U.S.

Ahead of President Trump’s arrival in Beijing on Wednesday for his summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, longtime China expert Kurt M. Campbell offered a novel way of watching the two leaders’ high-stakes faceoff. Think of it not as nation-versus-nation or army-versus-army, but as the sort of “single combat” celebrated in ancient literature, along the lines of David and Goliath in the Bible or Achilles and Hector in “The Iliad.”

“This one has the feel of a geopolitical heavyweight matchup,” Campbell, chairman of the Asia Group strategic consulting firm, wrote in Foreign Affairs this week.

Unlike in their initial get-together early in Trump’s first term, both men now are seasoned leaders in their separate ways — Xi an unchallenged dictator, and an envious Trump seeking to be. Both act with few immediate checks on their power, though Xi acts strategically and Trump impulsively and transactionally. And both, as leaders of super-powers, have the capability to shape the economic and security fates of a wary world.

That world, Campbell concluded in his essay, is “eager to see whether the two leaders emerge driving together in the chariot, or with one dragging the other behind,” as Achilles did the vanquished Hector.

However the Trump-Xi meeting ends, Trump is no Achilles going into this match. In fact, in the six decades of U.S.-China relations, perhaps no American president has entered the summit arena in a weaker position than Trump, the would-be strongman and artiste of the deal. Worse, his weakness — and by extension his country’s — is mostly self-inflicted.

Trump had postponed what was intended as an early April meeting in hopes of striding triumphantly into Beijing as the conqueror of Iran, a China ally. Instead China is receiving him as a “giant with a limp,” in the phrase of its Communist Party-controlled Global Times newspaper.

Trump’s Mideast war, the sort he’d promised never to start, lingers for a third month in a costly stalemate — $29 billion and counting — that has humiliated the president in the public words of Germany’s chancellor and the private thoughts of many more global leaders, Xi likely among them. Trump can’t “project the same arrogance” as he did visiting China in 2017, a former Chinese army officer, Yue Gang, told the New York Times.

At home, the conflict has caused gasoline prices and inflation to spike while tanking Trump’s already depressed polls. A newly released CNN poll conducted April 30 to May 4 had 65% of Americans disapproving of his overall job performance and a whopping 70% against his handling of the economy — the issue that arguably got him elected. With experience, American consumers and soybean farmers now know that they, not the Chinese, have paid for Trump’s beloved tariffs.

The president’s standing at home could hardly have been helped by his parting words to reporters at the White House. Asked “to what extent are Americans’ financial situation motivating you to make a deal” with Iran, Trump blithely replied, “Not even a little bit.” He added, in the sort of political gaffe that journalist Michael Kinsley defined as telling the truth: “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody.”

He’s already a loser in the negotiations with Xi. For weeks the Trump administration has unsuccessfully urged China to use its leverage to goad Iran to accept a peace on Americans’ terms or, at a minimum, to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, given China’s self-interest as Iran’s biggest oil customer by far. As China scholar Henrietta Levin of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told the Associated Press, “I don’t think China has any interest in solving the problems the U.S. has created for itself in the Middle East.”

Not least, perhaps, because China has seen that, by the Pentagon’s own reckoning, the war has depleted U.S. stockpiles of weaponry after thousands upon thousands of strikes against Iran. And that has further raised questions in China and beyond about whether Trump would have the United States come to the defense of Taiwan, the self-governing, U.S.-armed island that China claims as its own.

After all, the thinking goes, if the United States can’t bring a lesser power like Iran quickly to heel, how might it fare against a near-peer such as China, especially with a diminished U.S. arsenal and Mideast distractions?

It’s mostly a mystery what the leaders’ talks might yield. In a break with diplomatic tradition, though not with Trump’s seat-of-the-pants style, apparently little planning went into this super-power summit — another reflection of a distracted U.S. side. Still, with a number of tech, agribusiness, finance and aerospace chieftains in tow, Trump and his team are hoping for a few politically appealing deliverables, such as sales of U.S. soybeans and Boeing aircraft, to give the president a lift back home.

But don’t look for progress on the longstanding issues dividing the United States and China over trade and military dominance in the Pacific region. And as for another of those perennial issues — climate change and clean-energy technology — the U.S. under Trump has willfully surrendered global preeminence to China, ceding markets for solar, wind energy, electric vehicles, grid storage and more in his backward-looking, ostrich-like obsession with drilling oil and mining coal.

Whatever hyperbolic claims Trump makes for his China trip, the outcome of the summit (on top of his quagmire in Iran) should at least be this: retiring the myth of Trump the deal-maker and savvy businessman.

If he were such a visionary, Trump would be prodding the nation to global leadership in technology and clean-energy investments, not reversing past progress and paying companies billions of taxpayers’ dollars to stop clean-energy projects. In markets worldwide, the future is now and America is forfeiting the game to China.

In this contest, Trump is letting Xi drive the chariot. Unfortunately, average Americans are the ones being dragged through the dust as China rides into the 21st century.

Bluesky: @jackiecalmes
Threads: @jkcalmes
X: @jackiekcalmes

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans on Wednesday again blocked Democratic legislation that would halt President Trump’s war with Iran, but the number of GOP senators voting against the war grew.

Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voted against the war for the first time since it began at the end of February. Two other Republicans, Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Rand Paul of Kentucky, also voted against the war, as they had done previously.

The war powers legislation ultimately failed to advance 49-50, with Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania the only Democrat to oppose it, yet the close tally reflected growing unease with Trump’s war. Several other Republican senators have signaled they want Congress to weigh in on the direction of the conflict.

“There will be a day — and it might be soon, I believe — where this Senate will say to the president, ‘Stop this war,’” Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, who has spearheaded his party’s tactic of forcing repeated votes on the war, said before the vote.

