greenland and Africa appear to be about the same size. But on the Equal Earth projection showing continents in their true proportions, 14 Greenlands would easily fit inside the African continent.

Criticism that the Mercator projection does not accurately reflect Africa’s real size is not new.

However, a recent campaign by African advocacy groups is gaining momentum online as it urges organizations and schools to adopt the Equal Earth projection, which they say more accurately displays the size of the continent of more than 1.4 billion people.

The African Union, the continent’s diplomatic organization with 55 member countries, endorsed the campaign last week in what advocates call a major milestone.

Here is what to know about the effort to show Africa’s real size to the world.

Africa appears too small on most modern maps

The Mercator map was created in the 16th century by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator. Designed to help European navigators at sea, the map distorted landmasses by enlarging regions near the poles such as North America and Greenland while shrinking Africa and South America.

The 2018 Equal Earth projection is a modern map that follows the Earth’s curvature and shows continents in their true proportions, unlike the distorted Mercator map.

The Mercator projection is still common in classrooms and tech platforms. Google Maps dropped the widely used projection for a 3D globe on desktop in 2018, but users can switch back to the old map. The mobile app still defaults to the Mercator projection.

Groups campaign to replace the global map

Two African advocacy groups, Africa No Filter and Speak Up Africa, launched a campaign in April to push schools, followed by international organizations and media outlets, to use the Equal Earth projection, which it says more accurately reflects the true size of Africa.

“Correcting the map is not only an African issue. It is a matter of truth and accuracy that concerns the entire world. When whole generations, in Africa and elsewhere, learn from a distorted map, they develop a biased view of Africa’s role in the world,” said Fara Ndiaye, co-founder and deputy executive director of Speak Up Africa.

For non-Africans, a shrunken representation of Africa minimizes its demographic, economic and strategic significance, Ndiaye added.

The African Union endorsed the campaign on Aug. 14, the largest body to sign on to the campaign so far, marking a significant milestone for the Change The Map campaign.

Geographers say the Mercator projection is outdated

Mark Monmonier, a Syracuse University professor of geography, said the Mercator projection is obsolete and geographers have long advised people to not use it as a world map.

“It was a useful navigation tool in the 16th century, because it has straight lines, giving navigators a line of constant direction to sail along,” Monmonier said. “But outside of that very narrow navigation application, there is no point in using it.”

While maps following the curvature of the earth, like the Equal Earth projection, offer a more accurate scale of continents true sizes, he nonetheless warned that bar graphs remain the best way to compare the sizes of different continents.

“When you put irregularly shaped areas on a flat paper, people are going to have a hard time accurately comparing the size of landmasses,” Monmonier said.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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Frank Caprio, a retired municipal judge in Rhode Island who found online fame as a caring jurist and host of “Caught in Providence,” has died. He was 88.

His official social media accounts said Wednesday that he “passed away peacefully” after “a long and courageous battle with pancreatic cancer.”

Caprio billed his courtroom as a place “where people and cases are met with kindness and compassion.” He was known for dismissing tickets or showing kindness even when he handed out justice.

Last week, Caprio posted a short video on Facebook about how he had “a setback,” was back in the hospital and was asking that people “remember me in your prayers.”

Caprio’s show was filmed in his courtroom and featured his folksy humor and compassion. Clips from the show have had more than 1 billion views on social media.

During his time on the bench, Caprio developed a persona at odds with many TV judges — more sympathetic and less confrontational and judgmental.

In his bite-sized segments on YouTube, Caprio is often seen empathizing with those in his courtroom. Many of the infractions are also relatively minor, from failing to use a turn signal to a citation for a loud party.

Caprio also used his fame to address issues like unequal access to the judicial system.

“The phrase, ‘With liberty and justice for all’ represents the idea that justice should be accessible to everyone. However it is not,” Caprio said in one video. “Almost 90% of low-income Americans are forced to battle civil issues like health care, unjust evictions, veterans benefits and, yes, even traffic violations, alone.”

Caprio’s upbeat take on the job of a judge drew him millions of views. His most popular videos have been those where he calls children to the bench to help pass judgment on their parents. One shows him listening sympathetically to a woman whose son was killed and then dismissing her tickets and fines of $400.

In another clip, after dismissing a red-light violation for a bartender who was making $3.84 per hour, Caprio urged those watching the video not to duck out on their bills.

“If anyone’s watching I want them to know you better not eat and run because you’re going to get caught and the poor people who are working hard all day for three bucks an hour are going to have to pay your bill,” he said.

His fame reached as far as China, where clips of his show have been uploaded to social media in recent years. Some fans there posted about his death, recalling and praising the humanity he showed in his rulings.

His family described Caprio “as a devoted husband, father, grandfather, great grandfather and friend.”

“Beloved for his compassion, humility, and unwavering belief in the goodness of people, Judge Caprio touched the lives of millions through his work in the courtroom and beyond,” the family wrote online. “His warmth, humor, and kindness left an indelible mark on all who knew him.”

State and local politicians mourned his passing and celebrated his life.

“Judge Caprio not only served the public well, but he connected with them in a meaningful way, and people could not help but respond to his warmth and compassion,” Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee said in a statement. “He was more than a jurist — he was a symbol of empathy on the bench, showing us what is possible when justice is tempered with humanity.”

Robert Leonard, who co-owned a restaurant with Caprio, said he was “going to be sorely missed” and was “all around wonderful.”

“There is nothing he wouldn’t do for you if he could do it,” Leonard said.

Caprio retired from Providence Municipal Court in 2023 after nearly four decades on the bench.

According to his biography, Caprio came from humble beginnings, the second of three boys growing up in the Federal Hill neighborhood of Providence, Rhode Island.

“I hope that people will take away that the institutions of government can function very well by exercising kindness, fairness, and compassion in their deliberations. We live in a very contentious society,” he said in 2017. “I would hope that people will see that we can dispense justice without being oppressive.”

___

LeBlanc, an Associated Press journalist who retired in January, was the primary writer of this obituary. Associated Press writers Michael Casey in Boston, Audrey McAvoy in Honolulu and Ken Moritsugu in Beijing contributed.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© AP Photo/Michelle R. Smith, File

Turn off the lights. The Nesting Ospreys have defeated the Apple Valley Eagles in Minnesota high school football.

They haven’t actually played each other, but the ospreys took charge when they built a huge nest to raise their chicks, high up on a light pole at the Apple Valley High School football field. Because of it, the migratory raptors that are protected under state and federal law forced the school, known as the Eagles, to rearrange their football and soccer schedules, switching to day games instead of night.

Turning on the hot floodlights would have risked cooking the birds and starting a fire.

“When you tell someone this story of ‘Wow, we have to reschedule because there’s an osprey nest in our stadium,’ they’re like, ‘You can’t make this type of stuff up, right?’” said Cory Hanson, athletic director at the school in the Minneapolis suburbs.

Working with the state Department of Natural Resources, the school has been sending up a drone twice a week to monitor the chicks so that once the young ospreys are old enough and fly off, crews can remove the nest and switch on the traditional Friday Night Lights.

“Luckily for Apple Valley, they should be able to remove the nest within probably a week because the birds have already taken some of their first flights,” Heidi Cyr, the department’s nongame wildlife permit coordinator, said Friday.

Hanson said he’s seen as many as four chicks in the drone photos. He said the school became aware of the nest around June.

“When you see these large birds flying across your field with these humongous sticks, you start to ask questions like, ‘What is going on here?’” he said. “And you take one look at that nest, right? And you’re like, ‘OK, this is not your average bird.’”

DNR officials confirmed it was an osprey nest, and told school officials that federal law made it clear that they could not disturb it for now.

So, Hanson said, they had no choice but to revise their schedules. But he said other schools have been great about finding alternate sites and times, despite their initial disbelief.

