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Reporters blocked from key White House area without prior approval, citing structural changes and security concerns.

United States President Donald Trump’s administration has barred reporters from accessing part of the White House press office without an appointment, citing the need to protect “sensitive material”.

In a memorandum on Friday to White House Communications Director Steven Cheung and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, the National Security Council (NSC) said journalists were “no longer permitted” to visit a section where Leavitt’s office is located, “without prior approval in the form of an appointment”.

The National Security Council said the change was made because structural changes to the NSC meant White House communications officials are now “routinely engaging with sensitive material”.

“In order to protect such material, and maintain coordination between National Security Council Staff and White House Communications Staff, members of the press are no longer permitted to access Room 140 without prior approval in the form of an appointment with an authorized White House Staff Member,” the memo said.

The White House move follows restrictions put in place earlier this month for reporters at the Department of Defense, a move that prompted dozens of journalists to vacate their offices in the Pentagon and return their credentials.

Previously, credentialed White House journalists could access Room 140, which is a short hallway from the Oval Office known as “Upper Press”, on short notice to speak with Leavitt, her deputy Cheung and other senior officials.

The White House Correspondents Association, which represents journalists covering the White House, could not be reached for immediate comment.

The Trump administration removed Reuters, The Associated Press and Bloomberg News from the permanent “pool” of reporters covering the president months ago, although it allows those outlets to participate on a sporadic basis.

Friday’s announcement comes weeks after the crackdown on press access by the Defense Department, which now requires news outlets to sign a new policy or lose access to press credentials and Pentagon workspaces.

At least 30 news organisations declined to agree to the Pentagon restrictions, citing a threat to press freedoms and their ability to conduct independent newsgathering.

The Pentagon policy requires journalists to acknowledge new rules on press access, including that they could be branded security risks and have their Pentagon press badges revoked if they ask department employees to disclose classified or certain unclassified information.

Oct. 17 (UPI) — Chinese President Xi Jinping has expelled nine of his top military generals from the People’s Liberation Army for what China says is corruption, including the country’s number two general.

Gen. He Weidong, one of the two vice-chairs of the Central Military Commission, was fired by Xi. He was the third in command of the PLA and a member of the Chinese politburo.

“The removal of He Weidong is one of the biggest shake-ups within the PLA in decades,” said Lyle Morris, an expert on the Chinese military at the Asia Society Policy Institute, the Financial Times reported. “He was on a fast track to become the next senior vice-chair of the [Central Military Commission], possibly replacing Zhang Youxia, and skipped a grade when he was elevated to the CMC during the 20th Party Congress.”

Another high-ranking official removed in the purge is Miao Hua, the army’s top political officer. He had been suspended in November 2024.

A statement from Xi said those removed are suspected of “grave official misconduct, involving exceptionally large sums of money. The nature of their offenses is extremely serious, and the impact is profoundly detrimental,” Newsweek reported.

Eight of the nine removed were members of the Central Committee, which is scheduled to meet next week to discuss the coming five-year development plan.

When Xi took over the party in 2012, he launched a sweeping corruption probe, and more than 4 million members have been investigated. The campaign accelerated in 2023 as it began focusing on the military and procurement.

Though the crackdown is popular in China, it has also allowed Xi to expel his rivals, Newsweek reported.

A $2.7-billion plan to expand the Los Angeles Convention Center is in jeopardy after a narrowly divided City Council committee opted on Tuesday to recommend a much smaller package of repairs instead.

Amid mounting concerns that the expansion could siphon money away from basic city services, the Budget and Finance Committee voted 3 to 2 to begin work on a less expensive package of upgrades that would be completed in time for the 2028 Olympic Games.

Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky said the expansion proposal — which would add an estimated 325,000 square feet to the facility, spanning both sides of Pico Boulevard — is too risky for the city, both in terms of the tight construction timeline and the overall cost.

“The risks to the city’s finances are too great — and risks us having to cut our city workforce to offset the costs of this project for years to come,” said Yaroslavsky, who heads the committee.

Yaroslavsky proposed the less expensive alternative plan, drawing “yes” votes from Councilmembers Bob Blumenfield and Eunisses Hernandez. Councilmembers Tim McOsker and Heather Hutt voted against the proposal, saying it was a sudden and huge departure from the original expansion plan.