Even if it passes the Senate, a war powers resolution would have a slim chance of passing the House and would also certainly be vetoed by Trump. But Democrats say the votes are about building political pressure on the president either to withdraw from the conflict or seek congressional authorization to wage the war.

Trump officials downplay role for Congress

The White House, meanwhile, has asserted that it does not need congressional authorization for the war and has circumvented legal requirements to gain approval from Congress to continue the military campaign. It claims that it has “terminated” hostilities with Iran because the U.S. has entered a ceasefire.

That posture has created tension between the Republican-controlled Congress and the White House because presidents under the War Powers Resolution of 1973 are required to obtain authorization from Congress after 60 days of engaging in a conflict.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told lawmakers this week that the U.S. could start attacking Iran again without the White House seeking congressional approval. He told Murkowski during a hearing on Tuesday that the Trump administration believes it has “all the authorities necessary.”

Murkowski voiced skepticism about that argument. She pointed to the troops and war ships deployed to the region, saying, “It doesn’t appear that hostilities have ended.”

GOP leaders back the war, but unease grows

Republican leadership has continued to back the war with Iran, arguing that the stalemate in the Strait of Hormuz that has blocked most commercial shipping puts more economic pressure on Iran than it does on the U.S.

“Iran’s economy is on life support. Its leadership is eliminated,” said Sen. John Barrasso, the No. 2 Republican in leadership, during a floor speech Wednesday.

He also argued that the Democratic effort on the war is all about undermining Trump. Forcing the issue just as he arrived in China for a summit would “pull out the rug from under him,” Barrasso said.

Still, Republicans are also growing uneasy about the high gas prices, especially as the November elections draw near.

Sen. Mike Rounds, a Republican from South Dakota, said Wednesday he’d prefer that the two branches of government work out the constitutional issues instead of a congressional war powers vote or a potential challenge in court.

The two sides should sit down together and say “we have shared constitutional responsibilities,” Rounds said.

Democrats plan to keep forcing weekly votes on war powers resolutions and are looking ahead to put limitations on Trump during the debate over annual legislation that authorizes and funds the military.

Sen. Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat who sponsored Wednesday’s resolution, told reporters that he believes there is an “erosion of support, erosion of enthusiasm, an increase in skepticism” about the war from Republicans.

Groves writes for the Associated Press.

May 13 (UPI) — The Justice Department filed a lawsuit Wednesday evening against D.C. disciplinary officials who recommended Jeffrey Clark be disbarred over his efforts to overturn 2020 election results, the latest move by the Trump administration to defend allies accused of helping President Donald Trump remain in power after that election loss.

The lawsuit in a federal court in D.C. alleges the disciplinary officials used their powers to punish lawyers over what federal prosecutors describe as “internal Executive Branch deliberations” in order to regulate federal government actions.

“Weaponizing state bar discipline against Executive Branch attorneys in this way chills them from giving candid legal advice to others in the Executive Branch, including the president and attorney general,” the lawsuit states.

“To permit these proceedings is to allow state bar authorities to control the Executive Branch. That is not the law.”

Clark was an assistant attorney general at the Justice Department following Trump’s 2020 election loss to Joe Biden, and urged Justice Department officials to issue a letter he wrote casting doubt on election results, according to congressional investigators and D.C. disciplinary officials.

The letter specifically targeted the results in Georgia, a swing state Trump lost to Biden by 11,779 votes, alleging a Justice Department investigation had uncovered election “irregularities” despite Attorney General William Barr having already announced there was no evidence of outcome-determinative fraud in the election prior to his resignation.

Clark had prepared the letter to be signed by Barr’s replacement, then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, and Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, the second highest-ranking Justice Department lawyer, both of whom refused because they knew its contents were untrue.

Clark continued to push for the Justice Department to issue the letter, which he intended to be used as a template to be sent to other states. Amid the political turmoil, Trump considered appointing Clark as attorney general — a move Clark encouraged so he could launch nationwide investigations to uncover unfounded claims of election issues.

Trump abandoned the idea of appointing Clark only after being informed doing so would cause mass resignations among Justice Department leadership.

The D.C. Office of Disciplinary Counsel opened its investigation into Clark’s actions after Sen. Dick Durbin, as then-chairman of the committee, asked it to probe his “serious violations of professional conduct.”

The D.C. Court of Appeals Board on Professional Responsibility in July recommended that Clark be disbarred in D.C., stating that “when a lawyer attempts to make intentional false statements on an issue that the lawyer understands to be a ‘pressing matter of overriding national importance,’ or knowing that the false statement would have serious and far-ranging consequences, they deserve the ultimate sanction.”

A final judgment has not yet been issued in the case.

The Justice Department on Wednesday asked the court to quash the D.C. disciplinary proceedings against Clark, and alleged they violate the Supremacy Clause and Article II of the Constitution by arguing that Clark was acting as a federal government employee who cannot be punished for performing Executive Branch duties.

Federal prosecutors also frame the issue as involving internal discussions. They said Clark attempted to persuade his superiors to issue a draft letter “that he felt reflected the actual law and facts about the 2020 election.”

“D.C. disciplinary authorities may not punish a United States official for disagreeing with a superior or coworker or for sharing an opinion just because those disciplinary authorities disagree with it,” the filing states.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche also accused the D.C. Bar of being “a blatantly partisan arm of leftist causes,” accusing it of being weaponized.

“The D.C. Bar will no longer be permitted to probe sensitive Executive Branch deliberations and target Executive Branch officials with whom they happen to politically disagree, and federal attorneys will once again be free to share their candid legal advice with their bosses and colleagues,” he said in a statement.

