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Strictly Come Dancing returned to the BBC for the 2025 season – but some viewers are convinced they have spotted tension between Apprentice star Thomas Skinner and dance partner Amy Dowden

Strictly Come Dancing fans think they have spotted early tensions between a professional dancer and a former Apprentice contestant. Saturday night saw the launch of the 2025 season of the long-running dance show.

A string of stars have signed up to dance their way to glory and the chance to lift the glitterball trophy. And the launch episodes revealed which stars had been matched with which professional dancer.

Thomas Skinner, who is best known for competing on The Apprentice in 2019, was paired with Welsh dancing expert Amy Dowden. But some viewers are convinced they saw the beginnings of a tense working relationship between the pair.

READ MORE: Strictly’s Thomas Skinner’s wife breaks her silence after ‘upsetting’ affair revelationREAD MORE: Strictly fans rejoice as iconic show element is finally brought back after backlash

Eyebrows were raised when show hosts Claudia Winkleman and Tess Daly introduced the coupled up dancers and interviewed them about their early experiences together. Talking to Thomas and Amy in the green room, Claudia asked the former Apprentice hopeful what his dream Strictly breakfast would be.

He replied: “The best breakfast. We’re going down Deano’s cafe, nice and early, before we get started, get spicy Korean noodles, with chicken breasts and poached eggs and a little bit of Tabasco sauce.

He continued: “Or, if you don’t fancy that, we can have the sunshine chicken curry with the round chips.”

But fans noticed that Amy didn’t look convinced by Thomas’s suggestion, commented that they would beed to dance some of their routines close together, and remarked: “I really hope your food doesn’t repeat on you whilst you dance.”

Thomas then suggested he would be able to freshen his breath with chewing gum before they needed to dance closely. But viewers were convinced they could smell friction between the pair.

Taking to X, one shared a screenshot of Amy’s distressed expression that she pulled when Thomas was describing his dream breakfast. They wrote: “Oh Amy you poor thing getting put with skinner.”

And another shared a similar screenshot and wrote: “Amy Dowden’s face speaking for everybody at the same time… #Strictly #TomSkinner.”

Others took to social media to campaign for Thomas and Amy to be the first to be voted off, with one commenting: “Justice for Amy – she deserves so much better. Get him gone week one.” But others took to X to defend Thomas after many accounts took aim at him.

One wrote in defense of the reality star: “People need to get a grip. #Strictly chose #TomSkinner to take part this year. Take your vile comments somewhere else. I for one hope him and Amy do well this year.”

Thomas has been embroiled in damaging headlines in recent days after he admitted he was unfaithful in his marriage.

He told The Sun: “‘I had a fling. It was nothing more than that. It was the one time, it was a mistake. I woke up feeling absolutely terrible about it.

“I felt so guilty. I told my wife. I let her down in that brief moment of madness where I wasn’t thinking, where I didn’t appreciate what I had. When I told my wife, I fully understood if she was to never speak to me again. No one else made me do what I’ve done. But it just shows something so brief could ruin your life.”

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In response to the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration raids that have roiled Southern California, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Saturday signed a package of bills aimed at protecting immigrants in schools, hospitals and other areas targeted by federal agents.

Speaking at Miguel Contreras Learning Complex in Los Angeles, Newsom said President Trump had turned the country into a “dystopian sci-fi movie” with scenes of masked agents hustling immigrants without legal status into unmarked cars.

“We’re not North Korea,” Newsom said.

Newsom framed the pieces of legislation as pushback against what he called the “secret police” of Trump and Stephen Miller, the White House advisor who has driven the second Trump administration’s surge of immigration enforcement in Democrat-led cities.

SB 98, authored by Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez (D-Alhambra), will require school administrators to notify families and students if federal agents conduct immigration operations on a K-12 or college campus.

Assembly Bill 49, drafted by Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi (D-Rolling Hills Estates), will bar immigration agents from nonpublic areas of a school without a judicial warrant or court order. It will also prohibit school districts from providing information about pupils, their families, teachers and school employees to immigration authorities without a warrant.

Sen. Jesse Arreguín’s (D-Berkeley) Senate Bill 81 will prohibit healthcare officials from disclosing a patient’s immigration status or birthplace — or giving access to nonpublic spaces in hospitals and clinics — to immigration authorities without a search warrant or court order.

Senate Bill 627 by Sens. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) and Jesse Arreguín (D-Berkeley) targets masked federal immigration officers who began detaining migrants at Home Depots and car washes in California earlier this year.

Wiener has said the presence of anonymous, masked officers marks a turn toward authoritarianism and erodes trust between law enforcement and citizens. The law would apply to local and federal officers, but for reasons that Weiner hasn’t publicly explained, it would exempt state police such as California Highway Patrol officers.

Trump’s immigration leaders argue that masks are necessary to protect the identities and safety of immigration officers. The Department of Homeland Security on Monday called on Newsom to veto Wiener’s legislation, which will almost certainly be challenged by the federal government.

“Sen. Scott Wiener’s legislation banning our federal law enforcement from wearing masks and his rhetoric comparing them to ‘secret police’ — likening them to the gestapo — is despicable,” said DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin.

The package of bills has already caused friction between state and federal officials. Hours before signing the bills, Newsom’s office wrote on X that “Kristi Noem is going to have a bad day today. You’re welcome, America.”

Bill Essayli, the acting U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, fired back on X accusing the governor of threatening Noem.

“We have zero tolerance for direct or implicit threats against government officials,” Essayli wrote in response, adding he’d requested a “full threat assessment” by the U.S. Secret Service.

The supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution dictates that federal law takes precedence over state law, leading some legal experts to question whether California could enforce legislation aimed at federal immigration officials.

Essayli noted in another statement on X that California has no jurisdiction over the federal government and he’s directed federal agencies not to change their operations.

“If Newsom wants to regulate our agents, he must go through Congress,” he wrote.

California has failed to block federal officers from arresting immigrants based on their appearance, language and location. An appellate court paused the raids, which California officials alleged were clear examples of racial profiling, but the U.S. Supreme Court overrode the decision and allowed the detentions to resume.