According to the DNR, ospreys are one of the larger birds of prey that inhabit Minnesota, with wingspans of 4.5 to 6 feet (1.4 to 1.8 meters).

They’ll return to their nests every year and will build them up with new materials every season. Their nests can get as large as 10 feet deep (3 meters) and 3 to 6 feet (1 to 2 meters) in diameter. Their diet is almost exclusively live fish. They’ll dive from high altitudes to grab fish with their sharp talons, plunging as deep as 3 feet (1 meter) underwater.

Ospreys like to build their nests in high places with clear views, including dead old trees and structures that resemble them, like utility poles, channel markers and cellphone towers. That sometimes creates fire hazards. So the DNR issues a number of nest removal permits every year. But permission to remove nests that still hold young ospreys is normally denied unless there’s a major health and human safety concern. Stadium lighting doesn’t qualify, Cyr said.

Efforts to restore their population, which have included building nest platforms, have been a success in Minnesota and elsewhere, Cyr noted. They came off the state’s special concern list in 2015. Depending on the time of year, they can now be found across most of North America.

Once the chicks at Apple Valley fly off for good, Hanson said, school officials and the DNR will relocate the nest from the light tower to a new platform on school grounds in hopes that the parents will return next year. But just to be safe, they’ll also erect deterrents on the lights so the ospreys don’t try to nest there again.

“So if anyone sees that happening, don’t worry,” Cyr said. “The birds are safe. They’ve successfully left the nest and they’re on their way to becoming adults themselves.”

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Associated Press writer Steve Karnowski reported from Minneapolis.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© AP Photo/Mark Vancleave

Hall of Fame jockey Ron Turcotte, who rode Secretariat to the Triple Crown in 1973, has died. He was 84.

Turcotte’s family said through his longtime business partner and friend Leonard Lusky that the Canada-born jockey died of natural causes Friday at his home in Drummond, New Brunswick.

He won the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes twice each, most notably sweeping the three with Secretariat to end horse racing’s Triple Crown drought that dated to Citation in 1948.

“Ron was a great jockey and an inspiration to so many, both within and outside the racing world,” Lusky said. “While he reached the pinnacle of success in his vocation, it was his abundance of faith, courage, and kindness that was the true measure of his greatness.”

Secretariat’s record time of 2:24 in the Belmont, winning by 31 lengths at a 1 1/2-mile distance, still stands 52 years later.

“I still had a lot of horse when I passed the wire,” Turcotte said in 2023, nearly 50 years to the day since riding Secretariat in the Belmont. “He was not tired. … It was amazing.”

Turcotte won 3,032 races over a nearly two-decade career that ended in 1978 when he fell off a horse early in a race and suffered injuries that made him paraplegic. Permanently Disabled Jockeys Fund chairman William J. Punk Jr. called Turcotte one of the sport’s greatest champions and ambassadors and praised him for his advocacy and efforts to help fellow fallen riders.

“While his courage as a jockey was on full display to a nation of adoring fans during that electrifying time, it was after he faced a life altering injury that we learned about the true character of Ron Turcotte,” New York Racing Association president and CEO David O’Rourke said. “By devoting himself to supporting fellow jockeys struggling through similar injuries, Ron Turcotte built a legacy defined by kindness and compassion.”

Turcotte was inducted into the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame in 1979.

“The world may remember Ron as the famous jockey of Secretariat, but to us he was a wonderful husband, a loving father, grandfather, and a great horseman.” the Turcotte family said in a statement through Lusky.

Turcotte was born in Drummond on July 22, 1941, as one of 12 children. He quit school to work as a lumberjack before moving to Toronto to get involved in horse racing, first as a hotwalker and then a jockey, becoming the leading rider at Woodbine Racetrack before rising to the Triple Crown level.

Woodbine chairman Jim Lawson said Turcotte was “a true Canadian icon whose impact on horse racing is immeasurable.”

“Ron carried himself with humility, strength and dignity,” Lawson said. “His legacy in racing, both here at Woodbine and around the world, will live forever.”

Turcotte won the Preakness in 1965 aboard Tom Rolfe and the Derby and Belmont in 1972 with Riva Ridge. But it was his time with Secretariat that made Turcotte a household name in racing, and he called it “love at first ride.”

“He was the type of horse that you’ll never see again,” Turcotte said two years ago. “He was doing something that you’ve never seen before and will probably never see again.”

Turcotte was the last surviving member of Secretariat’s team: The colt died in 1989, groom Eddie Sweat in 1998, trainer Lucien Laurin in 2000, owner Penny Chenery in 2017 and exercise rider Charlie Davis in 2018.

“Ron Turcotte was an icon and will forever be fondly remembered as the trusted partner of legendary Kentucky Derby and Triple Crown winner Secretariat, arguably the most popular thoroughbred in history,” Churchill Downs Racetrack president Mike Anderson said. “Ron’s many accomplishments on the racetrack and his deep passion for horse racing brought countless fans to the sport. He will be greatly missed.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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Braxton Kimura dreads eating at restaurants. The California teenager is severely allergic to peanuts, shellfish and most tree nuts. Consuming even a tiny amount could send him to the emergency room.

“Eating out is definitely really dangerous. It’s something that I try to avoid,” Kimura, 17, said at his home in San Jose. “When dining out, obviously I always bring my EpiPens, and I’m really nervous all the time.”

Restaurant dining in California could soon become a little less stressful for Braxton and the growing number of Americans with severe food allergies.

State lawmakers are set to vote on legislation that would make California the first U.S. state to require restaurants to disclose whether a menu item contains any of the nine most common food allergens: milk, eggs, fish, shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, sesame and soybeans.

Restaurants could post the allergen information on physical menus, an allergen chart, allergen-specific menu or other printed materials. They can also post a QR code to access a digital menu that lists allergens. Food trucks and carts wouldn’t be required to make changes.

In September, the Legislature is expected to vote on Senate Bill 68, known as the Allergen Disclosure for Dining Experiences Act (ADDE). If approved and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, the new law would take effect on July 1, 2026.

“It’s really to protect the millions of people in California who have allergies like me,” said Democratic state Sen. Caroline Menjivar of the San Fernando Valley, who introduced the bill earlier this year.

Menjivar, who is severely allergic to most nuts and fruits, said she’s had to go to the hospital multiple times for anaphylaxis — a life-threatening allergic reaction — to something she accidentally consumed.

The Southern California lawmaker got the idea for the legislation last year while traveling in Europe, which has required restaurants to disclose food allergens since 2014.

Soon after Menjivar returned to the U.S., she was approached about sponsoring legislation by parents whose daughter has severe allergies.

Since then 9-year-old Addie Lao has become the bill’s most visible advocate, appearing in social media videos, news interviews and legislative hearings.

“I want to be able to eat out with my friends and family like everyone else,” the third grader told state senators in Sacramento in April. “I have to avoid the foods I’m allergic to since it’s like poison to my body and can harm me.”

The bill has the backing of numerous groups representing medical practitioners and people who suffer from asthma and allergies.

But the California Restaurant Association opposes the legislation. The group says the law would increase costs and burdens on restaurants that are already struggling with rising food prices, tariffs, labor shortages and cost-conscious consumers.

The restaurant industry wants more flexibility in how allergen information is posted as well as more liability protections.

“You get into a situation where the menu becomes unwieldy and it becomes incredibly impractical and expensive to be constantly converting menus out with each ingredient shift that may occur and the need to do a new allergy notification,” said Matthew Sutton, senior vice president at the California Restaurant Association.

Some restaurant chains — such as Chipotle Mexican Grill, Red Robin Gourmet Burgers and Olive Garden — already post allergen information on their menus.