“I’m not comfortable voting on these recommendations today,” Hutt said. “The substantive changes have not been circulated to the committee members, staff and public — and the public hasn’t been able to give public comment on these last-minute changes that are very significant.”

Both proposals — the expansion and the less expensive package of repairs and upgrades — are set to go before the full City Council on Friday.

Council members have spent the last year trying to find a way to expand the size of the Convention Center, doubling the amount of contiguous meeting space, without also creating an excessive burden on an already stretched city budget. They have received increasingly dire warnings as Friday’s deadline for making a decision approaches.

Chief Legislative Analyst Sharon Tso, who advises the council on policy matters, told the committee Wednesday that she fears the project’s first phase won’t be done in time for the 2028 Games, when the Convention Center will host several competitions, including judo, wrestling and fencing.

Tso also warned that the ongoing cost of the project would make it much more difficult for the city to hire more firefighters, recruit more police officers and pay for such basic services as street repairs. Four months ago, the council approved a budget that closed a $1-billion financial gap, requiring cuts to city personnel.

“We just completed a budget process that was very brutal,” she said. “If you’re happy with the level of service that we have today, then this is the project for you.”

At City Hall, the Convention Center is widely viewed as a facility in need of serious repair, including new elevators and escalators, up-to-date restrooms and overall cosmetic upgrades. Expanding the Convention Center would allow the city to attract much larger national conferences, exhibitions and meetings.

The project, if approved, would connect the Convention Center’s South Hall — whose curving green exterior faces the 10 and 110 freeway interchange — with the West Hall, which is a faded blue.

The council has already pushed for several cost-cutting measures, including the removal of a plaza planned on Figueroa Street. Mayor Karen Bass and the council also have hoped to generate new revenue by installing digital billboards — two of them within view of drivers on the 10 and 110 freeways.

Even with the freeway-facing digital signs, the cost of expanding and operating the Convention Center could reach $160 million in 2031, according to City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo, a high-level budget analyst.

The cost to taxpayers is expected to average about $100 million per year over three decades, according to updated figures prepared by Szabo.

The Convention Center expansion has become a top priority for business groups, labor leaders and community organizations who say that downtown L.A. desperately needs an economic catalyst — one that will creates thousands of construction jobs and spark new business activity.

After the pandemic, office workers never fully returned to downtown, and dozens of stores and restaurants shut their doors. Homelessness and drug addiction also continue to plague portions of downtown.

“We want to see downtown recover. We want it to be a place Angelenos can be proud of, and this is the solution,” Cassy Horton, co-founder of the DTLA Residents Assn., said at the committee hearing.

Labor and business leaders told the council members that the city has a long track record of developing plans for upgrading the Convention Center, only to shelve them once it’s time for a decision.

“For more than a decade, we’ve studied this project, we’ve debated it, we’ve delayed it,” said Nella McOsker, president and chief executive of the Central City Assn., a downtown-based business group. “We’ve been deciding whether or not we are a city that can maintain and invest in this essential asset, and every time we make that delay, the cost increases.”

McOsker is the daughter of Councilmember Tim McOsker, who voted “no” on the repair proposal. An outspoken supporter of the expansion, he argued that the city took on a similar financial burden 30 years ago when it financed the construction of the Convention Center’s South Hall.

Yaroslavsky, in turn, said she was concerned not just about the project’s cost but the potential for it to pull resources away from the Department of Water and Power.

Dave Hanson, senior assistant general manager for the DWP’s power system, told the committee that deploying his workers at the Convention Center could result in delays on utility work elsewhere, including a San Fernando Valley light rail project and the installation of underground power lines in the fire-devastated Pacific Palisades.

“DWP may — we don’t know for sure yet, because they don’t know for sure yet — may have to sideline other critically important projects, including reconstructing the Palisades and all these other projects,” said Yaroslavsky, who represents part of the Westside.

Yaroslavsky’s alternative proposal calls for the city to regroup in four months on strategies for requesting new proposals for expanding the Convention Center, as well as other strategies to “maximize the site’s positive economic impacts.”