During the news conference on Saturday, Newsom pointed to an arrest made last month when immigration officers appeared in Little Tokyo while the governor was announcing a campaign for new congressional districts. Masked agents showed up to intimidate people who attended the event, Newsom said, but they also arrested an undocumented man who happened to be delivering strawberries nearby.

“That’s Trump’s America,” Newsom said.

Other states are also looking at similar measures to unmask federal agents. Connecticut on Tuesday banned law enforcement officers from wearing masks inside state courthouses unless medically necessary, according to news reports.

Newsom on Saturday also signed Senate Bill 805, a measure by Pérez that targets immigration officers who are in plainclothes but don’t identify themselves.

The law requires law enforcement officers in plainclothes to display their agency, as well as either a badge number or name, with some exemptions.

“Ensuring that officers are clearly identified, while providing sensible exceptions, helps protect both the public and law enforcement personnel,” said Jason P. Houser, a former DHS official who supported the bills signed by Newsom.

Fee paid by companies set to transform high-skill work visa system, upon which technology sector relies heavily.

United States President Donald Trump has signed a proclamation requiring a $100,000 application fee for companies seeking to sponsor workers H-1B visas.

Trump signed the proclamation during an event in the Oval Office, while also introducing a separate “gold card” visa for individuals to pay $1 million to expedite their immigration.

Administration officials said the change to the H1-B programme would assure that companies would only sponsor workers with the most rarified skill sets.

“We need great workers, and this pretty much ensures that’s what’s gonna happen,” he said.

However, such a prohibitive fee will likely vastly transform the H-1B system, which was created in 1990 in an effort to boost industries with high-skilled, hard-to-fill jobs, particularly in science, technology, engineering and math.

The visas are reserved for people with bachelor’s degrees or higher and have historically been awarded via a lottery system.

The programme has come under increased scrutiny from the Trump administration amid a wider crackdown on immigration, which Trump has tied to boosting domestic labour.

As part of that campaign, the Trump administration has also sought to introduce more restrictive policies on international students studying in the US, including requiring access to social media accounts and a ban on foreign travellers from several countries.

The administration has previously considered changing the H-1B visa rules to favour higher-paying employers, essentially doing away with the lottery system.

Supporters of the H-1B programme say it brings the best and brightest to work in the US, creating an edge against foreign competitors.

Critics have long charged that companies have abused the programme, using it to pay lower wages and to impose fewer labour protections.

The technology sector would be the hardest hit by any major change.

This year, Amazon was by far the top recipient of H-1B visas, with more than 10,000 awarded. The company was followed by Tata Consultancy, Microsoft, Apple and Google.

Geographically, California has the highest number of H-1B workers, according to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Meanwhile, India was the largest beneficiary of H-1B visas last year, accounting for 71 percent of approved beneficiaries. China was a distant second at 11.7 percent, according to government data.

The H-1B visas are approved for a period of three to six years.

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday signed a sweeping package of climate and environment bills aimed at reducing the cost of electricity, stabilizing gasoline prices and propping up California’s struggling oil industry.

At a bill signing ceremony at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, Newsom told state lawmakers and representatives from labor, business, climate and energy groups that the package was a compromise, designed to push California toward a clean-energy future while still ensuring the state has enough affordable gasoline to meet drivers’ needs.

“Everybody recognized this moment and worked together across their differences, which were not insignificant,” Newsom said.

The bills signed into law include an extension of the state’s nation-leading cap-and-trade program through 2045. The program, rebranded as cap-and-invest, limits greenhouse gas emissions and raises billions for the state’s climate priorities by allowing large polluters to buy and sell their unused emission allowances at quarterly auctions.

The cap-and-invest program should funnel up to $60 billion through 2045 into lowering utility bill costs for California households and small businesses during months when prices spike, officials said. Another $20 billion will go toward the state’s trudging high-speed rail project, and $12 billion to public transit.

California’s greenhouse gas emissions have fallen 20% since 2000, while the state’s gross domestic product increased 78% over the same time period, Newsom’s office said.

The most controversial bill in the package was SB 237, which will allow oil and gas companies to drill up to 2,000 new wells per year through 2036 in Kern County, the heart of California oil country. The bill effectively circumvents a decade of legal challenges by environmental groups seeking to stymie drilling in the county that produces about three-fourths of the state’s crude oil.

Some environmentalists fumed over that trade-off, as well as over a provision that will allow the governor to suspend the state’s summer-blend gasoline fuel standards — which reduce emissions but drive up costs at the pump — if prices spike for more than 30 days or if it seems likely that they will.

That bill was introduced as part of an effort to stabilize volatile gas prices as Valero and Phillips 66 prepare to close refineries in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles County’s South Bay that represented an estimated 20% of the state’s refining capac ity.

Environmental groups said the bills still represent progress, particularly as the Trump administration and the Republican-led Congress step away from clean energy policy.

“D.C. has not led,” said Katelyn Roedner Sutter, the California state director for the Environmental Defense Fund. “California will.”

Through AB 825, California is also laying the groundwork for an electricity market among Western states. The bill is designed to make it easier to share solar and wind power across state lines, meaning California can export excess solar energy while importing wind energy from gustier places like New Mexico and Wyoming.

“Today is a big win for the Golden State,” said state Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg). “If you pay utility bills and you want them lower, you win. If you drive a car and hate gas price spikes, you win. If you want clean drinking water, you win. If you want to breathe clean air, you win today. It’s a pretty big winner’s circle.”

ANTON Danyluk has signed up to feature on the new season of Celeb Ex On The Beach, despite vowing never to star on reality shows again.

The Love Island alum appears to have backed down on his word, and has already signed the dotted line to feature on the show.

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A source said: “Anton vowed his reality TV days were done after Love Island All Stars but he has signed on the dotted line to do Celeb Ex On The Beach.”

According to the source, Anton found the offer to feature on this particular reality TV show “too good an offer to turn down”, especially since it involved “all expenses paid fun in the sun, with a bit of drama thrown in to boot.”

Though the TV personality, 31, will now be gearing up for his next appearance on-screen, he’s recently fallen out of favour with the public.

Anton became under-fire after making a post to Instagram where his followers accused him of using Ricky Hatton‘s death to boost his Instagram views.

In a post mentioning the passing of the late boxer, Anton appeared to plug his services as a personal trainer and online coach.