Clark was never charged in federal court in connection with his role in the alleged scheme, but he, Trump and 17 others were indicted in Georgia on racketeering charges. The case was dismissed after the prosecutor appointed following Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ removal declined to pursue the charges.

Other Trump allies accused of aiding his efforts to overturn the 2020 election have also been sanctioned in D.C., including Rudy Giuliani, who was disbarred in D.C. and New York, and John Eastman, whose D.C. law license was suspended on an interim basis after he was disbarred in California.

Wednesday’s lawsuit is the latest action by the federal government aiding those who supported Trump’s false election claims.

On Trump’s first day in office, he issued clemency to the roughly 1,500 people charged or convicted in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.

He also issued pardons to Giuliani, Eastman, Clark, Sidney Powell and many others accused of aiding his efforts.

May 13 (UPI) — The remains of a second U.S. soldier who went missing during exercises in Morocco earlier this month have been recovered, the U.S. military said Wednesday evening, ending a joint U.S.-Morocco search.

The remains of Spc. Mariyah Symone Collington, 19, of Tavares, Fla., were located and retrieved Tuesday from a coastal cave roughly 1,640 feet from where she and 27-year-old 1st Lt. Kendrick Lamont Key Jr. are believed to have fallen into the ocean, U.S. Army Europe and Africa said.

Key’s remains were located and recovered Saturday.

“The loss of Spc. Collington is a profound loss for the 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command,” Brig. Gen. Curtis King, commanding general of the 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command, said in a statement.

“Her recovery closes the search for our two missing soldiers, but our commitment to caring for their families, friends and teammates continues. We are grateful to the U.S. and Moroccan forces for their professionalism and support throughout the search.”

Key and Collington went missing May 2 near the Cap Draa Training Area, a coastal military training site near Tan-Tan, located in southwestern Morocco about 342 miles southwest of Marrakech, where they were participating in African Lion 26, this year’s iteration of the U.S. military’s largest Africa-based exercise.

Their disappearance was not related to active training. Military officials believe they fell into the Atlantic Ocean near cliffs during a recreational hike. They were reported missing the night of May 2 after a base-wide head count, prompting a joint U.S.-Moroccan search.

U.S. military officials said Collington’s remains were transported via helicopter by the Royal Moroccan Armed Forces to the morgue of Moulay El Hassan Military Hospital in Guelmim, about 80 miles northeast of Tan-Tan.

Moroccan and U.S. forces conducted a “dignified carry” at the military airport in Guelmim on Tuesday, and the remains of Key and Collington have departed Morocco for the United States, USAREUR-AF said.

“Spc. Collington was a bright light in this battalion,” said Lt. Col. Chris Couch, the 5-4 ADAR battalion commander.

“To the soldiers who knew her best and served alongside her each day, she was a treasured friend whose loss leaves a deep and profound void on our team.”

SAN SALVADOR — The number of people deported to El Salvador from the U.S. nearly doubled in the first months of 2026, according to official figures, coming as Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has positioned himself as an ally willing to help the Trump administration accelerate deportations, a central priority.

The U.S. deported 5,033 Salvadorans back to their country in the first three months of 2026 compared with 2,547 deportees in the same period in 2025, according to El Salvador migration authority figures obtained by the Associated Press on Tuesday.

That marks nearly a 98% increase at the same time that the Trump administration has boosted deportation flights across the world. Globally, deportation flights from the U.S. rose an estimated 61% between 2024 and 2025, according to data compiled by the Asociación Agenda Migrante El Salvador, or AAMES, and other organizations.

The U.S. has stopped regularly releasing deportation data, so experts instead are relying on other information from countries such as El Salvador, deportation flights and other numbers.

The sharp increase in deportations “confirms a real hardening of the U.S. immigration system toward the region,” said César Ríos of AAMES.

The jump comes as Bukele, a tough-on-crime politician, has sought to align himself with President Trump, and the U.S. government has lined up allies across Latin America to help the Republican carry out his agenda. While Mexico and other Central American nations have quietly accepted deportees from third countries, Bukele has boldly embraced Trump’s efforts in Latin America.

In March 2025, Bukele most notably accepted 238 Venezuelan deportees accused of being members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and locked them up in a mega-prison built for accused gang members in the Salvadoran leader’s ongoing offensive on domestic gangs. The incident fueled widespread accusations of human rights abuses.

The geopolitical firestorm came after Trump’s government struck a deal with Bukele to accept what they described as transfer and imprisonment of foreign criminals to El Salvador. Under the agreement, El Salvador would receive $6 million from the U.S.

In March 2025, the Trump administration mistakenly deported Kilmar Abrego García, a Maryland resident and Salvadoran citizen with protected status in the U.S., setting off yet another legal and political controversy. Bukele originally refused to return Abrego García and denied accusations of beating and torture — which have been widely documented by human rights groups in Salvadoran prisons.

He was returned to the U.S. in June to face charges that he helped bring immigrants to the U.S. illegally, something his lawyers call “baseless.” Abrego García has pleaded not guilty and asked a judge to dismiss his case as the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced that it hoped to deport Abrego García to Liberia.

Even more recently, Bukele joined a coalition of other right-leaning Trump allies in a group of countries that the Republican president dubbed the Shield of the Americas, purportedly aimed at cracking down on criminal groups in Latin America, even though the two most essential countries in that effort — Mexico and Colombia — refused to attend.

Meanwhile, many migrants in the U.S. are turning their eyes on U.S. Supreme Court arguments as Trump seeks to stop shielding hundreds of thousands of migrants from Haiti and Syria, a decision many of the more than 200,000 Salvadoran migrants with temporary protections worry might eventually affect them.

Bukele has helped the U.S. with its immigration agenda even before Trump entered office.