Brian Hom, who owns two Vitality Bowl restaurants in San Jose, is one of the bill’s biggest backers. His oldest son died on his 18th birthday in 2008 after he accidentally ate peanuts at a resort in Mexico.

This legislation “is going to save lives,” Hom said. “I don’t want to see anybody suffer what my wife and I are suffering.”

An estimated 33 million Americans, including nearly 4 million in California, have at least one food allergy, according to the nonprofit Food Allergy Research and Education (FARE). And the numbers are rising.

Among them is Kimura, who was diagnosed with food allergies at 14 months old when he was rushed to the hospital in anaphylactic shock after eating a peanut off the floor.

“I always have to be cautious,” Kimura said.

Kimura, a high school senior and basketball player, launched an initiative called Beyond the Shell, which produced a documentary called “The Last Bite” that shows what it’s like to live with life-threatening allergies.

Even if SB 68 becomes law, Kimura says he’d still need to talk to restaurant staff to make sure dishes are allergen-free and there’s no cross-contamination, but allergen labels would reduce the stress of eating in restaurants.

“It would kind of give me more of a peace of mind and would overall just create a better environment and more awareness around food allergies as a whole,” Kimura said. “It’s definitely a step in the right direction.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© AP Photo/Terry Chea

Elon Musk’s X has reached a tentative settlement with former employees of the company then known as Twitter who’d sued for $500 million in severance pay.

The parties disclosed the deal in a Wednesday court filing asking for a scheduled Sept. 17 hearing in the case to be postponed. The San Francisco federal appeals court on Thursday agreed to postpone the hearing so that both sides could finalize the settlement agreement.

The terms of the settlement were not disclosed. The proposed class action lawsuit by former Twitter employees Courtney McMillan and Ronald Cooper, who said the company failed to pay them and other fired workers severance they were owed.

Musk took over the social media platform in 2022 and let thousands of employees go, eliminating entire teams dedicated to trust and safety, human rights and making the site accessible to people with disabilities. Other lawsuits, including one filed by Twitter executives including former CEO Parag Agrawal, are still pending.

The billionaire’s approach to gutting Twitter’s workforce served as a template for his months-long leadership of President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, as it cut tens of thousands of federal workers earlier this year.

An email announcing a “deferred resignation offer” to federal workers, promising pay through September without having to work, was titled “Fork in the Road,” echoing a similar email Musk sent to the Twitter workforce in 2022.

Musk’s drawn-out legal battles with more than 2,000 former Twitter workers were also a precursor to the court battles the Trump administration is now fighting over federal downsizing, though the circumstances are different.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File

Canada is dropping many of its retaliatory tariffs to match U.S. tariff exemptions for goods covered under the United States-Mexico-Canada trade pact, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced Friday.

Carney said Canada will include the carve-out that the U.S. has on Canadian goods under the 2020 free trade deal that shields the vast majority of goods from the punishing duties, easing Canada’s previous stance on holding the line on punitive tariffs until U.S. President Donald Trump relents more on those imposed by the U.S.

Some Canadian politicians and union leaders characterized Carney’s move as capitulation, but the prime minister accentuated what he considered Canada’s favorable position so far and said that the exemptions would jump-start further trade talks with Washington.

“Canada currently has the best trade deal with the United States. And while it’s different from what we had before, it’s still better than that of any other country,” Carney said.

Carney and Trump spoke on the phone Thursday, and Carney met with his Cabinet on Friday before making the announcement.

“We had a very good call,” Trump said Friday in the Oval Office. “We are working on something. We want to be very good to Canada. I like Carney a lot. I think he’s a very good person.” He also said: “I am fighting for the United States, and Canada and Mexico have taken a lot of our business over the years.”

Carney said Trump told him that lifting the tariffs would reset trade negotiations. The United States-Mexico-Canada trade pact, or USMCA, is up for review in 2026, and Carney called the pact a unique advantage for Canada at a time when it is clear that the U.S. is charging for access to its market.

Carney said the commitment of the U.S. to the core of USMCA means that over 85% of Canada-U.S. trade continues to be free of tariffs. He said the U.S. average tariff rate on Canadian goods is 5.6% and remains the lowest among all its trading partners.

Canadian and Mexican companies can claim preferential treatment under the USMCA.

Canada and China are the only countries that have retaliated against Trump in his trade war. Canada imposed 25% tariffs on a long list of American goods in March, including oranges, alcohol, clothing and shoes, motorcycles and cosmetics.

Former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau initially put on retaliatory tariffs in response to U.S. tariffs, but before the U.S. tariffs were applied the Trump administration exempted goods covered by the free trade deal.

Most imports from Canada and Mexico are still protected by the USMCA, but U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has said, “I think the president is absolutely going to renegotiate USMCA.”

Preserving the free trade pact will be critical for Canada and Mexico. More than 75% of Canada’s exports go to the U.S. while more than 80% of Mexico’s exports go there.

Trump has announced some sector-specific tariffs that do apply for Canada despite the USMCA — known as 232 tariffs — which are having an impact on the Canadian economy. There is a 50% tariff on steel and aluminum imports, for example.

“Canada and the United States have reestablished free trade for the vast majority of our goods,” Carney said. “Canada will retain our tariffs on steel, aluminum and autos as we work intensively to resolve the issues there.”

Carney previously rescinded Canada’s plan to tax U.S. technology firms after Trump said he was suspending trade talks with Canada over those plans, which he called “a direct and blatant attack on our country.”

The prime minister disputed any notion that Canada is appeasing Trump, noting that Canada is matching what the U.S. is doing.

“The president and I had a long conversation,” Carney said. “There is a review of the free trade agreement in the spring. We’re starting our preparations.”

Lana Payne, president of Unifor, Canada’s largest private sector union, characterized Carney’s announcement as Canada backing down, and said the country shouldn’t back down unless the U.S. drops all punitive tariffs.

“Trump’s attacks on auto, steel, aluminum, and forestry sectors are hurting Canadian workers in real time,” she posted on social media. “Walking back counter-tariffs isn’t an olive branch. It only enables more U.S. aggression.”

Opposition Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre called it a capitulation by Carney. Poilievre said he would have gone to the U.S. president and asked him respectfully to remove all the tariffs.

“Any small tariff on Canada, any amount, by the United States has an outsized effect because more than 20% of our economy is exports to the U.S.,” he said.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press via AP

Now that Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has signaled that the central bank could soon cut its key interest rate, he faces a new challenge: how to do it without seeming to cave to the White House’s demands.

For months, Powell has largely ignored President Donald Trump’s constant hectoring that he reduce borrowing costs. Yet on Friday, in a highly-anticipated speech, Powell suggested that the Fed could take such a step as soon as its next meeting in September.

It will be a fraught decision for the Fed, which must weigh it against persistent inflation and an economy that could also improve in the second half of this year. Both trends, if they occur, could make a cut look premature.

Trump has urged Powell to slash rates, arguing there is “no inflation” and saying that a cut would lower the government’s interest payments on its $37 trillion in debt.

Powell, on the other hand, has suggested that a rate cut is likely for reasons quite different than Trump’s: He is worried that the economy is weakening. His remarks on Friday at an economic symposium in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming also indicated that the Fed will move carefully and cut rates at a much slower pace than Trump wants.

Powell pointed to economic growth that “has slowed notably in the first half of this year,” to an annual rate of 1.2%, down from 2.5% last year. There has also been a “marked slowing” in the demand for workers, he added, which threatens to raise unemployment.

Still, Powell said that tariffs have started to lift the price of goods and could continue to push inflation higher, a possibility Fed officials will closely monitor and that will make them cautious about additional rate cuts.

The Fed’s key short-term interest rate, which influences other borrowing costs for things like mortgages and auto loans, is currently 4.3%. Trump has called for it to be cut as low as 1% — a level no Fed official supports.