Many commenters found this to be disrespectful and distasteful.

One commenter even said Anton needs to have a “word with himself” and reflect on his actions.

Featuring on Celeb Ex On The Beach will be another way for Anton to promote his company: another reason cited by the source for Anton’s decision to go on the programme.

“While Anton is focused on his personal training company, being on TV now and then always helps boost the business and keep those clients coming in.”

Anton featured on series five of Love Island back in 2019 before going all-in on his love for fitness.

Following his exit from the show, be became a bodybuilder and even fronted a BBC documentary called Anton Danyluk on Body Shame in 2023.

It is not yet confirmed exactly when Celeb Ex On The Beach’s fourth series is going to air, but a show source revealed “it’s in the very early stages but should film towards the end of the year.”

The show’s cast will consist of well-known faces from other reality shows including Love Island and MAFS, as well as Netflix stars.

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Sept. 16 (UPI) — President Donald Trump signed a memorandum Monday to deploy U.S. National Guard troops into Tennessee to “restore law and order” in the city of Memphis.

The move comes one month after the president sent the National Guard into Washington, D.C.

“Today, at the request of Gov. Bill Lee of Tennessee, who’s standing with us as you know, I’m signing a presidential memorandum to establish the Memphis Safe Task Force and it’s very important because of the crime that’s going on not only in Memphis, but in many cities and we’re going to take care of all of them,” Trump said.

“Just like we did in D.C. We have virtually no crime in D.C., right now and we’re going to keep it that way. It’s our nation’s capital,” Trump added, before announcing “Chicago is probably next,” as well as St. Louis and New Orleans.

According to the White House, violent crime in Memphis has “overwhelmed its local government’s ability to respond effectively.” The Federal Bureau of Investigation said Memphis had the highest rate of violent crime per capita last year to include murder, robbery, aggravated assault and property crimes.

“We have to save these cities,” Trump repeated throughout Monday’s signing ceremony.

“A person is four times more likely to be murdered today in Memphis, Tenn., than in Mexico City,” Trump said, according to statistics. “It’s been overrun with carjackings, robberies, shootings and killings. There were 249 murders, 429 rapes, 5,616 burglaries and 12,522 violent assaults” within the last year, according to the FBI data.

The Memphis Safe Task Force will increase policing and investigations with aggressive prosecution to “restore public order,” according to the signed memorandum.

Tennessee’s governor has been instructed to use National Guard units from his state first, with the federal government adding additional personnel, if needed.

“The task force will be a replica, as I said, and I think will be equally as successful as in Washington. We essentially had the crime down to a very low rate in 12 days,” Trump claimed.

“The effort will include the National Guard, as well as the FBI, ATF, DEA, ICE, Homeland Security Investigations and the U.S. Marshals,” Trump said, adding that the Department of Justice would also be involved in the prosecutions.

Memphis Mayor Paul Young and other Democrats have said they do not want the administration’s help and do not believe it will lower crime.

“We don’t have a say in the National Guard, but our goal is to ensure that we have influence in how they engage in the community,” Young told reporters Friday.

Lee, a Republican, thanked the Trump administration Monday for providing the federal resources to Memphis.

“We are very hopeful and excited about the prospect of moving that city forward,” Lee said. “I’ve been in office for seven years. I’m tired of crime holding the great city of Memphis back.”

AS the UK waves goodbye to summer, experts are urging people to take extra precautions to stay healthy.

As winter illnesses start to circulate, one virus parents are being asked to be especially wary of is RSV – as new evidence shows it can be just as risky to healthy babies as those born premature of with underlying health conditions.

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RSV, which stands for respiratory syncytial virus, is a common cause of respiratory infections in young children and accounts for around 245,000 hospital admissions annually in Europe. 

In some cases, it can lead to more severe respiratory issues like bronchiolitis and pneumonia, which can lead to hospitalisation, the need for oxygen or mechanical ventilation, and even death.

Researchers have now analysed data from more than 2.3 million children born in Sweden between 2001 and 2022 to find out who is at greatest risk of suffering serious complications or dying from an RSV infection

Almost all children will get RSV at least once before they’re two years old.

Premature babies and children with chronic diseases are known to be at increased risk of developing severe illness when infected with the virus.

And children under three months of age are also particularly vulnerable – although it hasn’t been entirely clear how common severe disease is among previously healthy children. 

As part of their findings, scientists from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden found the largest group among the children who required intensive care or were hospitalised for a long period of time were under three months of age, previously healthy and born at full term.

“When shaping treatment strategies, it is important to take into account that even healthy infants can be severely affected by RSV,” said the study’s first author, Giulia Dallagiacoma, a physician and doctoral student at the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet.

“The good news is that there is now preventive treatment that can be given to newborns, and a vaccine that can be given to pregnant women.”

The NHS RSV vaccine programme was launched in England on September 1, 2024 offering protection to pregnant women from 28 weeks gestation to protect their baby and to older adults aged 75 to 79.

Several factors were linked to an increased risk of needing intensive care or dying by the researchers.

Children who were born in the winter, or had siblings aged 0–3 years or a twin, had approximately a threefold increased risk, while children who were small at birth had an almost fourfold raised risk.

Children with underlying medical conditions had more than a fourfold increased risk of severe illness or death.

“We know that several underlying diseases increase the risk of severe RSV infection, and it is these children who have so far been targeted for protection with the preventive treatment that has been available,” said the study’s last author, Samuel Rhedin, resident physician at Sachs’ Children and Youth Hospital and associate professor at the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet.

“However, the study highlights that a large proportion of children who require intensive care due to their RSV infection were previously healthy.

“Now that better preventive medicines are available, it is therefore positive that the definition of risk groups is being broadened to offer protection during the RSV season to previously healthy infants as well.”

In the UK, if you’re pregnant, you should be offered the RSV vaccine around the time of your 28-week antenatal appointment.

If you’re aged 75 to 79 (or turned 80 after 1 September 2024) contact your GP surgery to book your RSV vaccination.

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Spotting RSV symptoms is important to help prevent serious complications.

Most people who get an RSV infection will only get cold-like symptoms, according to the NHS, including the five following signs:

• a runny or blocked nose
• a cough
• sneezing
• tiredness
• a high temperature – signs include your back or chest feeling hotter than usual, sweatiness and shivering (chills)

Babies with RSV may also be irritable and feed less than usual.