In 2023, El Salvador’s government began to slap a $1,130 fee on travelers from dozens of countries connecting through the nation’s main airport, amid pressure from the Biden administration to help control the number of migrants moving toward the United States’ southern border. At the same time, migration from El Salvador, fueled by gang violence and poverty, dipped after Bukele’s contentious war on the gangs.

Analysts said that Bukele’s government used dips in migration as a bargaining chip to offset human rights criticisms by the U.S.

Alemán and Janetsky write for the Associated Press. Janetsky reported from Mexico City.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is suspending a requirement that foreign visitors from countries that have qualified for the World Cup and have bought tickets for the soccer tournament pay as much as $15,000 in bonds to enter the United States, the State Department said Wednesday.

The department imposed the bond requirement last year for countries that it said had high rates of people overstaying their visas and other security issues as part of the Republican administration’s broader crackdown on immigration.

Travelers to the United States from 50 countries are required to pay the new bond, and five of those countries have qualified for the World Cup — Algeria, Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, Senegal and Tunisia.

Citizens from those five countries who have purchased tickets from FIFA are now exempt from the visa bond requirement. World Cup team players, coaches and some staff already had been exempt from the bond requirement as part of the administration’s orders to prioritize the processing of visas for the tournament.

“The United States is excited to organize the biggest and best FIFA World Cup in history,” Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Mora Namdar said. “We are waiving visa bonds for qualified fans who bought World Cup tickets” and opted in to the “FIFA Pass” system that allows expedited visa appointments as of April 15.

The waiver is a rare loosening of immigration requirements under the administration and will ease travel burdens for at least some visitors to the U.S. for the World Cup, which begins June 11 and is co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico.

The administration has taken dramatic steps to restrict immigration in ways that critics say are incongruous with the type of unifying message that a global sporting event such as the World Cup is supposed to project.

For instance, the administration has barred travelers from Iran and Haiti, though World Cup players, coaches and other support personnel are exempt. Travelers from Ivory Coast and Senegal face partial restrictions under an expanded version of that travel ban, even without the visa bond exemption.

Foreign travelers also are facing new requirements to submit their social media histories, while the administration had deployed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at airports recently when Transportation Security Administration personnel were not being paid.

Those measures prompted Amnesty International and dozens of U.S. civil and human rights groups to issue a “World Cup travel advisory” that warns travelers about the climate in the U.S.

In a report this month, the main advocacy group for U.S. hotels blamed visa barriers and other geopolitical issues for “significantly suppressing international demand,” leading to hotel bookings for the soccer tournament that are far below what had initially been anticipated.

The American Hotel & Lodging Assn. said travelers are concerned about potentially lengthy visa wait times and increased fees, along with uncertainty about how they’re being processed to enter the U.S.

The bond requirements are part of the administration’s larger effort to clamp down on migrants who travel to the U.S. on temporary visas but then overstay them. Visa applicants from the affected countries are required to pay $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000 in bonds, which will be refunded if the traveler complies with the terms of the visa or if the visa application is denied.

As of early April, the number of World Cup fans affected by the bond requirement was believed to be relatively small, perhaps only about 250 people, according to U.S. officials who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. But they said that number was changing rapidly as more people buy tickets and some with tickets opt against traveling.

FIFA had requested the waiver, which had to be approved by the State Department and Department of Homeland Security, and was the topic of discussion at multiple meetings at the White House and elsewhere in Washington for several months, the officials said.

Kim and Lee write for the Associated Press.

May 13 (UPI) — The U.S. Senate voted to confirm Kevin Warsh on Wednesday as the new chairman of the Federal Reserve. Warsh, who was nominated by President Donald Trump, succeeds Jerome Powell, who has been frequently criticized by the president for not lowering interest rates in accordance with Trump’s demands.

The Senate voted 54-45 to confirm Warsh in the most partisan vote for a chair nominee in history, CNN reported. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., was the only Democrat to vote in favor of the confirmation.

Warsh will be the 17th chair of the central bank, which is traditionally politically independent. However, Trump has aimed a great deal of criticism at the Fed and its governors over that independence, insulting Powell harshly at times and threatening to fire him.

The president also supported a Justice Department investigation into Powell, allegedly over costs for the central bank headquarters renovation. Powell has said that Trump targeted him because of the Fed would not follow his orders on interest rates. The Justice Department dropped the investigation in late April.

Democrats have expressed concerns about Warsh’s independence from Trump if confirmed. The new Fed chair has said he will be “an independent actor” but also promised a “regime change” at the central bank, The New York Times reported.

Warsh is the wealthiest Fed chair nominee in recent history, with a net worth over $100 million. He is married to Jane Lauder, who is an heir to the Estee Lauder fortune, and also has about $192 million in assets in combination with her.

Warsh said that he would divest a large amount of his assets and resign from several positions if confirmed. He also served as a governor at the Federal Reserve from 2006 to 2011.

Powell’s term as chair ends Friday, but he has said he’ll stay as a fed governor for his remaining two years.

May 13 (UPI) — The South Carolina Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned the double murder convictions for former lawyer Alex Murdaugh for the slayings of his wife and son.

The court ordered a new trial for the 2021 deaths of Margaret Murdaugh and Paul Murdaugh. Alex Murdaugh was convicted in 2023 of the two murders — along with two counts of possession of a weapon during a violent crime — and sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole.

In a 5-0 ruling Wednesday, though, the state’s highest court said the murder trial had been improperly influenced by county clerk Becky Hill. The justices said she “placed her fingers on the scales of justice, thereby denying Murdaugh his right to a fair trial by an impartial jury.”