However the Fed moves forward, it will likely do so while continuing to assert its longstanding independence. A politically independent central bank is considered by most economists as critical to preventing inflation, because it can take steps — such as raising interest rates to cool the economy and combat inflation — that are harder for elected officials to do.

There are 19 members of the Fed’s interest-rate setting committee, 12 of whom vote on rate decisions. One of them, Beth Hammack, president of the Federal Reserve’s Cleveland branch, said Friday in an interview with The Associated Press that she is committed to the Fed’s independence.

“I’m laser focused … on ensuring that I can deliver good outcomes for the for the public, and I try to tune out all the other noise,” she said.

She remains concerned that the Fed still needs to fight stubborn inflation, a view shared by several colleagues.

“Inflation is too high and it’s been trending in the wrong direction,” Hammack said. “Right now I see us moving away from our goals on the inflation side.”

Powell himself did not discuss the Fed’s independence during his speech in Wyoming, where he received a standing ovation by the assembled academics, economists, and central bank officials from around the world. But Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said that was likely a deliberate choice and intended, ironically, to demonstrate the Fed’s independence.

“The not talking about independence was a way of trying as best they could to signal we’re getting on with the business,” Posen said. “We’re still having a civilized internal discussion about the merits of the issue. And even if it pleases the president, we’re going to make the right call.”

It was against that backdrop that Trump intensified his own pressure campaign against another top Fed official.

Trump said he would fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook if she did not step down from her position. Bill Pulte, a Trump appointee to head the agency that regulates mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, alleged Wednesday that Cook committed mortgage fraud when she bought two properties in 2021. She has not been charged.

Cook has said she would not be “bullied” into giving up her position. She declined Friday to comment on Trump’s threat.

If Cook is somehow removed, that would give Trump an opportunity to put a loyalist on the Fed’s governing board. Members of the board vote on all interest rate decisions. He has already nominated a top White House economist, Stephen Miran, to replace former governor Adriana Kugler, who stepped down Aug. 1.

Trump had previously threatened to fire Powell, but hasn’t done so. Trump appointed Powell in late 2017. His term as chair ends in about nine months.

Powell is no stranger to Trump’s attacks. Michael Strain, director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, noted that the president also went after him in 2018 for raising interest rates, but that didn’t stop Powell.

“The president has a long history of applying pressure to Chairman Powell,” Strain said. “And Chairman Powell has a long history of resisting that pressure. So it would be odd, I think, if on his way out the door, he caved for the first time.”

Still, Strain thinks that Powell is overestimating the risk that the economy will weaken further and push unemployment higher. If inflation worsens while hiring continues, that could force the Fed to potentially reverse course and increase rates again next year.

“That would do further damage to the Fed’s credibility around maintaining low and stable price inflation,” he said.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© AP Photo/Amber Baesler

President Donald Trump is calling national security and privacy concerns related to TikTok and its Chinese parent company “highly overrated” and said Friday he’ll keep extending the deadline for the popular video-sharing platform until there’s a buyer.

Congress approved a U.S. ban on TikTok unless its parent company, ByteDance, sold its controlling stake. But Trump has so far extended the deadline three times during his second term — with the next one coming up on Sept. 17.

“We’re gonna watch the security concerns,” Trump told reporters, but added, “We have buyers, American-buyers,” and “until the complexity of things work out, we just extend a little bit longer.”

The first extension was through an executive order on Jan. 20, his first day in office, after the platform went dark briefly when a national ban — approved by Congress and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court — took effect. The second was in April, when White House officials believed they were nearing a deal to spin off TikTok into a new company with U.S. ownership that fell apart after China backed out following Trump’s tariff announcement.

His comments follow the White House starting a TikTok account this week.

“I used TikTok in the campaign,” Trump said.

“I’m a fan of TikTok,” he said. “My kids like TikTok. Young people love TikTok. If we could keep it going.”

As the extensions continue, it appears less and less likely that TikTok will be banned in the U.S. any time soon. The decision to keep TikTok alive through an executive order has received some scrutiny, but the administration has not faced a legal challenge in court — unlike many of Trump’s other executive orders.

Americans are even more closely divided on what to do about TikTok than they were two years ago.

A recent Pew Research Center survey found that about one-third of Americans said they supported a TikTok ban, down from 50% in March 2023. Roughly one-third said they would oppose a ban, and a similar percentage said they weren’t sure.

Among those who said they supported banning the social media platform, about 8 in 10 cited concerns over users’ data security being at risk as a major factor in their decision, according to the report.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© AP Photo/Evan Vucci

President Donald Trump on Friday announced the U.S. government has secured a 10% stake in struggling Silicon Valley pioneer Intel in a deal that was completed just a couple weeks after he was depicting the company’s CEO as a conflicted leader unfit for the job.

“The United States of America now fully owns and controls 10% of INTEL, a Great American Company that has an even more incredible future,” Trump wrote in a post.

The U.S. government is getting the stake through the conversion of $11.1 billion in previously issued funds and pledges. All told, the government is getting 433.3 million shares of non-voting stock priced at $20.47 apiece — a discount from Friday’s closing price at $24.80. That spread means the U.S. government already has a gain of $1.9 billion, on paper.

The remarkable turn of events makes the U.S. government one of Intel’s largest shareholders at a time that the Santa Clara, California, company is in the process of jettisoning more than 20,000 workers as part of its latest attempt to bounce back from years of missteps taken under a variety of CEOs.

Intel’s current CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, has only been on the job for slightly more than five months, an d earlier this month, it looked like he might be on shaky ground already after some lawmakers raised national security concerns about his past investments in Chinese companies while he was a venture capitalist. Trump latched on to those concerns in an August 7 post demanding that Tan resign.

But Trump backed off after the Malaysian-born Tan professed his allegiance to the U.S. in a public letter to Intel employees and went to the White House to meet with the president, leading to a deal that now has the U.S. government betting that the company is on the comeback trail after losing more than $22 billion since the end of 2023. Trump hailed Tan as “highly respected” CEO in his Friday post.

In a statement, Tan applauded Trump for “driving historic investments in a vital industry” and resolved to reward his faith in Intel. “We are grateful for the confidence the President and the Administration have placed in Intel, and we look forward to working to advance U.S. technology and manufacturing leadership,” Tan said.

Intel’s current stock price is just slightly above where it was when Tan was hired in March and more than 60% below its peak of about $75 reached 25 years ago when its chips were still dominating the personal computer boom before being undercut by a shift to smartphones a few years later. The company’s market value currently stands at about $108 billion – a fraction of the current chip kingpin, Nvidia, which is valued at $4.3 trillion.

The stake is coming primarily through U.S. government grants to Intel through the CHIPS and Science Act that was started under President Joe Biden’s administration as a way to foster more domestic manufacturing of computer chips to lessen the dependence on overseas factories.

But the Trump administration, which has regularly pilloried the policies of the Biden administration, saw the CHIPs act as a needless giveaway and is now hoping to make a profit off the funding that had been pledged to Intel.

“We think America should get the benefit of the bargain,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said earlier this week. “It’s obvious that it’s the right move to make.”

About $7.8 billion had been been pledged to Intel under the incentives program, but only $2.2 billion had been funded so far. Another $3.2 billion of the government investment is coming through the funds from another program called “Secure Enclave.”

Although U.S. government can’t vote with its shares and won’t have a seat on Intel’s board of directors, critics of the deal view it as a troubling cross-pollination between the public and private sectors that could hurt the tech industry in a variety of ways.

For instance, more tech companies may feel pressured to buy potentially inferior chips from Intel to curry favor with Trump at a time that he is already waging a trade war that threatens to affect their products in a potential scenario cited by Scott Lincicome, vice president of general economics for the Cato Institute.