But if RSV leads to a more serious infection (such as pneumonia or bronchiolitis) it may also cause a worsening cough, shortness of breath, faster breathing, difficulty feeding in babies, wheezing, and confusion in older adults.

It’s important to note cold-like symptoms are very common in babies and children and aren’t usually a sign of anything serious.

They should get better within a few days.

There’s no specific treatment for an RSV infection as it often gets better on its own in one or two weeks.

If you or your child have mild RSV symptoms, there are some things you can do to help ease symptoms at home, including taking paracetamol or ibuprofen if you have a high temperature and are uncomfortable (giving children’s paracetamol or children’s ibuprofen to your child) and drinking lots of fluids.

But children and adults who get a more serious infection may need to be treated in hospital.

The Premier League champions’ signing of the Swedish international closes the summer’s most drawn-out transfer saga.

English Premier League champions Liverpool have agreed to sign Alexander Isak from Newcastle United for a record British transfer fee, according to multiple media reports.

The Swedish forward is set to join the Reds in a deal worth about 130 million pounds ($176m), according to reports on Monday by The Athletic and The Telegraph, among other outlets.

The Athletic reported that Isak will undergo a medical on Monday before completing a six-year deal with the Merseyside club.

The 25-year-old striker scored 23 goals in the Premier League last season – behind only Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah – as Newcastle qualified for the Champions League.

But he has been the subject of a protracted and occasionally acrimonious transfer saga this summer, training away from the rest of the Newcastle squad after making clear his desire to move to Liverpool.

On Saturday, Newcastle signed German international striker Nick Woltemade for a record club fee reported to be worth up to 69 million pounds ($93m) in what was seen as paving the way for Isak’s departure.

The mayor of Chicago has signed an executive order seeking to protect residents against a possible decision by United States President Donald Trump’s administration to deploy federal troops to the city.

Mayor Brandon Johnson announced on Saturday that he was signing the so-called Protecting Chicago Initiative amid what he said were “credible reports” that Chicago could see militarised activity by the federal government within days.

“It is unclear at this time what that will look like exactly,” the mayor said at a news conference. “We may see militarised immigration enforcement. We may also see National Guard troops. We may even see active duty military and armed vehicles in our streets.”

Among other things, the order directs Chicago law enforcement officers not to collaborate with US military personnel on patrols or during immigration enforcement activities, Johnson told reporters.

He described the move as “the most sweeping campaign of any city in the country to protect ourselves from the threats and actions of this out-of-control administration”.

Johnson’s announcement comes after Trump earlier this month said that he was considering whether to expand his National Guard troop deployment from Washington, DC, to other major cities across the country.

Trump called up the National Guard in what he said was a push to address crime in the US capital. The Republican leader has since credited the deployment with cutting down rates of violence in the city.

But data from the Metropolitan Police Department showed violent crime in Washington, DC, was already at a 30-year low, and critics warned that the crackdown could end up being a test run for the broader militarisation of US cities.

Earlier this week, the top Democrat in the US House of Representatives, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, said in an interview with CNN that Trump had “no authority” to send federal troops to Chicago.

The US Constitution gives the power of policing to the states.

JB Pritzker, the Democratic governor of Illinois, where Chicago is located, also rejected the idea.

“Donald Trump is attempting to manufacture a crisis, politicize Americans who serve in uniform, and continue abusing his power to distract from the pain he is causing working families,” Pritzker said in a statement.

Citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter, CNN reported on Friday that the Trump administration has been preparing to carry out a “major immigration enforcement operation” in Chicago as early as next week.

According to CNN, White House officials said those plans are separate from Trump’s idea of sending National Guard troops to Chicago for a broader crackdown on crime.

The president, who took office in January for a second term, has pursued a hardline, anti-immigration agenda and pledged to carry out the “largest deportation operation” in US history.

The administration has justified its push by saying it is deporting “criminals” who are in the US illegally. It has reached deals with third countries to take in deported asylum seekers and migrants.

But US media reports over the past months have shown that many people have been swept up in the immigration raids, including some American citizens and permanent residents with no criminal records.

In June, Trump sent 4,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles after an intensified wave of arrests by US immigration authorities prompted massive protests and confrontations between demonstrators and police.

On Saturday, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson slammed the Chicago mayor’s executive order, saying in a statement shared by US media outlets that “cracking down on crime should not be a partisan issue”.

“If these Democrats focused on fixing crime in their own cities instead of doing publicity stunts to criticize the President, their communities would be much safer,” Jackson said.

During his news conference, Johnson, the mayor, said it remained unclear whether Trump would go ahead with his plans in the city.

“He could change his mind, he could reverse course – in fact, I encourage him to do that,” Johnson said, stressing that Chicago – the country’s third largest city – does not want its residents rounded up off the streets.

“We do not want to see families ripped apart. We do not want grandmothers thrown into the backs of unmarked vans. We don’t want to see homeless Chicagoans harassed or disappeared by federal agents,” he added.

Aug. 30 (UPI) — Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson on Saturday signed an executive order that demands President Donald Trump end “his threats to deploy the National Guard” to his city.

The “Protecting Chicago Initiative” is in response to a “credible threat” that troops will be deployed in a few days, and directs the city to pursue all legal and legislative avenues stop stop the deployment.

“I do not take this executive action lightly,” Johnson said during a signing in the mayor’s ceremonial office, said. “I would’ve preferred to work more collaboratively to pass legislation … but unfortunately we do not have the luxury of time. We have received credible reports that we have days, not weeks, before our city sees some kind of militarized activity by the federal government.”

In addition, the order affirms that Chicago police will remain a locally controlled law enforcement agency. Earlier this month, when Trump deployed troops to Washington, D.C., the Trump administration took over the police department.

“We do not want military checkpoints or armored vehicles on our streets and we do not want to see families ripped apart,” Johnson said. “We will take any action necessary to protect the rights of all Chicagoans.”

Federal law enforcement and U.S. Armed Forces in the order are told to abide by municipal laws, including not concealing their identities, using body cameras when interacting with a member of the public and displaying which agency they are with, including their last name and badge number.