“Although we are aware of the time, money and effort expended for this lengthy trial, we have no choice but to reverse the denial of Murdaugh’s motion for a new trial due to Hill’s improper external influences on the jury and remand for a new trial.”

Hill pleaded guilty last year to charges she lied to the court about showing sealed court documents to a photographer, NBC News reported. She was sentenced to one year of probation.

South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson said in a statement to CNN that he plans to retry Alex Murdaugh.

“While we respectfully disagree with the Court’s decision, my Office will aggressively seek to retry Alex Murdaugh for the murders of Maggie and Paul as soon as possible,” he said.

“No one is above the law and, as always, we will continue to fight for justice.”

Murdaugh’s lawyers welcomed the state supreme court’s decision.

“We look forward to a new trial conducted consistent with the Constitution and the guidance this court has provided,” they said.

BEIJING — President Trump arrived in Beijing on Wednesday for his hotly anticipated talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the Iran war, trade and U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.

The meat of the summit doesn’t start until Thursday, when the leaders hold bilateral talks, visit the Temple of Heaven, where Chinese emperors once prayed for bumper crops, and take part in a formal banquet. But the Chinese offered Trump a pomp-filled welcome, literally rolling out the red carpet for him after Air Force One landed in the Chinese capital.

The president was greeted by Chinese Vice President Han Zheng; Xie Feng, China’s ambassador to Washington; Ma Zhaoxu, executive vice minister of foreign affairs; and the U.S. envoy to Beijing, David Perdue.

The welcoming ceremony included a military honor guard, a military band and some 300 Chinese youths waving Chinese and American flags and chanting, “Welcome, welcome! Warm welcome!” as Trump made his way to his waiting limousine. The youth greeters were decked out in white and robin’s egg blue outfits that matched the paint job of the iconic presidential plane.

President Trump walks with China’s Vice President Han Zheng during an arrival ceremony Wednesday at Beijing Capital International Airport, as Eric and Lara Trump, Elon Musk, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer follow.

(Mark Schiefelbein / Associated Press)

“We’re the two superpowers,” Trump told reporters as he departed the White House on Tuesday for the long flight to Beijing. “We’re the strongest nation on Earth in terms of military. China’s considered second.”

While Trump likes to project a sense of strength, the visit occurs at a delicate moment for his presidency as his popularity at home has been weighed down by the U.S. and Israel’s war with Iran and rising inflation as a consequence of that conflict. The Republican president is seeking a win by signing deals with China to buy more American soybeans, beef and aircraft, saying he’ll be talking with Xi about trade “more than anything else.”

The Trump administration hopes to begin establishing a Board of Trade with China to address differences between the countries. The board could help prevent the trade war ignited last year after Trump’s tariff hikes, an action China countered through its control of rare earth minerals. That led to a one-year truce last October.

But Trump is visiting Beijing when Iran continues to dominate his domestic agenda. The war has led to the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, stranding oil and natural gas tankers and causing energy prices to spike to levels that could sabotage global economic growth. The U.S. president declared that Xi didn’t need to assist in resolving the conflict, even though Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was in Beijing last week.

Fellow rescuers carry the coffins of two members of the civil defense who were reportedly killed in Israeli airstrikes in Nabatieh the previous day, during their funeral in the southern city of Sidon on May 13, 2026. Israel hammered south Lebanon with strikes on May 12 ahead of talks between the two countries in Washington, as Beirut reported 380 people killed in Israeli attacks since an April 17 ceasefire took effect.

(Mahmoud Zayyat/AFP via Getty Images)

“We have a lot of things to discuss. I wouldn’t say Iran is one of them, to be honest with you, because we have Iran very much under control,” Trump told reporters Tuesday.

Taiwan high on the agenda

The status of Taiwan also will be a major topic as China is displeased with U.S. plans to sell weapons to the self-governing island, which the Chinese government claims as part of its own territory.

Trump told reporters on Monday that he would be discussing with Xi an $11 billion weapons package for Taiwan that the U.S. administration authorized in December but has not yet begun fulfilling. The arms package is the largest ever approved for Taiwan.

But Trump has demonstrated greater ambivalence toward Taiwan, an approach that’s raising questions about whether the U.S. leader could be open to dialing back support for the island democracy.

The Taiwanese flag at Democracy Boulevard is lowered at the end of the day as the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall is seen in the background in Taipei on May 13, 2026.

(I-Hwa Cheng/AFP via Getty Images)

At the same time, Taiwan — as the world’s leading chipmaker — has become essential for the development of artificial intelligence, with the U.S. importing more goods so far this year from Taiwan than China. Trump has sought to use Biden-era programs and his own deals to bring more chipmaking to America.

The Chinese Communist Party’s news outlet, People’s Daily, published a strongly worded editorial ahead of Trump’s arrival underscoring that Taiwan is “the first red line that cannot be crossed in China-U.S. relations” and is “the biggest point of risk” between the two nations.

Trump was already portraying the trip as a success before he even left White House grounds. He openly mused about Xi’s planned reciprocal visit to the U.S. later this year, lamenting that the White House ballroom under construction would not be completed in time to properly fete the Chinese leader.

“We’re going to have a great relationship for many, many decades to come,” Trump said of the U.S. and China.

Counter snipers and other security forces watch over Air Force One while refueling at Joint Base Elmendorf during a trip with US President Donald J. Trump in Anchorage, Alaska, on May 12, 2026. Donald Trump was due in Beijing on May 13, 2026 on the first visit to China by a US president in nearly a decade, as he seeks to ramp up trade despite potential friction over Taiwan and Iran.

(Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

Trump embarked on Air Force One for the big meeting with a coterie of aides, family members and business world titans, including Nvidia’s Jensen Huang and Tesla and SpaceX’s Elon Musk. While en route to Beijing, he posted on social media that his “first request” to Xi during the visit will be to ask the Chinese leader to bolster the presence of U.S. firms in China.