“Overall, it’s a horrendous move that will have real harms for U.S. companies, U.S. tech leadership, and the U.S. economy overall,” Lincicome posted Friday.

The 10% stake could also intensify the pressure already facing Tan, especially if Trump starts fixating on Intel’s stock price while resorting to his penchant for celebrating his past successes in business.

Nancy Tengler, CEO of money manager Laffer Tengler Investments, is among the investors who abandoned Intel years ago because of all the challenges facing Intel.

“I don’t see the benefit to the American taxpayer, nor do I see the benefit, necessarily to the chip industry,” Tengler said while also raising worries about Trump meddling in Intel’s business.

“I don’t care how good of businessman you are, give it to the private sector and let people like me be the critic and let the government get to the business of government.,” Tengler said.

Although rare, it’s not unprecedented for the U.S. government to become a significant shareholder in a prominent company. One of the most notable instances occurred during the Great Recession in 2008 when the government injected nearly $50 billion into General Motors in return for a roughly 60% stake in the automaker at a time it was on the verge of bankruptcy. The government ended up with a roughly $10 billion loss after it sold its stock in GM.

The U.S. government’s stake in Intel coincides with Trump’s push to bring production to the U.S., which has been a focal point of the trade war that he has been waging throughout the world. By lessening the country’s dependence on chips manufactured overseas, the president believes the U.S. will be better positioned to maintain its technological lead on China in the race to create artificial intelligence.

Even before gaining the 10% stake in Intel, Trump had been leveraging his power to reprogram the operations of major computer chip companies. The administration is requiring Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices, two companies whose chips are powering the AI craze, to pay a 15% commission on their sales of chips in China in exchange for export licenses.

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Liedtke reported from San Ramon, California.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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Jeffrey Epstein’s imprisoned former girlfriend repeatedly denied to the Justice Department witnessing any sexually inappropriate interactions with Donald Trump, according to records released Friday meant to distance the Republican president from the disgraced financer.

The Trump administration issued transcripts from interviews that Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche conducted with Ghislaine Maxwell last month as the administration was scrambling to present itself as transparent amid a fierce backlash over an earlier refusal to disclose a trove of records from the sex-trafficking case.

The records show Maxwell repeatedly showering Trump with praise and denying under questioning from Blanche that she had observed Trump engaged in any form of sexual behavior. The administration was presumably eager to make such denials public at a time when the president has faced questions about a long-ago friendship with Epstein and as his administration has endured continued scrutiny over its handling of evidence from the case.

The transcript release represents the latest Trump administration effort to repair self-inflicted political wounds after failing to deliver on expectations that its own officials had created through conspiracy theories and bold pronouncements that never came to pass. By making public two days worth of interviews, officials appear to be hoping to at least temporarily keep at bay sustained anger from Trump’s base as they send Congress evidence they had previously kept from view.

After her interview with Blanche, Maxwell was moved from the low-security federal prison in Florida to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas to continue serving a 20-year sentence for her 2021 conviction on allegations that she lured teenage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein. Her trial featured sordid accounts of the sexual exploitation of girls as young as 14 told by four women who described being abused as teens in the 1990s and early 2000s at Epstein’s homes.

Neither Maxwell’s lawyers nor the federal Bureau of Prisons have explained the reason for the move, but one of her lawyers, David Oscar Markus, said in a social media post Friday that Maxwell was “innocent and never should have been tried, much less convicted.”

‘Never inappropriate’

“I actually never saw the President in any type of massage setting,” Maxwell said, according to the transcript. “I never witnessed the President in any inappropriate setting in any way. The President was never inappropriate with anybody. In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects.”

Maxwell recalled knowing about Trump and possibly meeting him for the first time in 1990, when her newspaper magnate father, Robert Maxwell, was the owner of the New York Daily News. She said she had been to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, sometimes alone, but hadn’t seen Trump since the mid-2000s.

Asked if she ever heard Epstein or anyone else say Trump “had done anything inappropriate with masseuses” or anyone else in their orbit, Maxwell replied, “Absolutely never, in any context.”

Maxwell was interviewed over the course of two days last month by Blanche at a Florida courthouse. She was given limited immunity, allowing her to speak freely without fear of prosecution for anything she said except for in the event of a false statement.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department on Friday began sending to the House Oversight Committee records from the investigation that the panel says it intends to make public after removing victim’s information.

High-profile contacts

The case had long captured public attention in part because of the wealthy financer’s social connections over the years to prominent figures, including Prince Andrew, former President Bill Clinton and Trump, who has said he had a falling-out with Epstein years ago and well before Epstein came under investigation.

Maxwell told Blanche that Clinton was initially her friend, not Epstein’s, and that she never saw him receive a massage — nor did she believe he ever did. The only times they were together, she said, were the two dozen or so times they traveled on Epstein’s plane.

“That would’ve been the only time that I think that President Clinton could have even received a massage,” Maxwell said. “And he didn’t, because I was there.”

She also spoke glowingly of Britain’s Prince Andrew and dismissed as “rubbish” the late Virginia Giuffre’s claim that she was paid to have a relationship with Andrew and that he had sex with her at Maxwell’s London home.

Maxwell sought to distance herself from Epstein’s conduct, repeatedly denying allegations made during her trial about her role. Though she acknowledged that at one point Epstein began preferring younger women, she insisted she never understood that to “encompass children.”

“I did see from when I met him, he was involved or — involved or friends with or whatever, however you want to characterize it, with women who were in their 20s,” she told Blanche. “And then the slide to, you know, 18 or younger looking women. But I never considered that this would encompass criminal behavior.”

Epstein was arrested in 2019 on sex-trafficking charges, accused of sexually abusing dozens of teenage girls, and was found dead a month later in a New York jail cell in what investigators described as a suicide.

A story that’s consumed the Justice Department

The saga has consumed the Trump administration following a two-page announcement from the FBI and Justice Department last month that Epstein had killed himself despite conspiracy theories to the contrary, that a “client list” that Attorney General Pam Bondi had intimated was on her desk did not actually exist, and that no additional documents from the high-profile investigation were suitable to be released.

The announcement produced outrage from conspiracy theorists, online sleuths and Trump supporters who had been hoping to see proof of a government coverup. That expectation was driven in part by comments from officials, including FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino, who on podcasts before taking their current positions had repeatedly promoted the idea that damaging details about prominent people were being withheld.

Patel, for instance, said in at least one podcast interview before becoming director that Epstein’s “black book” was under the “direct control of the director of the FBI.”

The administration had an early stumble in February when far-right influencers were invited to the White House in February and provided by Bondi with binders marked “The Epstein Files: Phase 1” and “Declassified” that contained documents that had largely already been in the public domain.

After the first release fell flat, Bondi said officials were poring over a “truckload” of previously withheld evidence she said had been handed over by the FBI and raised expectations of forthcoming releases.

But after a weekslong review of evidence in the government’s possession, the Justice Department determined that no “further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted.” The department noted that much of the material was placed under seal by a court to protect victims and “only a fraction” of it “would have been aired publicly had Epstein gone to trial.”

Faced with fury from his base, Trump sought to quickly turn the page, shutting down questioning of Bondi about Epstein at a White House Cabinet meeting and deriding as “weaklings” supporters who he said were falling for the “Jeffrey Epstein Hoax.”

The Justice Department has responded to a subpoena from House lawmakers by pledging to turn over information.

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Associated Press writer Adriana Gomez Licon contributed to this report.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© AP Photo/John Minchillo, File

The FBI on Friday searched the Maryland home and Washington office of former Trump administration national security adviser John Bolton as part of a criminal investigation into the potential mishandling of classified information, a person familiar with the matter said.