Hernandez, whose district includes part of the Eastside, said council members remain open to the idea of the Convention Center expansion as the project heads to a final vote.

“So it’s not that we’ve ruled out any options,” she said. “We’ve added more options to the conversation.”

Sept. 7 (UPI) — A coalition of major oil-producing nations said Sunday it will slightly scale back its voluntary production cuts starting in October, adding a small amount of crude back into global markets while keeping most of its reductions in place.

Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria and Oman, which have made extra voluntary cuts since 2023, met virtually Sunday to review global market conditions and agreed to reduce those curbs by about 137,000 barrels a day, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries announced in a news release.

Decisions by OPEC+, which includes nonmember producers like Russia, matter for everyday Americans because the group controls more than 40% of global oil output and helps set the price of crude oil, the main ingredient in gasoline. Even small shifts in production can ripple through global markets, affecting what drivers pay at the pump, the costs of shipping and air travel, and broader inflation that touches everything from groceries to utilities.

If the scale-back of cuts succeeds in balancing supply with demand, oil prices may stabilize or even ease slightly, giving consumers modest relief at the pump and helping to cool inflation pressures. But if markets weaken or inventories climb unexpectedly, OPEC+ could reverse course, pausing or restoring the cuts, which could tighten supply and push prices back up.

The move is a fraction of the 1.65 million barrels per day the group pledged to withhold from the market in April 2023, when concerns about slowing demand and oversupply were pressing prices downward.

In November 2023, the alliance introduced an additional 2.2 million barrels per day in voluntary cuts. The April 2023 cuts were meant to be extended through 2025, and the November 2023 cuts were scheduled to phase out gradually through September 2025, although both could be modified based on market developments.

Officials said the adjustment reflects what they described as a steady global economic outlook and “healthy” market fundamentals, pointing to low oil inventories as evidence that supply and demand remain balanced. They emphasized that the cuts can be restored gradually, in part or in full, if conditions shift.

Analysts cautioned that the actual increase in oil supply may be far smaller than the headline figures suggest. Only Saudi Arabia and possibly the United Arab Emirates have enough spare capacity to raise output significantly, while most other members are already pumping near their limits, according to the Financial Times.

As a result, the real boost to global supply in October could be closer to 60,000 barrels a day, people familiar with the discussions told the newspaper.

The group has already raised output targets by about 2.5 million barrels a day this year as it unwound earlier cuts, the Financial Times reported.

Brent crude, the international benchmark, closed Friday at $65.50 a barrel — down 2.2% on the day but still up from a low of $58 a barrel in April.

OPEC+ said it will hold monthly meetings to reassess market conditions and review members’ conformity. The next session is scheduled for Oct. 5.

Irish rap group Kneecap has canceled all U.S. dates on its upcoming tour after its fiery criticism of Israel and advocacy for Palestinian causes brought legal trouble and criticism.

“To all our US based fans, we have some bad news,” the trio said in a statement. “Due to the close proximity of our next court hearing in London on September 26 — as the British government continues its witch-hunt — with the start of the U.S. tour, we will have to cancel all 15 U.S. tour dates in October. With every show fully sold out this is news we are sad to deliver. But once we win our court case, which we will, we promise to embark on an even bigger tour to all you great heads.”

The U.K. court hearing stems from charges that Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, allegedly displayed a flag in support of terror group Hezbollah at a show in London last year. (Ó hAnnaidh has denied the charges and said the band does not support Hezbollah).

The band’s Canadian shows will continue as scheduled.

The status of Kneecap’s U.S. tour was already shaky after it split from booking agency (and visa sponsor) Independent Artist Group in April following a Coachella performance that included intense criticism of the Israeli government and its attacks on Gaza.

The band also drew the ire of local British police after its recent Glastonbury performance, which included similar Palestinian advocacy that prompted an investigation but as of yet no charges.

Reporting from Sacramento — The state ethics agency cited the serious illness and death of key witnesses in its decision to drop charges that political contributions were laundered to the 2010 campaign of Assemblyman Roger Hernandez (D-West Covina).

Ending a protracted legal battle that began three years ago, the state Fair Political Practices Commission has also notified Hernandez’s attorney that it will not pursue allegations that the candidate failed to report spending on a mass mailing on the West Covina City Council elections.