“I will be asking President Xi, a Leader of extraordinary distinction, to ‘open up’ China so that these brilliant people can work their magic, and help bring the People’s Republic to an even higher level!” Trump wrote.

Tajikistan’s President Emomali Rahmon and China’s President Xi Jinping attend a welcoming ceremony at the Great Hall of the People on Tuesday, in Beijing.

(Maxim Shemetov—Pool / Getty Images)

Despite Trump’s outward confidence, China appears to be entering the meeting from “a much stronger place,” said Scott Kennedy, a senior adviser on Chinese business and economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

China would like to reduce tech restrictions on accessing computer chips and find ways to reduce tariffs, among other goals.

“But even if they don’t get much on any of those things, as long as there’s not a blow-up in the meeting and President Trump doesn’t go away and look to re-escalate, China basically comes out stronger,” Kennedy said.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng met on Wednesday to discuss economic and trade issues at Incheon International Airport, just west of the South Korean capital of Seoul, according to the Chinese state run Xinhua News Agency.

Bystanders are kept back by police tape as they film the motorcade of President Donald Trump as he arrives at the Four Seasons Hotel on Wednesday in Beijing.

(Kevin Frayer / Getty Images)

Trump wants 3-way nuclear arms deal

Trump also intends to raise the idea of the U.S., China and Russia signing a pact that would set limits on the nuclear weapons each nation keeps in its arsenal, according to a senior Trump administration official who briefed reporters ahead of the trip. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House.

China has previously been cool to entering such a pact. Beijing’s arsenal, according to Pentagon estimates, exceeds more than 600 operational nuclear warheads and is far from parity with the U.S. and Russia, which each are estimated to have more than 5,000 nuclear warheads.

The last nuclear arms pact, known as the New START treaty, between Russia and the United States expired in February, removing any caps on the two largest atomic arsenals for the first time in more than a half-century. As the treaty was set to expire, Trump rejected a call by Russia to extend the two-country deal for another year and called for “a new, improved, and modernized” deal that includes China.

The Pentagon estimates China will have more than 1,000 operational nuclear warheads by 2030.

Madhani, Weissert and Boak write for the Associated Press. Boak reported from Washington. AP writers Darlene Superville in Washington, Huizhong Wu in Bangkok, Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul, South Korea, and Kanis Leung in Hong Kong contributed to this report.

May 13 (UPI) — Final demand wholesale inflation rose by 6% on an annual basis in April, marking the largest increase since 2022, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday.

More than three-quarters of the 2% increase in final demand goods in April was attributed to a 7.8% increase in energy prices. Final demand services moved up 1.2%, pushed along largely by a 2.7% increase in trade services.

The producer price index increased by a seasonally adjusted 1.4% in April, double the rate increase in March. The increase outpaced the Dow Jones consensus estimate of 0.5%. It is the largest monthly increase since March 2022.

The annual 6% wholesale inflation increase is the largest since December 2022.

Machinery and equipment wholesaling was another big factor in rising inflation. Final demand service prices for machinery and equipment rose by 3.5%.

Final demand excluding volatile food and energy rose 0.6%, the largest bump since October. For the year ending in April, final demand excluding food and energy was up 4.4%, the largest increase since February 2023.

By commodity type, the index for unprocessed goods went up 4.1%. Intermediate demand goods increased 2.7% for the month, the sixth consecutive monthly increase.

About 80% of the index increase for unprocessed goods for intermediate demand can be attributed to unprocessed energy materials which increased 9.2%. Crude petroleum rose by 11.3%.

Unprocessed non-food materials and excluding energy fell by 1%.

BATON ROUGE, La. — Republican senators in Louisiana advanced a plan Wednesday to eliminate one of two majority-Black, Democratic-held congressional seats following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down the state’s U.S. House map as an illegal racial gerrymander.

The early morning Senate committee vote came after hours of impassioned testimony from Black residents and Democrats opposed to the move. Republicans opted not to pursue a more aggressive approach, which could have targeted both Democratic seats for elimination.

The Supreme Court’s recent ruling weakening federal Voting Rights Act protections for minorities has prompted Republicans in several Southern states to try to eliminate House districts with large minority populations that have elected Democrats. Tennessee and Alabama already have acted to implement different House maps that could help Republicans win an additional seat. But a similar effort fizzled Tuesday in the South Carolina Senate.

The redistricting efforts to undo minority districts are the latest variation in a 10-month-long national redistricting battle that already has involved about one-third of the states. It gained steam when President Trump urged Texas Republicans last year to redraw House districts in an attempt to win more seats in the midterm elections. Democrats in California responded with their own new districts. Numerous Republican states have redistricted since then.

Republicans think they could gain as many as 15 seats so far from new House maps in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, Tennessee and Alabama. Democrats, meanwhile, think they could gain six seats from new maps in California and Utah. The Virginia Supreme Court last week struck down a redistricting effort that could have yielded four more winnable seats for Democrats.

Brook and Lieb write for the Associated Press. Lieb reported from Jefferson City, Mo.

May 13 (UPI) — The United States announced visa restrictions on 13 people linked to a U.S.-sanctioned, India-based online pharmacy that the Trump administration accuses of selling Americans hundreds of thousands of counterfeit prescription pills laced with fentanyl.

The people targeted by the State Department on Tuesday were identified as being “close business associates of KS International Traders and its owner.”

The U.S. Treasury sanctioned KS International and Mohammad Iqbal Shaikh, 34, in September. Shaikh was also among 19 people indicted in New York in the fall of 2024 on charges of selling counterfeit, fentanyl-laced pills to Americans over the Internet and via encrypted messaging platforms.