Bolton, who emerged as an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump after being fired in 2019 and fought with the first Trump administration over a scathing book he wrote documenting his time in the White House, was not in custody Friday and has not been charged with any crimes, said the person who was not authorized to discuss the investigation by name and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity.

The searches, seemingly the most significant public step the Justice Department has taken against a perceived enemy of the president, are likely to elicit fresh concerns that the Trump administration is using its law enforcement powers to target the Republican’s foes. They come as the Trump administration has moved to examine the activities of other critics, including by authorizing a grand jury investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia probe that dogged Trump for much of his first term, and as FBI and Justice Department leaders signal their loyalty to the president.

Speaking to reporters during an unscheduled visit to the White House Historical Association, Trump said he had seen news coverage of Friday’s searches and expected to be briefed about it by the Justice Department but also insisted he didn’t “want to know about it.”

“I could know about it. I could be the one starting it. I’m actually the chief law enforcement officer. But I feel that it’s better this way,” Trump said.

Bolton had said in interviews this year that he was mindful that he could be scrutinized, telling the AP in January shortly before Trump took office, “Anybody who ever disagrees with Trump has to worry about retribution. It’s a pretty long list.”

An FBI search like the one at Bolton’s properties requires authorization from a federal magistrate judge. It wasn’t immediately clear what information authorities submitted to demonstrate that they had probable cause of a crime, though the Justice Department years ago launched an investigation into whether Bolton improperly disclosed classified information in a book manuscript he had written. The inquiry was later closed.

Vice President JD Vance denied in an NBC News interview on Friday that Bolton was being targeted because of his criticism of Trump, “If there’s no crime here, we’re not going to prosecute it. If there is a crime here, of course, Ambassador Bolton will get his day in court. That’s how it should be.”

Bolton was in his office building at the time

Bolton was not home for the search of his home, but after it started, he was spotted Friday morning standing in the lobby of the Washington building where he keeps an office and talking to two people with “FBI” visible on their vests. He left a few minutes later and appeared to have gone upstairs in the building. Agents were seen taking bags into the office building through a back entrance.

Messages left with a spokesperson for Bolton were not immediately returned, and a lawyer who has represented Bolton had no immediate comment.

The Justice Department had no comment, but leaders appeared to cryptically refer to the searches in a series of social media posts Friday morning.

FBI Director Kash Patel, who included Bolton on a list of “members of the Executive Branch Deep State” in a 2023 book he wrote, posted on X: “NO ONE is above the law… @FBI agents on mission.” Attorney General Pam Bondi shared his post, adding: “America’s safety isn’t negotiable. Justice will be pursued. Always.”

The Justice Department is separately conducting mortgage fraud investigations into Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California and New York Attorney General Letitia James, who brought a civil fraud lawsuit against Trump and his company, and ex-Trump prosecutor Jack Smith faces an investigation from an independent watchdog office. Schiff and James have vigorously denied any wrongdoing through their lawyers.

The Bolton searches also unfolded against the backdrop of a 2022 search for classified documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, an action that produced since-dismissed criminal charges but remains the source of outrage for the president and supporters who insist he was unjustly targeted despite the retrieval of top-secret records.

Patel said in a Fox Business Channel interview this week that the Mar-a-Lago search represented a “total weaponization and politicization” of the bureau, and Trump himself referenced it on Friday, telling reporters: “I guess his house was raided today, but my house was raided, also.”

Trump and Bolton have been at odds for years

Bolton served as Trump’s third national security adviser for 17 months and clashed with him over Iran, Afghanistan and North Korea.

He faced scrutiny during the first Trump administration over a book he wrote about his time in government that officials argued disclosed classified information. To make its case, the Justice Department in 2020 submitted sworn statements from senior administration officials, including then-National Security Agency Director Paul Nakasone, asserting that Bolton’s manuscript included classified information that could harm national security if exposed.

Bolton’s lawyers have said he moved forward with the book after a White House National Security Council official, with whom Bolton had worked for months, said the manuscript no longer contained classified information.

The Biden administration Justice Department in 2021 abandoned its lawsuit and dropped a separate grand jury investigation, with Bolton’s lawyer calling the effort to block the book “politically motivated” and illegitimate.

Bolton’s harshly critical book, “The Room Where It Happened,” portrayed Trump as grossly ill-informed about foreign policy and said he “saw conspiracies behind rocks, and remained stunningly uninformed on how to run the White House, let alone the huge federal government.”

Trump responded by slamming Bolton as a “crazy” warmonger who would have led the country into “World War Six.”

Bolton served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush and also held positions in President Ronald Reagan’s administration. He considered running for president in 2012 and 2016.

Trump, on his first day back in office this year, revoked the security clearances of more than four dozen former intelligence officials, including Bolton. Bolton was also among a group of former Trump officials whose security details were canceled by Trump earlier this year.

In 2022, an Iranian operative was charged in a plot to kill Bolton in presumed retaliation for a 2020 U.S. airstrike that killed the country’s most powerful general.

The handling of classified information by top government officials has been a politically loaded topic in recent years. Besides Trump, the Justice Department also investigated whether then-President Joe Biden, a Democrat, mishandled classified information after serving as vice president in the Obama administration, and the FBI also recovered what it said were classified documents from the home of former Trump Vice President Mike Pence. Neither man was charged.

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Associated Press writers Michelle L. Price, Nathan Ellgren, Lindsay Whitehurst, Alanna Durkin Richer, Byron Tau and Jill Colvin contributed to this report.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy went fishing with U.S. Vice President JD Vance earlier this month and the closest thing he came to catching was a whopping fine.

Lammy was given a written warning for fishing without a license, an Environment Agency spokesperson said Friday.

As far as breaking the law goes, it was pretty small fry but could have netted him a fine of up to 2,500 pounds ($3,380) for the offense.

Lammy, whose spokesperson described it all as an “administrative oversight,” purchased a license after-the-fact and reported himself to the agency.

Lammy hosted Vance and his family, who were vacationing in England, at his country estate south of London on Aug. 8. The two men smiled and laughed as Vance provided what Lammy called Kentucky-style fishing tips.

Apparently, the pointers didn’t help Lammy land a fish.

“The one strain on the special relationship is that all of my kids caught fish, but the foreign secretary did not,” Vance later said.

The Environment Agency would not comment on whether Vance had a license, citing data protection rules. The vice president’s spokesperson did not immediately reply to an email from The Associated Press seeking comment.

The agency said it confirmed that Lammy was given a warning because he had publicized it. In England and Wales, anyone over 13 needs a license for freshwater fishing, the agency said.

In most cases, inexperienced anglers caught without a permit are given warnings — so in that sense, Lammy apparently had some beginner’s luck.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Suzanne Plunkett/Pool Photo via AP

President Donald Trump this week called on a Federal Reserve governor to resign over an accusation of mortgage fraud, the latest effort by his administration to exert greater control over one of the few remaining independent agencies in Washington.

Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook says she won’t leave her post.

Trump has repeatedly attacked the Fed’s chair, Jerome Powell, for not cutting its short-term interest rate, and even threatened to fire him. Powell, who will speak Friday at an economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, says the Fed wants to see how the economy responds to Trump’s sweeping tariffs on imports, which Powell says could push up inflation.

Powell’s caution has infuriated Trump, who has demanded the Fed cut borrowing costs to spur the economy and reduce the interest rates the federal government pays on its debt. Trump has also accused Powell of mismanaging the U.S. central bank’s $2.5 billion building renovation project.

Firing the Fed chair or forcing out a governor would threaten the Fed’s venerated independence, which has long been supported by most economists and Wall Street investors. Here’s what to know about the Fed:

Why the Fed’s independence matters

The Fed wields extensive power over the U.S. economy. By cutting the short-term interest rate it controls — which it typically does when the economy falters — the Fed can make borrowing cheaper and encourage more spending, accelerating growth and hiring. When it raises the rate — which it does to cool the economy and combat inflation — it can weaken the economy and cause job losses.