“After a full investigation, the Enforcement Division did not find sufficient, reliable evidence to conclude that your client violated the [Political Reform] Act in this instance and is closing the file on this matter,” wrote Zachary W. Norton, an attorney for the FPPC, to Hernandez’s lawyer.

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The state agency launched the probe after receiving a citizen complaint questioning loans of $100,000 that Hernandez made to his campaign in 2009 and 2010.

The commission issued a finding of probable cause in January. At that time, an attorney for the state agency alleged Hernandez’s committee filed “an inaccurate semi-annual campaign statement with the Secretary of State, falsely reporting information regarding the true sources of contributions received.”

Hernandez challenged the allegations, and in preparing for an administrative hearing, commission attorneys found “inconsistencies in previous witness testimony” and that key witnesses were not available, Norton said.

“Specifically, one key witness has serious medical issues that would prevent him from testifying and another has passed away,” Norton wrote in the case-closing letter. “The standard for proving a violation of the Act administratively is based on the preponderance of the evidence and, at this point, the evidence is not sufficient to meet that standard.”

The allegation involving failure to report a mass mailer was dropped after Hernandez’s campaign provided information that the campaign staffer who approved it was not authorized to do so, Norton said.

Jimmy Gutierrez, an attorney for the Assemblyman, said the letter provides false excuses for why the case was dropped.

“They had issued probable cause findings with no facts whatsoever and they know it,” Gutierrez said. “There was absolutely no merit to it whatsoever.”

Stanford University’s student newspaper is suing the Trump administration, claiming the threat to deport foreign students for speaking out against Israel’s handling of the war in Gaza is chilling free speech.

That threat is hampering the paper’s ability to cover campus demonstrations and to get protesters to speak on the record, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court in Northern California.

Some Stanford Daily writers, who are foreigners in the country on student visas, have even turned down assignments to write about unrest in the Middle East because they’re afraid they’ll be deported. Writers have also asked the paper to remove previously published stories from its website, citing the same concerns, the lawsuit says.

“In the United States of America, no one should fear a midnight knock on the door for voicing the wrong opinion,” the newspaper’s lawyers wrote in their complaint.

The suit accuses Trump administration officials, specifically Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Homeland Security Secretary Kristin Noem, of placing their statutory authority to deport a foreign visa holder whose beliefs they deem un-American ahead of the constitutional right — guaranteed by the 1st Amendment— to free speech.

“When a federal statute collides with First Amendment rights,” the newspaper’s lawyers wrote, “the Constitution prevails.”

Tricia McLaughlin, spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, scoffed at the lawsuit, calling it “baseless.”

“There is no room in the United States for the rest of the world’s terrorist sympathizers, and we are under no obligation to admit them or let them stay here,” she said in a statement.

The lawsuit — which was filed by the 133-year-old student newspaper, not by the university itself — is the most recent salvo in an increasingly bitter fight between Trump and many of the nation’s elite universities. The president has made clear he sees top schools as hotbeds of liberal ideology and breeding grounds for anti-American sentiment.

His weapon of choice is to threaten to withhold billions of dollars in federal research grants from institutions that refuse to adopt policies on issues such as diversity, transgender rights and Israel that fall in line with his Make America Great Again ideology.

Critics call Trump’s campaign an attack on academic freedom, but fearing massive budget cuts, several Ivy League schools — including the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia and Brown — have recently cut deals with the Trump administration in an attempt to limit the damage.

Stanford announced this week that it will be forced to lay off hundreds of employees as a result of cuts to research funding and changes to federal tax laws.

The Stanford Daily’s lawsuit focuses on two unnamed students, John and Jane Doe, who the paper’s lawyers say began self-censoring out of a well-founded fear of having their visas revoked and being deported.

Rubio has claimed that the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 allows the secretary of State to revoke a noncitizen’s legal status if it is decided the person’s actions or statements “compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest.”

Rubio used that interpretation to justify the March arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a legal U.S. resident and pro-Palestinian activist at Columbia University who was held in a Louisiana jail before a federal judge ordered his release.