The targeting of KS International comes amid the Trump administration’s broader crackdown on drug smuggling. Among tactics employed was President Donald Trump‘s December 2025designation of illicit fentanyl and its core precursor chemicals as weapons of mass destruction.

In June, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a new policy to impose visa restrictions on drug traffickers, their family members and close personal and business associates.

State Department spokesperson Thomas Pigott said Tuesday that the barring of entry to the 13 individuals “underscores the United States’ and India’s enduring and shared commitment to dismantling illicit drug entities and disrupting trafficking networks that harm Americans.”

“Those complicit in poisoning Americans will be denied entry to the United States,” he said in a statement.

The Trump administration has increasingly used visa restrictions across several policy areas, from punishing Haitian government officials and members of criminal organizations accused of obstructing the nation’s fight against terrorist gangs to Nicaraguan citizens believed to be facilitating irregular immigration into the United States.

May 12 (UPI) — Missouri’s Supreme Court has approved the state’s new congressional maps, handing a win to the Trump administration as it seeks to create additional Republican-favored seats ahead of November’s midterm elections.

The high court ruled unanimously Tuesday in three cases that challenged the map, stating in a joint opinion affecting two cases that the redraw does not violate the state’s Constitution, and rejected a referendum-related challenge against the bill that permitted the unorthodox mid-decade redraw.

“Today’s Missouri Supreme Court rulings are a HUGE victory for voters,” Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe, a Republican, said in a social media statement Tuesday.

“Missourians are more alike than we are different, and our Missouri Values — rooted in common sense, hard work and personal responsibility — are stronger and far more aligned across both sides of the aisle than the extreme left-wing agendas pushed in states like New York, California and Illinois.

“The Missouri First Map ensures those values are represented fairly and accurately at every level of government.”

Missouri began the effort to redraw its congressional map last summer amid President Donald Trump‘s push for Republican-led states to create more GOP-favored seats for November’s midterm elections. The map, which Kehoe signed in September, redraws Democrat Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s Kansas City-area district to include more rural, Republican-leaning areas, potentially whittling Missouri’s Democratic delegation in the U.S. House of Representatives from two seats to one.

Trump has repeatedly voiced concern about potential impeachment proceedings if Republicans lose the House. Creating additional Republican-leaning seats increases the GOP’s chances of maintaining control of the chamber, making impeachment less likely while limiting Democrats’ ability to conduct investigations into the Trump administration or stymie his agenda.

Texas was the first state to move on mid-decade redistricting, kicking off a gerrymandering arms race in which Democratic-led states sought to counter with their own maps and Republican-led states responded with additional redraws.

Fifteen states have moved to redistrict, with eight — seven Republican-led and one Democratic-led — having implemented new congressional maps, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Democratic-led Virginia also approved a new map, but the state Supreme Court overturned it last week.

The Missouri Supreme Court decisions on Tuesday resolve months of litigation in a trio of separate cases filed by Missouri voters against the redistricting.

In consolidating two cases that similarly challenged the constitutionality of the map’s redraw, the justices unanimously ruled that the appellants failed to show that it unlawfully slip the Kansas City-area district.

The other unanimous ruling sided against Missouri voters seeking to have the issue put to a ballot referendum.

Opponents to the maps criticized the court following its ruling, highlighting the fact that it was issued the same day arguments in the case were presented.

“While one might be inclined to hope that these justices managed to grapple with a highly complex, nuanced and consequential issue in just six hours, it seems clear the justices were not interested in the day’s proceedings and simply had their opinion already finalized, even before this morning’s argument,” Marina Jenkins, executive director of the National Redistricting Foundation, said in a statement.

“With this decision, the Missouri Supreme Court has shown Missourians the lack of seriousness with which it takes cases that pertain to protecting their right to vote — a complete and dangerous abdication of the judiciary’s role.”

The Campaign Legal Center, the American Civil Liberties Union Voting Rights Project and the ACLU of Missouri similarly criticized the ruling.

“Mere hours after argument was held, the court released its decisions siding against voters in every respect,” the groups said in a joint statement.

“We are extremely disappointed in these rulings, and in their failure to protect Missourians’ right to fair maps. This state — and our democracy — are worse off for this outcome.”

BEIJING — The Trump administration has repeatedly framed the war in Iran as a quick, winnable fight, vowing to defeat the Islamic Republic “totally and decisively” — incomparable to the “dumb” wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But from China’s perspective, the parallels are clear.

“You can blow everything up — destroy it all,” one Chinese official told The Times, describing the Americans, “but you don’t have a strategy.”

President Trump arrives in Beijing this week for talks with a Chinese government that is confident as ever in its ascendance on the world stage, taking stock of its leverage and still baffled the U.S. administration chose yet another costly war in the Middle East.

China has watched as the United States, over seven weeks of fighting an outmatched enemy, has depleted nearly half of its stockpiles of high-end munitions — including its THAAD and Patriot batteries — and fired its Army chief of staff, among other Pentagon leaders, who had warned of critical shortages.

Marco Rubio, Trump’s national security advisor and secretary of State, has said the military operation that started the war known as Operation Epic Fury “is over.”

But the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most vital commercial waterways, remains effectively shuttered. Iranian attacks in the region continue. And talks between Washington and Tehran have failed to reach a diplomatic agreement to bring a definitive end to the conflict.

“The Chinese have high regard for the operational proficiency of U.S. forces, but they recognize that, thus far at least, the Trump administration has not achieved its core objectives in going to war with Iran,” said David Ochmanek, a former deputy assistant secretary of Defense now with the Rand Corp.