Economists have long preferred independent central banks because they can more easily take unpopular steps to fight inflation, such as raise interest rates, which makes borrowing to buy a home, car, or appliance more expensive.

The importance of an independent Fed was cemented for most economists after the extended inflation spike of the 1970s and early 1980s. Former Fed Chair Arthur Burns has been widely blamed for allowing the painful inflation of that era to accelerate by succumbing to pressure from President Richard Nixon to keep rates low heading into the 1972 election. Nixon feared higher rates would cost him the election, which he won in a landslide.

Paul Volcker was eventually appointed chair of the Fed in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter, and he pushed the Fed’s short-term rate to the stunningly high level of nearly 20%. (It is currently 4.3%). The eye-popping rates triggered a sharp recession, pushed unemployment to nearly 11%, and spurred widespread protests.

Yet Volcker didn’t flinch. By the mid-1980s, inflation had fallen back into the low single digits. Volcker’s willingness to inflict pain on the economy to throttle inflation is seen by most economists as a key example of the value of an independent Fed.

Investors are watching closely

An effort to fire Powell would almost certainly cause stock prices to fall and bond yields to spike higher, pushing up interest rates on government debt and raising borrowing costs for mortgages, auto loans, and credit card debt. The interest rate on the 10-year Treasury is a benchmark for mortgage rates.

Most investors prefer an independent Fed, partly because it typically manages inflation better without being influenced by politics but also because its decisions are more predictable. Fed officials often publicly discuss how they would alter interest rate policies if economic conditions changed.

If the Fed was more swayed by politics, it would be harder for financial markets to anticipate — or understand — its decisions.

The Fed’s independence doesn’t mean it’s unaccountable

Fed chairs like Powell are appointed by the president to serve four-year terms, and have to be confirmed by the Senate. The president also appoints the six other members of the Fed’s governing board, who can serve staggered terms of up to 14 years.

Those appointments can allow a president over time to significantly alter the Fed’s policies. Former president Joe Biden appointed four of the current seven members: Powell, Cook, Philip Jefferson, and Michael Barr. A fifth Biden appointee, Adriana Kugler, stepped down unexpectedly on Aug. 1, about five months before the end of her term. Trump has already nominated his top economist, Stephen Miran, as a potential replacement, though he will require Senate approval. Cook’s term ends in 2038, so forcing her out would allow Trump to appoint a loyalist sooner.

Trump will be able to replace Powell as Fed chair in May 2026, when Powell’s term expires. Yet 12 members of the Fed’s interest-rate setting committee have a vote on whether to raise or lower interest rates, so even replacing the Chair doesn’t guarantee that Fed policy will shift the way Trump wants.

Congress, meanwhile, can set the Fed’s goals through legislation. In 1977, for example, Congress gave the Fed a “dual mandate” to keep prices stable and seek maximum employment. The Fed defines stable prices as inflation at 2%.

The 1977 law also requires the Fed chair to testify before the House and Senate twice every year about the economy and interest rate policy.

Could the president fire Powell before his term ends?

The Supreme Court earlier this year suggested in a ruling on other independent agencies that a president can’t fire the chair of the Fed just because he doesn’t like the chair’s policy choices. But he may be able to remove him “for cause,” typically interpreted to mean some kind of wrongdoing or negligence.

It’s a likely reason the Trump administration has zeroed in on the building renovation, in hopes it could provide a “for cause” pretext. Still, Powell would likely fight any attempt to remove him, and the case could wind up at the Supreme Court.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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The average rate on a 30-year U.S. mortgage held steady this week at its lowest level in nearly 10 months, an encouraging sign for prospective homebuyers who have been held back by stubbornly high home financing costs.

The long-term rate was unchanged from last week at 6.58%, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. A year ago, the rate averaged 6.46%.

Borrowing costs on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, popular with homeowners refinancing their home loans, edged lower. The average rate dropped to 5.69% from 5.71% last week. A year ago, it was 5.62%, Freddie Mac said.

Stubbornly high mortgage rates have helped keep the U.S. housing market in a sales slump since early 2022, when rates started to climb from the rock-bottom lows they reached during the pandemic. Home sales sank last year to their lowest level in nearly 30 years and have remained sluggish this year.

For much of the year, the average rate on a 30-year mortgage has hovered relatively close to its 2025 high of just above 7%, set in mid-January. Since last week, the average rate has been at its lowest level since Oct. 24, when it averaged 6.54%.

Mortgage rates are influenced by several factors, from the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy decisions to bond market investors’ expectations for the economy and inflation.

The main barometer is the 10-year Treasury yield, which lenders use as a guide to pricing home loans. The yield was at 4.34% at midday Thursday, up from 4.29% late Wednesday.

The yield has been mostly rising this month as bond traders weighed how data on inflation and the job market, and the potential economic impact of Trump administration’s tariffs, may influence the Fed’s interest rate policy moves.

The central bank has so far been hesitant to cut interest rates out of fear that Trump’s tariffs could push inflation higher, but data showing hiring slowed last month have fueled speculation that the Fed will cut its main short-term interest rate next month.

A Fed rate cut could give the job market and overall economy a boost, but it could also fuel inflation, which could push bond yields higher, driving mortgage rates upward in turn.

“Even if the Fed cuts the short-term federal funds rate in September, which is largely expected, it is not likely that we will see a big drop in mortgage rates,” said Lisa Sturtevant, chief economist at Bright MLS.

Economists generally expect the average rate on a 30-year mortgage to remain near the mid-6% range this year.

That may not be low enough to spur a meaningful increase in home sales.

While the housing market slowdown is forcing many sellers to lower their asking price and even pay for a buyer’s closing costs, among other incentives, affordability remains a major hurdle for many aspiring homeowners.

Home price growth has slowed nationally, but the median sales price of a previously occupied U.S. home remains near the all-time high of $435,300 set in June. And while prices are down from a year ago in many metro areas in the South and West such as Miami, Denver and Austin, they haven’t come down nearly enough to offset years of soaring prices.

“Lower mortgage rates and slower price growth — or even year-over-year price declines — is going to be necessary to improve affordability and bring more homebuyers into the market,” Sturtevant said.

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Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes rose in July as homebuyers were encouraged by a modest pullback in mortgage rates, slowing home price growth and the most properties on the market in over five years.

Existing home sales rose 2% last month from June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.01 million units, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday.

Sales edged up 0.8% compared with July last year. The latest sales figure topped the 3.92 million pace economists were expecting, according to FactSet.

Home prices rose on an annual basis for the 25th consecutive month, although the rate of growth continued to slow. The national median sales price inched up just 0.2% in July from a year earlier to $422,400.

That was the smallest annual increase since June 2023. Even so, the median home sales price last month is the highest for any previous July, based on data going back to 1999.

“The ever-so-slight improvement in housing affordability is inching up home sales,” said Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist. “Wage growth is now comfortably outpacing home price growth, and buyers have more choices.”

The U.S. housing market has been in a sales slump since 2022, when mortgage rates began climbing from historic lows. Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes sank last year to their lowest level in nearly 30 years.

This year’s spring homebuying season, which is traditionally the busiest period of the year for the housing market, was a bust as stubbornly high mortgage rates put off many prospective homebuyers. Affordability remains a dauting challenge for most aspiring homeowners following years of skyrocketing home prices.

First-time homebuyers, who don’t have home equity gains to put toward a new home purchase, accounted for 28% of homes sales last month, down from 30% in June, NAR said. Historically, they made up 40% of home sales.

The average rate on a 30-year mortgage has remained elevated this year, although it has been at a nearly 10-month low of 6.58% the last two weeks.