The complaint cites the cases of two other foreign students — one at Columbia and one at Tufts — who were arrested for participating in pro-Palestinian campus demonstrations.

At Stanford, the plaintiff referred to as Jane Doe was a member of the group Students for Justice in Palestine. She has published online commentary accusing Israel of committing genocide and perpetuating apartheid, according to the lawsuit. She has also used the slogan, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which has become a flash point in the Israel-Gaza debate.

Referencing the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea — which includes Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip — the slogan is viewed as a call for freedom and self-determination by Palestinians. To many Israelis, it sounds like a call for their total destruction.

As a result, Doe’s profile appeared on the Canary Mission, a pro-Israel website that creators say is devoted to outing “hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews.” Department of Homeland Security officials have acknowledged they consult the website’s profiles — most of which are of students and faculty at elite universities — for information on people worthy of investigation.

As a result, since March, Jane Doe has deleted her social media accounts and has “refrained from publishing and voicing her true opinions regarding Palestine and Israel,” the lawsuit claims.

John Doe has participated in pro-Palestine demonstrations, has accused Israel of genocide and chanted, “From the river to the sea.” But after the Trump administration started targeting campus demonstrators for deportation, he “refrained from publishing a study containing criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza,” according to the lawsuit.

Unlike Jane Doe, John has since resumed public criticism of Israel despite the threat of deportation, according to the lawsuit.

The Trump administration has frozen hundreds of science, medical and other federal grants to UCLA worth nearly $200 million, citing the university’s alleged “discrimination” in admissions and failure to “promote a research environment free of antisemitism.”

The decision to pull funding comes after Atty. Gen.Pam Bondi and the Justice Department said this week that UCLA would pay a “heavy price” for acting with “deliberate indifference” to the civil rights of Jewish and Israeli students who complained of antisemitic incidents since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, Israel’s ensuing war in Gaza and campus protests the events spurred last year.

The cancellation of grants is the first large-scale targeted funding claw-back against UCLA under the Trump administration. Until now, the White House has largely focused its attempts to remake higher education on elite East Coast schools such as Columbia, Brown and the University of Pennsylvania. Each has reached deals with the government in recent weeks over issues including admissions, Jewish student life, student discipline, antisemitism training and gender identity in sports.

In a letter to UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk dated Wednesday, the National Science Foundation wrote that it was terminating grants because “the University of California – Los Angeles continues to engage in race discrimination including in its admissions process, and in other areas of student life.”

An estimated 300 NSF grants totaling $180 million have been canceled. About half of the funds were already distributed. Before the letter was released Thursday, researchers were expecting the other half to follow.

In a letter to the university community Thursday, Frenk wrote that the canceled grants are from NSF, NIH and other federal agencies, but he did not give a dollar amount or list the other agencies. A partial list of terminated grants reviewed by The Times added up to roughly $200 million. The list was provided by a source who was not authorized to share the information.

Frenk called the government’s decision “deeply disappointing” and “a loss for Americans across the nation whose work, health, and future depend on the groundbreaking work we do.”

“In its notice to us, the federal government claims antisemitism and bias as the reasons,” Frenk wrote. “This far-reaching penalty of defunding life-saving research does nothing to address any alleged discrimination.”

Spokespersons for the NSF and NIH did not immediately reply to requests for comment Thursday.

The federal government’s decision to cut UCLA off from significant federal funds follows a similar playbook to its dealings with Ivy League institutions.

The Trump administration this spring canceled billions of dollars in federal grants to Harvard, which has sued in federal court to reverse the terminations and stop a Trump move to rescind its ability to host international students. Harvard is separately in negotiations with the White House to end the legal fight.

Columbia University this month agreed to pay more than $200 million to the federal government to resolve investigations over alleged antisemitism amid its response to 2024 pro-Palestinian protests. On Wednesday, Brown University also came to a $50-million agreement with the White House. The Brown payment will go toward Rhode Island workforce development programs.

The Department of Justice said this week that it had found UCLA guilty of violating the civil rights of Jewish and Israeli students. The department also indicated that it wanted to the university to enter into negotiations to avoid a federal lawsuit.