“This executive order makes it emphatically clear this president is not going to come in and deputize our police department,” Johnson said. “We do not want to see tanks in our streets. We do not want families ripped apart. … And I don’t take orders from the federal government.”

The Naval Station Great Lakes, about 40 miles north of downtown Chicago in North Chicago, confirmed that it is preparing to host federal immigration agents. The base, which is the largest military installation in the state, is planning to host more than 200 federal agents from Tuesday to Sept. 30.

Johnson has set Friday as the arrival date.

The Naval base is in Lake County, north of Cook County.

Esiah Campos, the county’s Board Commissioner and Navy corpsman who finished his training at Naval Station Great Lakes in 2020, urged state legislators Friday to ban law enforcement from using masks statewide. Also for Lake County mayors to reaffirm their commitment not to assist ICE.

“It hurts to see the base I drilled out of to house ICE and Homeland Security agents to terrorize our people,” Campos said at a Friday news conference with other legislators and community groups in North Chicago’s Veterans Memorial Park. “This is not a time for platitudes. Now is a time for action.”

Since 1985 Chicago has been a sanctuary city, which limits local law enforcement’s cooperation with federal immigration authorities, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzer has told Trump the federal response is not needed, considering crime has fallen significantly.

On Tuesday, he posted on X: “If Trump wants to get to Chicago, he’s going to have to go through us. And we’re not backing down.”

During a news conference in Chicago on Thursday, he said: “Donald Trump is exactly the kind of person that our founders warned us about. He cozies up to dictators like Putin because he idolizes them. His actions are dangerous and un-American.

Trump has said he would tackle crime next in Chicago after deploying personnel to the nation’s capital, which is a federal jurisdiction.

“We’re going to make our cities very, very safe,” Trump said on Aug. 22. “Chicago’s a mess. You have an incompetent mayor. Grossly incompetent and we’ll straighten that one out probably next. That will be our next one after this. And it won’t even be tough.”

“No, Donald. You can’t do whatever you want,” the governor responded to the president on X.

Through late August, Chicago had 266 homicides in 2025, according to the Chicago Police Department, the Chicago Tribune reported.

The Midwest city is “about 25% below where they were in the first half of 2019,” Ernesto Lopez, a senior research specialist at the Council on Criminal Justice, told the Chicago Sun Times.

In 2024, there were 581 murders in Chicago with 621 in 2023 in a city of 2.7 million people.

The top homicide rate is in Memphis, Tenn., with 409 per 100,000 for a total of 372 in 2023. Chicago wasn’t even in the top 15 with 29.7 per 100,000.

The drop in homicides in Chicago from 2019 to 2025 was significantly larger than the national average.

Chicago’s highest concentrations of crime is in neighborhoods on the South and West sides, and not downtown.

The governor showed off parts of the city this week, including where crime dropped.

The S&P 500 has risen about 10% this year and is hovering near its all-time highs. That rally was largely driven by the tech sector’s robust growth rates, big buybacks, earnings beats across the market, easing trade tensions, and hopes for deeper interest rate cuts. But with a price-to-earnings ratio of 30, the S&P 500 also looks historically expensive. However, some of the S&P 500’s top stocks are outperforming the benchmark index by a wide margin but still trading at reasonable valuations.

One of those stocks is Meta Platforms (META -1.69%), the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp. Meta’s stock has rallied nearly 30% year to date but trades at just 27 times its trailing earnings. Let’s see why it crushed the market — and why it might soar even higher through the end of 2025.

Image source: Getty Images.

The world’s biggest social media company keeps growing

Meta is the world’s largest social media company. It served 3.48 billion daily active people (DAP) across its entire family of apps in the second quarter of 2025. That’s nearly two-thirds of the world’s adult population. But over the past year, Meta still gained new users, increased its total ad impressions, and raised its ad prices.

Data source: Meta Platforms. YOY = Year-over-year.

That growth was driven by its new artificial intelligence (AI)-powered algorithms and ad targeting systems, which attracted more users and monetized them more effectively. Those upgrades countered Apple‘s privacy changes on iOS, which throttled its ad sales three years ago. Meta’s short-video platform, Reels, kept pace with ByteDance’s TikTok and locked more users into Facebook and Instagram. It’s also been rolling out more ads on Threads, which is gradually gaining momentum against X in the microblogging market.

Since Meta reaches so many users and holds a near duopoly in the digital advertising market with Alphabet‘s Google, it yields tremendous pricing power. That advertising ecosystem also serves as a firm foundation for building new products and services.

Its margins are expanding, and its profits are soaring

Meta continues to subsidize the expansion of its unprofitable Reality Labs segment (which creates its virtual and augmented reality products) with its higher-margin ad sales as it ramps up its investments in its own AI infrastructure. Yet its operating margins still expanded at a healthy clip over the past year as its earnings per share (EPS) grew by the high double digits.

Data source: Meta Platforms. YOY = Year-over-year.

That robust earnings growth can be attributed to Meta’s surging sales of AI-driven ads, its higher ad prices, its prior workforce reductions (especially in 2023 as it weathered Apple’s iOS changes), the classification of its cloud and data-center costs as capital expenditures (instead of immediate operating expenses), and its ongoing buybacks.

Simply put, Meta can afford to keep pouring its cash into unprofitable or loss-leading projects to expand its ecosystem. While many of those projects might flop, some of them might stick and strengthen Meta’s defenses against Google and its other AI-driven competitors.

Why will Meta’s stock rally through the end of the year?

For 2025, analysts expect Meta’s revenue and EPS to grow 19% and 18%, respectively. From 2024 to 2027, they expect Meta’s revenue and EPS to rise at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16% and 13%, respectively. It doesn’t look expensive relative to those growth rates, and it could command a higher valuation if the trade tensions wane and the Fed cuts its benchmark rates again. Assuming Meta matches analysts’ expectations and trades at a slightly more generous 30 times forward earnings by the end of 2025, its stock price would rise about 20% to nearly $900. That’s why I expect Meta to keep outperforming the S&P 500 through the end of the year.

UNICEF says “famine is absolutely ravaging Gaza City,” as aid workers at a nutrition centre warn parents have run out of options to feed their children. Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud visited the centre, where “the signs of famine are everywhere.”