Homes purchased last month likely went under contract in May and June, when the average rate ranged from 6.76% to 6.89%. Mortgage rates eased in July, dropping briefly to 6.67%.

As home sales have slowed, the number of unsold homes on the market has been rising.

There were 1.55 million unsold homes at the end of last month, up 0.6% from June and 15.7% from July last year, NAR said. That’s the most homes on the market since May 2020, early on in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Still, the inventory remains well below the roughly 2 million homes for sale that was typical before the pandemic.

July’s month-end inventory translates to a 4.6-month supply at the current sales pace, down from a 4.7-month supply at the end of June and up from 4 months in July last year. Traditionally, a 5- to 6-month supply is considered a balanced market between buyers and sellers.

Homes are also taking longer to sell. Properties typically remained on the market for 28 days last month before selling, up from 24 days in July last year, NAR said.

Home shoppers who can afford to buy at current mortgage rates or pay in cash are likely to benefit from the slower growth in prices and increased supply of properties on the market.

It’s not uncommon now for sellers, especially those in Southern and Western markets, to lower their asking price and offer incentives such as money for closing costs or repairs in order to sweeten the deal, real estate agents say.

In July, some 20.6% of homes listed for sale had their price reduced, according to Realtor.com. That’s down slightly from June.

“One can say that things are a little better today as a buyer, compared to say just a couple of years ago,” Yun said.

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Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Friday opened the door ever so slightly to lowering a key interest rate in the coming months but gave no hint on the timing of a move and suggested the central bank will proceed cautiously as it continues to evaluate the impact of tariffs and other policies on the economy.

In a high-profile speech closely watched at the White House and on Wall Street, Powell said that there are risks of both rising unemployment and stubbornly higher inflation. Yet he suggested that with hiring sluggish, the job market could weaken further.

“The shifting balance of risks may warrant adjusting our policy stance,” he said, a reference to his concerns about weaker job gains and a more direct sign that the Fed is considering a rate cut than he has made in previous comments.

Still, Powell’s remarks suggest the Fed will proceed carefully in the coming months and will make its rate decisions based on how inflation and unemployment evolve.

“The stability of the unemployment rate and other labor market measures allows us to proceed carefully as we consider changes to our policy stance,” Powell said. That suggests the Fed will continue to evaluate jobs and inflation data as it decides whether to cut rates, including at its next meeting Sept. 16-17.

The stock market jumped in response to Powell’s remarks, with the broad S&P 500 index rising 1.4% in early trading.

Powell spoke with the Fed under unprecedented public scrutiny from the White House, as President Donald Trump has repeatedly insulted Powell and has urged him to cut rates, arguing there is “no inflation” and saying that a cut would lower the government’s interest payments on its $37 trillion in debt.

While Powell spoke, Trump told reporters in Washington, D.C. that he would fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook if she did not step down over allegations from an administration official that she committed mortgage fraud.

If Cook is removed, that would give Trump an opportunity to put a loyalist on the Fed’s governing board. The Fed has long been considered independent from day-to-day politics.

Powell spoke at the Fed’s annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, a conference with about 100 academics, economists, and central bank officials from around the world. He was given a standing ovation before he spoke.

In his remarks, the Fed chair underscored that tariffs are lifting inflation and could push it higher in the coming months.

“The effects of tariffs on consumer prices are now clearly visible. We expect those effects to accumulate over coming months, with high uncertainty about timing and amounts,” Powell said.

Inflation has crept higher in recent months though it is down from a peak of 9.1% three years ago. Tariffs have not spurred inflation as much as some economists worried but are starting to lift the prices of heavily imported goods such as furniture, toys, and shoes.

Consumer prices rose 2.7% in July from a year ago, above the Fed’s target of 2%. Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core prices rose 3.1%.

Regarding the job market, Powell noted that even as hiring has slowed sharply this year, the unemployment rate remains low. He added that with immigration falling sharply, fewer jobs are needed to keep unemployment in check.

Yet with hiring sluggish, the risks of a sharper downturn, with rising layoffs, has risen, Powell said.

Powell added that higher prices from tariffs could cause a one-time shift to prices, rather than an ongoing bout of inflation. Other Fed officials have said that is the most likely outcome and as a result the central bank can cut rates to boost the job market.

Powell, however, suggested it is largely up to the Fed to ensure tariffs don’t lead to sustained inflation.

“Come what may, we will not allow a one-time increase in the price level to become an ongoing inflation problem,” he said.

Powell also suggested the Fed would continue to make its decisions free from political pressure.

Fed officials “will make these decisions, based solely on their assessment of the data and its implications for the economic outlook and the balance of risks. We will never deviate from that approach.”

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Wall Street is rallying on Friday after the head of the Federal Reserve indicated the cuts to interest rates that investors and President Donald Trump have been craving so much may be coming soon, though he gave no clear clue about when.

The S&P 500 jumped 1.4% and erased all of its loss for the week. That’s following five straight modest losses after it set an all-time high last week.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average soared 716 points, or 1.6%, and was on track to blow past its own all-time high, which was set in December. The Nasdaq composite was up 1.6%, as of 10:25 a.m. Eastern time.

The hope among investors had been that Jerome Powell would hint in his highly anticipated speech at a central bankers’ symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, that cuts to interest rates may be imminent. Wall Street loves lower rates because they can give a boost to the economy and to investment prices, even if they risk worsening inflation at the same time.

Trump has angrily been calling for lower rates, often insulting Powell while doing so. And a surprisingly weak report on job growth this month pushed many on Wall Street to assume cuts may come as soon as the Fed’s next meeting in September.

Powell did say Friday that risks are rising about a weakening job market, but he also did not not commit to any kind of timing. The Fed’s two jobs are to keep the job market healthy and to keep a lid on inflation, and it often has to prioritize one because it has just one tool to fix either. Helping one one by moving interest rates often means hurting the other.

Powell said the job market looks OK at the moment, even if “it is a curious kind of balance” where fewer new workers are chasing after fewer new jobs. Inflation, meanwhile, still has the potential to push higher because of Trump’s tariffs.

In sum, Powell said that “the stability of the unemployment rate and other labor market measures allows us to proceed carefully as we consider changes to our policy stance.”

Treasury yields tumbled in the bond market after the release of the text of Powell’s speech.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.26% from 4.33% late Thursday. The two-year Treasury yield, which more closely tracks expectations for what the Fed will do with its main interest rate, sank to 3.69% from 3.79%. That’s a notable move for the bond market.

On Wall Street, Ross Stores rose 0.8% after the retailer reported a stronger profit for its latest quarter than analysts expected. CEO Jim Conroy said sales trends picked up at the end of the quarter in July following a lull in June.

Shares of Nio, a Chinese electric-vehicle maker, that trade in the United States climbed 12.4% after it began pre-sales of its flagship premium SUV model, the ES8.

Nvidia rose 0.8% to trim its loss for the week. The company, whose chips are powering much of the world’s move in to artificial-intelligence technology, has seen its stock struggle recently amid criticism that it and other AI superstars shot too high, too fast and became too expensive.

Nvidia’s CEO, Jensen Huang, said Friday that the company is discussing a potential new computer chip designed for China with the Trump administration. The chips are graphics processing units, or GPUs, a type of device used to build and update a range of AI systems. But they are less powerful than Nvidia’s top semiconductors today, which cannot be sold to China due to U.S. national security restrictions.

In stock markets abroad, Germany’s DAX returned 0.4% after government data showed that its economy shrank by 0.3% in the second quarter compared with the previous three-month period.

Indexes rose across much of Asia, with stocks climbing 1.4% in Shanghai and 0.9% in South Korea.

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AP Writers Teresa Cerojano and Matt Ott contributed.

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