The department gave UCLA a Tuesday deadline to communicate its desire to negotiate. If not, the DOJ said, it was ready to sue by Sept. 2.

The University of California, in a statement, was unclear on whether it would settle or go to court.

“UCLA has addressed and will continue to address the issues raised in [the] Department of Justice notice,” Stett Holbrook, associate director of Strategic and Critical Communications, wrote in a statement Wednesday. He cited a $6.45-million settlement the university reached with Jewish students who had sued over claims that the 2024 encampment had discriminated against them.

“We have cooperated fully with the Department of Justice’s investigation and are reviewing its findings closely,” Holbrook wrote.

In his Thursday letter, Frenk shot back against the cuts.

“Let me be clear: Federal research grants are not handouts. Our researchers compete fiercely for these grants, proposing work that the government itself deems vital to the country’s health, safety and economic future,” he wrote.

“Grants lead to medical breakthroughs, economic advancement, improved national security and global competitiveness — these are national priorities,” Frenk wrote, adding that “we are actively evaluating our best course of action. We will be in constant communication as decisions move forward.”

United States President Donald Trump has continued to publish letters announcing individualised tariff hikes for foreign trading partners.

But on Wednesday, one of those letters was different from the rest.

While most of the letters are virtually identical, denouncing trade relationships that are “far from reciprocal”, Trump’s letter to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took a decidedly more personal — and more confrontational — approach.

“Due in part to Brazil’s insidious attacks on Free Elections, and the fundamental Free Speech Rights of Americans”, Trump wrote that he would be charging Brazil an extra 50-percent tax on any goods it exports to the US, separate from existing “sectoral tariffs”.

“Please understand that the 50% number is far less than what is needed to have the Level Playing Field we must have with your Country,” Trump added. “And it is necessary to have this to rectify the grave injustices of the current regime.”

The letter marked the biggest attack yet in Trump’s escalating feud with Lula, as he seeks to pressure Brazil to drop criminal charges against a fellow far-right leader, Jair Bolsonaro.

Known as the “Trump of the Tropics”, Bolsonaro, a former army captain, led Brazil for a single term, from 2019 to 2023.

Like Trump, Bolsonaro refused to concede his election loss to a left-wing rival. Like Trump, Bolsonaro also raised questions about the accuracy of the results, including by voicing doubts about electronic voting machines.

And like Trump, Bolsonaro has faced legal repercussions, with court cases weighing whether he could be criminally liable for alleged actions he took to overturn his defeat.

In Bolsonaro’s case, the election in question took place in October 2022, against the current president, Lula. The results were narrow, but Lula edged Bolsonaro out in a run-off race, earning 50.9 percent of the vote.

Still, Bolsonaro did not acknowledge his defeat and instead filed a legal complaint to contest the election results.

Meanwhile, his followers attacked police headquarters, blocked highways, and even stormed government buildings in the capital, Brasilia, in an apparent attempt to spark a military backlash against Lula.

Prosecutors, meanwhile, have accused Bolsonaro of conspiring with allies behind the scenes to stage a coup d’etat, one that might have seen Supreme Court justices arrested and a new election called.

According to the indictment, Bolsonaro, as the outgoing president, considered provoking these changes by calling a “state of siege”, which would have empowered the military to take action.

One of the other possibilities reportedly discussed was poisoning Lula.

Bolsonaro and 33 others were charged in February, and the ex-president’s case is ongoing before the Brazilian Supreme Court.

The charges came as the result of a federal police investigation published in November 2024, which recommended a criminal trial. Bolsonaro, however, has denied any wrongdoing and has framed the trial as a politically motivated attack.

Trump himself has faced two criminal indictments – one on the state level, the other federal – for allegedly seeking to overturn his loss in the 2020 election. He, too, called those cases attempts to derail his political career.

In recent days, Trump has highlighted what he sees as parallels between their cases. On July 7, he wrote on social media that he empathised with what was happening to Bolsonaro: “It happened to me, times 10.”

He reprised that theme in Wednesday’s letter, announcing the dramatic increase in tariffs against Brazil.

“The way that Brazil has treated former President Bolsonaro, a Highly Respected Leader throughout the World during his term, including by the United states, is an international disgrace,” Trump said.