Aug. 27 (UPI) — The federal government signed-off on the latest round of COVID-19 vaccines, but new limits were set on which Americans can get them after U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fulfilled many of his promises to reshape U.S. vaccine policy.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday ended its authorization for the broad use of COVID-19 shots, clearing them only for patients at higher risk of severe illness, and those age 65 and older — or younger adults with at least one underlying health condition who would qualify.

“The emergency use authorizations for Covid vaccines, once used to justify broad mandates on the general public during the Biden administration, are now rescinded,” Kennedy stated early Wednesday afternoon in a post on X.

Kennedy said the American people “demanded science, safety and common sense,” and he claimed this new framework “delivers all three.”

But this new action is likely to complicate access, observers say, and prompts questions on insurance plan coverage.

According to Kennedy, vaccine shots still will be available for patients but only after they consult with a doctor.

On Wednesday, both Moderna and Pfizer confirmed its vaccines were approved for use in adults age 65 and older and those age 5 through 64 with at least one underlying condition.

However, it remains to be seen how easily it can be obtained for patients without higher risk health factors.

Previous U.S. vaccine policy suggested an annual COVID-19 shot for people age 6 months and older.

The American Academy of Pediatrics, the nation’s leading pediatrics association, recently recommended children as young as 6 months old be inoculated against COVID-19 in a departure with Trump administration guidelines.

The COVID-19 vaccine shots must be voted on by a panel of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Earlier this year Kennedy, a known skeptic of long-used and effective vaccines, gutted the CDC panel and named widely-known vaccine critics to sit in place.

On Wednesday the chief of America’s Frontline Doctors, a right-wing group known to spread false and unsubstantiated claims, cheered Kennedy’s actions on the U.S. coronavirus vaccine policy switch.

“Mandates are dead. Freedom wins,” Dr. Simone Gold, AFD’s president, said on social media.

However, a noted television medical analyst offered advice to those still on the fence on getting another COVID-19 shot.

“If you want to know if you or members of your family should get vaccinated, my recommendation is to solicit advice from your doctor, not the federal government,” Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a professor at the D.C.-based George Washington School of Medicine & Health Sciences and its director of Cardiac Catheterization Laboratories, stated on X.

Aug. 22 (UPI) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a package of legislation, kicking off the Golden State’s redistricting drive, as the Democrat retaliates against Texas, which just passed new congressional maps that favor the Republicans.

Newsom signed the three bills, known together as the Election Rigging Response legislative package, Thursday shortly after they swiftly passed both the State Assembly and Senate.

The package allows California to adopt new congressional maps, which must first be voted on by the public in November.

It is the latest move in what appears to be a growing redistricting arms race ahead of next year’s midterm elections that was kicked off by Texas, which, under pressure of President Donald Trump, passed new congressional maps on Wednesday that are expected to give Republicans five additional seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Congressional maps are generally redrawn once a decade based on new Census Bureau data, with the next census scheduled for 2030. Democrats are accusing Texas Republicans of redrawing their maps to help ensure the GOP maintains its control of the House in the upcoming midterm elections. Republicans currently hold a narrow majority in the congressional chamber.

Newsom, who is seen as a potential presidential candidate in 2028, has been among the most vocal critics and vowed to redraw California’s maps to neutralize those seats to be gained in Texas. Other states on both sides of the political aisle have suggested they are considering doing the same.

“Don’t poke the bear,” Newsom said on X following the signing.

On Wednesday, the state Supreme Court rejected a Republican challenge to Newsom’s plan to redraw the state’s congressional maps.

Peruvian President Dina Boluarte has signed into law a controversial piece of legislation that would shield the military, police and other government-sanctioned forces from prosecution for human rights abuses committed during the country’s decades-long internal conflict.

On Wednesday, Boluarte held a signing ceremony at the presidential palace in Lima, where she defended the amnesty law as a means of honouring the sacrifices made by government forces.

“This is a historic day for our country,” she said. “It brings justice and honour to those who stood up to terrorism.”

But human rights groups and international observers have condemned the bill as a violation of international law — not to mention a denial of justice for the thousands of survivors who lived through the conflict.

From 1980 to 2000, Peru experienced a bloody conflict that pitted government forces against left-wing rebel groups like the Shining Path.

Both sides, however, committed massacres, kidnappings and assaults on unarmed civilians, with the death toll from the conflict climbing as high as 70,000 people.

Up until present, survivors and family members of the deceased have continued to fight for accountability.

An estimated 600 investigations are currently under way, and 156 convictions have been achieved, according to the National Human Rights Coordinator, a coalition of Peruvian human rights organisations.

Critics fear those ongoing probes could be scuttled under the wide-ranging protections offered by the new amnesty law, which stands to benefit soldiers, police officers and members of self-defence committees who face legal proceedings for which no final verdict has been rendered.

The legislation also offers “humanitarian” amnesty for those convicted over the age of 70.

Peru, however, falls under the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which ordered the country’s government to “immediately suspend the processing” of the law on July 24.

The court ruled against past amnesty laws in Peru. In cases of severe human rights violations, it ruled that there can be no sweeping amnesty nor age limits for prosecution.

In 1995, for instance, Peru passed a separate amnesty law that would have prevented the prosecution of security forces for human rights abuses between 1980 and that year. But it was greeted with widespread condemnation, including from United Nations experts, and it was eventually repealed.

In the case of the current amnesty law, nine UN experts issued a joint letter in July condemning its passage as a “clear breach of [Peru’s] obligations under international law”.

But at Wednesday’s signing ceremony, President Boluarte reiterated her position that such international criticism was a violation of her country’s sovereignty and that she would not adhere to the Inter-American Court’s decision.

“Peru is honouring its defenders and firmly rejecting any internal or external interference,” Boluarte said.

“We cannot allow history to be distorted, for perpetrators to pretend to be victims, and for the true defenders of the homeland to be branded as enemies of the nation they swore to protect.”

Peru’s armed forces, however, have been implicated in a wide range of human rights abuses. Just last year, 10 soldiers were convicted of carrying out the systematic rape of Indigenous and rural women and girls.

Drawing from Peru’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission report, the human rights group Amnesty International estimates that the country’s armed forces and police were responsible for 37 percent of the deaths and disappearances that happened during the conflict.