“This trial should not be taking place,” he added. “It is a Witch Hunt that should end IMMEDIATELY!”

In addition to ramping up tariffs against Brazil, Trump revealed in his letter that he had directed US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer to investigate Brazil for unfair practices under the Trade Act of 1974.

This is not the first time that Trump has lashed out at Brazil, though. In February, the Trump Media and Technology Group filed a Florida lawsuit against Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, arguing that his decisions curtailed online freedom of speech in the US.

De Moraes had also overseen the investigation into Bolsonaro’s alleged coup attempt, and he is a target of criticism among many on the far right.

While Trump’s tariff letter contained the standard language alleging that the US’s trading relationship with Brazil was “very unfair”, the US actually enjoys a trade surplus with the South American country.

According to the Office of the US Trade Representative, in 2024, the US imported a total of $42.3bn from Brazil. But that was dwarfed by the amount it exported to the country: $49.7bn.

In short, Brazil’s purchases from the US amounted to about $7.4bn more than US purchases from Brazil.

Still, Trump has cited uneven trade relationships as the motivation for his tariffs, though he has also used them to influence other countries’ policies, particularly with regards to immigration, digital services and transnational drug smuggling.

On Wednesday, Bolsonaro took to social media to once again proclaim his innocence. In a separate case, he was barred from holding public office in Brazil for a period of eight years.

“Jair Bolsonaro is persecuted because he remains alive in the popular consciousness,” the ex-president wrote in the third person. “Even out of power, he remains the most remembered name – and the most feared. That’s why they try to annihilate him politically, morally, and judicially.”

He also reposted a message from Trump himself: “Leave the Great Former President of Brazil alone. WITCH HUNT!!!”

Lula, meanwhile, responded to Trump’s previous tariff threats on Monday by saying, “The world has changed. We don’t want an emperor.”

June 18 (UPI) — The U.S. Federal Reserve held key interest rates steady Wednesday but said it still sees the possibility of two cuts later this year, with expectations that President Donald Trump‘s tariff policies will spike inflation and slow economic growth.

The Federal Open Market Committee kept its borrowing rate in the 4.25%-4.5% range where it’s been since December.

Earlier Wednesday it had been highly expected that the Fed would leave interest rates unaltered. However, the committee indicated that two cuts by the end of the year were not out of the question, with a chance of four future interest rate cuts being a possibility by 2027.

“The Fed’s main message at the June meeting will be that it remains comfortably in wait-and-see mode,” Bank of America economist Aditya Bhave said in a statement earlier in the day.

The Fed reported on inflation trends and other data in the midst of economic uncertainty.

Economic experts pointed to future so-called “stagflationary” economic pressures with the likelihood of the nation’s GDP pushing at a pace of more than 1% and inflation as high as 3%.

“Uncertainty about the economic outlook has diminished but remains elevated,” according to the FOMC, adding how it was being “attentive to the risks to both sides of its dual mandate.”

The uncertainty stems not only from the unpredictable application of tariffs and ongoing trade volatility caused by them, but also from world events likely to have an effect on U.S. financial markets such as the Iran-Israel war.

“Investors should focus on [Fed Chair Jerome] Powell’s take on the softening labor data, the recent benign inflation prints and the risks of persistent tariff-driven inflation,” Bhave added.

Earlier, Wall Street economists had believed the Fed would keep interest rates in the 4.25% to 4.5% range.

The Fed has not cut interest rates so far during the Trump administration. Despite President Donald Trump aggressively pushing Powell to cut interest rates, he has declined, saying there is too much uncertainty in financial markets, largely because of tariffs that have been imposed and threatened.

Grupo Firme was unable to show up for its previously planned June 1 set at Napa’s La Onda festival.

The Tijuana band announced the cancellation Friday afternoon on social media.

“Currently, the visas of Grupo Firme and the Music VIP [Entertainment] team are in an administrative process by the U.S. Embassy, a situation that makes it impossible for Grupo Firme’s performance at La Onda Fest to go on as planned,” the band wrote in a statement posted on its Instagram stories. “We are sorry for the inconvenience this may cause. Thank you for your understanding and, above all else, the love from our U.S. fans.”