They were also credited with carrying out 75 percent of the reported instances of torture and 83 percent of sexual violence cases.

Francisco Ochoa, a victims’ advocate, spoke to Al Jazeera last month about his experiences surviving the 1985 Accomarca massacre as a 14-year-old teenager.

He had been in the corn fields preparing to sow seeds when soldiers arrived and rounded up the residents of his small Andean village.

Despite having no evidence linking the villagers to rebel groups, the soldiers locked many of them in their huts, fired into the structures and set them ablaze.

As many as 62 people were killed, including Ochoa’s mother, eight-year-old brother and six-year-old sister.

“The first thing I remember from that day is the smell when we arrived,” Ochoa, now 54, told journalist Claudia Rebaza. “It smelled like smouldering flesh, and there was no one around.”

When asked how he and other survivors felt about the amnesty law, Ochoa responded, “Outraged and betrayed”.

Syria’s fledgling government has sought investment to reconstruct the country after its devastating yearslong civil war.

Syria has signed a series of investment deals with international companies, covering 12 major strategic projects in infrastructure, transportation and real estate valued at a total of $14bn, the latest lifeline aimed at reviving its war-ravaged economy.

The plans included a $4bn investment project for Damascus airport signed with Qatar’s UCC Holding and a $2bn deal with the United Arab Emirates national investment corporation to establish a metro in the Syrian capital, Talal al-Hilali, head of the Syrian Investment Authority, said during the ceremony at the presidential palace in Damascus on Wednesday.

It’s a welcome development for President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s new government as it has been grappling with the heavy fallout from sectarian violence that broke out on July 13 in the southern province of Suwayda between Bedouin and Druze fighters. Government troops were deployed to quell the conflict. The bloodshed worsened, and Israel carried out strikes on Syrian troops and also bombed the heart of the capital Damascus, under the pretext of protecting the Druze.

Other major developments on the investment front destined for Damascus include the $2bn Damascus Towers project signed with the Italian-based company UBAKO, a $500m deal for the Baramkeh Towers project and another $60m agreement for Baramkeh Mall.

Since the overthrow of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December in a lightning rebel offensive, Syria’s new authorities have worked to attract investment for the reconstruction of infrastructure destroyed in the country’s devastating, nearly 14-year-long civil war.

The projects “will extend across Syria and represent a qualitative shift in infrastructure and economic life”, al-Hilali said on Wednesday, adding that the agreements were “a turning point” for Syria’s future.

Al-Sharaa and United States special envoy for Syria Tom Barrack were both present at the signing ceremony, Syria’s official SANA news agency reported on Wednesday.

Barrack congratulated Syrian authorities on “another great accomplishment”, saying they will witness the rise of a “new hub” in “trade and prosperity”.

The United Nations has put Syria’s post-war reconstruction costs at more than $400bn. Several deals have already been announced.

Last month, Saudi Arabia signed major investment and partnership deals with Syria, valued at $6.4bn.

Also in July, Syria signed an $800m deal with UAE-based company DP World to develop the port of Tartous, state media reported.

In May, Syria signed a $7bn energy deal with a consortium of Qatari, Turkish and US companies as it seeks to revive its crippled power sector.

The US and European Union have recently lifted sanctions on Syria in the wake of al-Assad’s ouster, opening the nation to further investment and trade deals.

WASHINGTON — For all of President Trump’s promises of an economic “golden age,” a spate of weak indicators last week told a potentially worrisome story as the effects of his policies are coming into focus.

Job gains are dwindling. Inflation is ticking upward. Growth has slowed compared with last year.

More than six months into his term, Trump’s blitz of tariff hikes and his new tax-and-spending bill have remodeled America’s trading, manufacturing, energy and tax systems to his liking. He’s eager to take credit for any perceived wins and is hunting for someone else to blame if the financial situation starts to totter.

But as of now, this is not the boom the Republican president promised, and his ability to blame his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, for any economic challenges has faded as the world economy hangs on his every word and social media post.

When Friday’s monthly jobs report turned out to be decidedly bleak, Trump ignored the warnings in the data and fired the head of the agency that produces the report.

“Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can’t be manipulated for political purposes,” Trump said on his social media platform, without offering evidence for his claim. “The Economy is BOOMING.”

It’s possible that the disappointing numbers are growing pains from the rapid transformation caused by Trump and that stronger growth will return — or they may be a preview of even more disruption to come.

A political gamble

Trump’s aggressive use of tariffs, executive actions, spending cuts and tax code changes carry significant political risk if he is unable to deliver middle-class prosperity. The effects of his new tariffs are still several months away from rippling through the economy, right as many Trump allies in Congress will be campaigning in the midterm elections.

“Considering how early we are in his term, Trump’s had an unusually big impact on the economy already,” said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist at Firehouse Strategies. “The full inflationary impact of the tariffs won’t be felt until 2026. Unfortunately for Republicans, that’s also an election year.”

The White House portrayed the blitz of trade frameworks leading up to Trump’s tariff announcement Thursday as proof of his negotiating prowess. The European Union, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia and other nations that the White House declined to name agreed that the U.S. could increase its tariffs on their goods without doing the same to American products. Trump simply set rates on other countries that lacked settlements.

The costs of those tariffs — taxes paid on imports to the U.S. — will be most felt by American consumers in the form of higher prices, but to what extent remains uncertain.

“For the White House and their allies, a key part of managing the expectations and politics of the Trump economy is maintaining vigilance when it comes to public perceptions,” said Kevin Madden, a Republican strategist.

Just 38% of adults approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, according to a July poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs. That’s down from the end of Trump’s first term when half of adults approved of his economic leadership.

The White House paints a rosier image, casting the economy as emerging from a period of uncertainty after Trump’s restructuring and repeating the economic gains seen in his first term before the pandemic struck.

“President Trump is implementing the very same policy mix of deregulation, fairer trade, and pro-growth tax cuts at an even bigger scale — as these policies take effect, the best is yet to come,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said.

Hints of trouble

The economic numbers over the last week show the difficulties that Trump might face if the numbers continue on their current path:

— Friday’s jobs report showed that U.S. employers have shed 37,000 manufacturing jobs since Trump’s tariff launch in April, undermining prior White House claims of a factory revival.

— Net hiring has plummeted over the last three months with job gains of just 73,000 in July, 14,000 in June and 19,000 in May — a combined 258,000 jobs lower than previously indicated. On average last year, the economy added 168,000 jobs a month.

— A Thursday inflation report showed that prices have risen 2.6% over the year that ended in June, an increase in the personal consumption expenditures price index from 2.2% in April. Prices of heavily imported items, such as appliances, furniture and toys and games, jumped from May to June.

— On Wednesday, a report on gross domestic product — the broadest measure of the U.S. economy — showed that it grew at an annual rate of less than 1.3% during the first half of the year, down sharply from 2.8% growth last year.

“The economy’s just kind of slogging forward,” said Guy Berger, senior fellow at the Burning Glass Institute, which studies employment trends. “Yes, the unemployment rate’s not going up, but we’re adding very few jobs. The economy’s been growing very slowly. It just looks like a ‘meh’ economy is continuing.”

Attacks on the Fed

Trump has sought to pin the blame for any economic troubles on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, saying the Fed should cut its benchmark interest rates — even though doing so could generate more inflation.

Trump has publicly backed two Fed governors, Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman, for voting for rate cuts at Wednesday’s meeting. But their logic is not what the president wants to hear: They were worried, in part, about a slowing job market.

But this is a major economic gamble being undertaken by Trump and those pushing for lower rates under the belief that mortgages will also become more affordable as a result and boost homebuying activity.

His tariff policy has changed repeatedly over the last six months, with the latest import tax numbers serving as a substitute for what the president announced in April, which provoked a stock market sell-off. It might not be a simple one-time adjustment as some Fed board members and Trump administration officials argue.

‘Universal tariffs’

Of course, Trump can’t say no one warned him about the possible consequences of his economic policies.

Biden, then the outgoing president, did just that in a speech in December at the Brookings Institution, saying the cost of the tariffs would eventually hit American workers and businesses.

“He seems determined to impose steep, universal tariffs on all imported goods brought into this country on the mistaken belief that foreign countries will bear the cost of those tariffs rather than the American consumer,” Biden said. “I believe this approach is a major mistake.”

Boak and Rugber write for the Associated Press.

Megan Romano announced as first female competitor at 2026 debut of Olympic-style Enhanced Games in Las Vegas.

The Olympic-style sport venture that will run an event next year with no drug testing signed world-champion swimmer Megan Romano as its first female and first US athlete.

The Enhanced Games will debut next May in Las Vegas, featuring swimming, track and weightlifting competitions in an event that will allow athletes to use performance enhancers.

Romano calls competing in the event “an opportunity to push the boundaries of human performance in a transparent and scientifically-backed environment, and to compete on a stage where female athletes are valued and compensated fairly. equally. I believe this is the future of sport.”

The Enhanced Games will offer a prize purse of $500,000 for each event, with $1m bonuses going to anyone who breaks a world record in the 100-metre sprint (track) and 50-metre freestyle (swimming).

Those marks would not count as “official”, because world records need to be ratified by international federations, which require record-breakers to pass doping tests.

The International Olympic Committee has condemned the concept of the Enhanced Games, saying, “If you want to destroy any concept of fair play and fair competition in sport, this would be a good way to do it.”

But the games have built some momentum and raised money in the “double-digit millions,” according to founder Aron D’Souza.

Four male swimmers, including Olympic medallist James Magnussen of Australia, have committed to the games.

Romano, a standout swimmer at Georgia in college, anchored the US 4×100 freestyle relay team to a gold medal at world championships in 2013.

July 31 (UPI) — President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday alongside his professional athlete friends to bring back the Presidential Fitness Test in schools.

The executive order signing event hosted golfer Bryson DeChambeau, Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker, former New York Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor, retired champion golfer Annika Sorenstam and Paul “Triple H” Levesque of World Wrestling Entertainment.

In Trump’s second term, the United States will host the 2025 Ryder Cup, 2026 FIFA World Cup and the 2028 Summer Olympics.

DeChambeau will chair the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition, the White House confirmed. He is a friend of Trump and has been seen on the campaign trail with him.

The order advises the council to create school-based programs that reward achievements in physical education. It will also reestablish the Presidential Fitness Test, first created in 1966 and was administered in public middle and high schools. The test was replaced in 2013 with the Presidential Youth Fitness Program, which touted living an active and healthy lifestyle.

Other sports issues in the president’s second term have been to demand the NFL’s Washington Commanders to change their name back to the Redskins and to issue an executive order banning transgender women in women’s sports.

Former President Barack Obama killed the test in 2012 and replaced it with an assessment called the FitnessGram focused on improving individual health.

“President Trump wants every young American to have the opportunity to emphasize healthy, active lifestyles — creating a culture of strength and excellence for years to come,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNN in a statement.

WASHINGTON — President Trump signed an executive order Wednesday to impose his threatened 50% tariffs on Brazil, setting a legal rationale that Brazil’s policies and criminal prosecution of former President Jair Bolsonaro constitute an economic emergency under a 1977 law.

Trump had threatened the tariffs July 9 in a letter to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. But the legal basis of that threat was an earlier executive order premised on trade imbalances being a threat to the U.S. economy. But America ran a $6.8 billion trade surplus last year with Brazil, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

A statement by the White House said Brazil’s judiciary had tried to coerce social media companies and block their users, though it did not name the companies involved, X and Rumble.

Trump appears to identify with Bolsonaro, who attempted to overturn the results of his 2022 loss to Lula. Similarly, Trump was indicted in 2023 for his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

The order would apply an additional 40% tariff on the baseline 10% tariff already being levied by Trump. But not all goods imported from Brazil would face the 40% tariff: Civil aircraft and parts, aluminum, tin, wood pulp, energy products and fertilizers are among the products being excluded.

The order said the tariffs would go into effect seven days after its signing on Wednesday.

Also Wednesday, Trump’s Treasury Department announced sanctions on Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes over alleged suppression of freedom of expression and Bolsonaro’s ongoing trial.

De Moraes oversees the criminal case against Bolsonaro, who is accused of masterminding a plot to stay in power despite his 2022 defeat.

On July 18, the State Department announced visa restrictions on Brazilian judicial officials, including de Moraes.

Boak writes for the Associated Press.