Grupo Firme is the latest international musical act facing visa issues since President Trump took office for his second presidential term. Many of these have been música Mexicana artists.

The group’s news came only a week after Mexican singer Julión Álvarez postponed his May 24 show at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, after he claimed his work visa had been revoked.

The 42-year-old musician alleged in a May 23 Instagram video that he had received the news of his work visa revocation that day, leaving him and his band unable to travel to Texas for their planned performance. He also claimed he didn’t have a full sense of clarity regarding the ongoing status of his visa and was limited in what he could dispel about the situation.

Also in May, Chicago’s Michelada Fest, a Spanish-language music festival that had programmed several Latin American acts was canceled due to concerns over artists’ visas.

“Due to the uncertainty surrounding artist visas and the rapidly changing political climate, we’re no longer able to guarantee the full experience we had dreamed up for you with all your favorite artists,” the festival’s organizers explained in a statement. “Although we tried to push through, it became clear that we wouldn’t be able to deliver the full lineup as planned.”

The organizers would go on to write that, as an independent outfit, Michelada Fest “can’t afford to take on a big risk with so much uncertainty ahead.”

Grupo Firme, Anitta, Danny Ocean, Tokischa and Luis R. Conriquez were scheduled to perform at the July festival.

In early April, the U.S. State Department canceled the work and tourist visas of the members of the Mexican corrido band Los Alegres del Barranco after the group displayed photos of drug lord Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes at its concert in Guadalajara, Mexico.

During their March 29 show at the University of Guadalajara, the band put an illustrated depiction of Cervantes — a key player in the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, or CJNG — on a mega-screen while playing their song “El Dueño del Palenque.” Videos of the incident were captured on social media.

“I’m pleased to announce that the State Department has revoked the band members’ work and tourism visas. In the Trump Administration, we take seriously our responsibility over foreigners’ access to our country,” said Christopher Landau, the U.S. deputy Secretary of State in April. “The last thing we need is a welcome mat for people who extol criminals and terrorists.”

Outside of the world of Latino artists, British singer FKA twigs announced in April on Instagram that she had to cancel series of concerts for the month in North America — including a slot at Coachella 2025 — due to “ongoing visa issues.”

The White House said the citation errors were ‘formatting issues’ that did not detract from the report’s importance.

The United States government has said it will amend a flagship report on children’s health that was found to have cited non-existent studies.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday that any citation errors were due to “formatting issues” and would be updated. The problems with the report will do little to assuage concerns over President Donald Trump’s appointment of Robert F Kennedy Jr as Health and Human Services Secretary.

The issues with the report, compiled and published last week by the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission, were revealed by digital news outlet NOTUS. It found that seven studies referenced did not exist, while there were also broken links and “misstated conclusions”.

Leavitt insisted that the problems do “not negate the substance of the report, which, as you know, is one of the most transformative health reports that has ever been released by the federal government”.

The report found that processed food, chemicals, stress and the overprescription of medications and vaccines could be factors behind chronic illness in children, citing more than 500 studies.

However, authors credited with producing some of those studies said that they were not part of the research, or that the studies did not exist.

Noah Kreski, a Columbia University researcher listed as an author of a paper on adolescent anxiety and depression during COVID-19, told the AFP news agency that the paper was “not one of our studies” and “doesn’t appear to be a study that exists at all”.

The citation for the report included a link to an article in the peer-reviewed JAMA Paediatrics Medical Review that was broken. A spokesperson for the JAMA Network said that the article referenced “was not published in JAMA Paediatrics or in any JAMA Network journal”.

The Democratic National Committee on Thursday slammed the report as “rife with misinformation”, accusing Kennedy’s agency of “justifying its policy priorities with studies and sources that do not exist”.

Kennedy’s approval as health secretary in February stirred significant controversy. He previously spent decades sowing doubt about the safety of vaccines, raising concerns within the scientific and medical communities over the policies he would pursue.

Since taking the role, he has fired thousands of workers at federal health agencies and cut billions of dollars from biomedical research spending.

“The substance of the MAHA report remains the same – a historic and transformative assessment by the federal government to understand the chronic disease epidemic afflicting our nation’s children,” the Department of Health and Human Services said.