The war has given Beijing an opportunity, Ochmanek said, “to double down on the claim they have made for the past year and a half that the [People’s Republic of China], not the U.S., is a force for global stability.”

The war has allowed China to demonstrate some diplomatic prowess. An initial ceasefire reached between the United States and Iran last month was only clinched after Beijing pressured Tehran to agree. And China’s advocacy for an open strait — rejecting Iranian attempts to impose a toll system — while opposing the U.S. war itself has allowed Beijing to maintain leverage with both sides.

It has also inflicted costs. Allies of Beijing noticed when the government did not leap to the defense of Tehran at the start of the war. And China has its own vested interest in a free and open waterway, where nearly 50% of the country’s crude oil imports pass through each day.

Building up to the start of the war and throughout its initial weeks, Washington diverted significant military assets from Asia — where Trump’s own national security strategy says they are needed most — to the Middle East.

The USS Abraham Lincoln was redirected from the South China Sea, along with scores of advanced missile interceptors from South Korea and Japan and nearly the entire U.S. inventory of long-range air-to-surface missiles in the Pacific.

Policy experts at the Pentagon were brought in to discuss a potential invasion of Kharg Island, the jewel of Iran’s oil industry, to draw lessons from planning a defense of Taiwan, according to a Defense official, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. A Marine expeditionary unit was sent from Okinawa to the region for the potential operation.

Chinese officials and analysts have been candid in their assessments of U.S. hard power, impressed by a military they acknowledge remains the best in the world.

But Beijing sees a persistent flaw in U.S. strategy: the belief that military strength alone can reshape political realities, a view further weakened by the pressures on a democratic government whose public grows impatient with wars that drag on beyond days or weeks.

China’s autocracy is free from accountability to the public — and anyway has confidence that Chinese public opinion would be on its side if it were to launch a major military operation against its main target, Taiwan.

But there are lessons of caution to be learned from the Americans, as well.

Over the last year, the Taiwanese Navy has been practicing the rapid deployment of cheap and domestically produced smart mines for the sea — a potential bulwark against enemy blockades of ports and hostile invasion forces.

It is the type of asymmetric warfare that has so far frustrated the U.S. military in the Strait of Hormuz, protracting a war that Trump vowed would last a month or less.

Taiwan, too, would confront Beijing with political realities that military force cannot erase. Nearly 90% of the Taiwanese people oppose a Chinese takeover, and about 60% say they would resist it at all costs.

“Chinese analysts see two things at once,” said Craig Singleton, senior director of the China program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “They are impressed by U.S. military reach, precision and operational capability, but they also see a familiar pattern of American power struggling to translate battlefield success into a durable political outcome.”

That matters for Taiwan, Singleton said, “because China’s own military modernization has borrowed heavily from the American model, relying heavily on joint operations, high-tech precision strikes, decapitation concepts and information dominance.

“If the world’s most experienced military can still struggle to convert military pressure into political success,” he added, “Beijing has to ask whether the [People’s Liberation Army] could do better in a far more complex Taiwan scenario.”

President Trump’s push to redraw the nation’s U.S. House districts received mixed results Tuesday as South Carolina senators defied his desires, but Missouri’s top court upheld a new map that could help Republicans win an additional seat in the November midterm elections.

Rather than waning, a national redistricting battle that began 10 months ago has intensified — inflamed by a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that weakened the federal Voting Rights Act and provided grounds for states to try to eliminate voting districts with large minority populations.

Republican lawmakers in Louisiana are wrestling with how politically aggressive to be when redrawing House districts after the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated a majority-Black district as an illegal racial gerrymander.

The ripples of the Louisiana ruling already have led to new U.S. House districts in Tennessee and have extended to Alabama, where Republican Gov. Kay Ivey announced an Aug. 11 special primary for four of the state’s seven congressional districts. That came after the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday overturned an order mandating use of a map with two largely Black districts. The state plans to switch to a map passed in 2023 that has only one majority-Black district.

Republicans think they could gain as many as 14 seats from new House maps enacted so far in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida and Tennessee. Democrats, meanwhile, think they could gain six seats from new maps in California and Utah. The Virginia Supreme Court last week struck down a redistricting effort that could have yielded four more winnable seats for Democrats.

Missouri map splits Kansas City district

Missouri was the second Republican state, after Texas, to redraw its congressional districts at Trump’s urging last year. Since then, numerous other states have joined the redistricting battle.

During arguments earlier Tuesday, attorneys for voters challenging Missouri’s new map focused on changes to a Kansas City-based district long represented by Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, who previously was the city’s mayor, the first Black person to hold the post.

The new map takes a compact urban district that covered 20 miles and two counties and stretches it 200 miles over 15 counties, distorting it “into a sprawling behemoth that cuts clear across the state to unite territories that share nothing in common,” said Abha Khanna, an attorney who has represented Democrats in voting and redistricting cases across the country.

A lower court ruled in March that the map as a whole satisfied the compactness requirement, even though the Kansas City district is less compact. No Missouri court has ever struck down a congressional map for not being compact, said attorney John Gore, who defended the districts on behalf of the Republican Party.

A second case heard by the high court centered on whether the new map took effect in December, as asserted by Republican Atty. Gen. Catherine Hanaway and Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, or whether it should have been suspended when referendum signatures were submitted.

To suspend the map before validating the signatures would let activists temporarily undercut laws by submitting boxes of fraudulent signatures, Missouri Solicitor Gen. Lou Capozzi argued.

But to not immediately suspend the map “would dilute the referendum right, if not destroy it altogether,” said attorney Jonathan Hawley, arguing for voters who sued.

Republican officials contend the new districts can be suspended only after Hoskins determines the petition meets constitutional requirements and has enough valid signatures. Hoskins has until Aug. 4, the day of Missouri’s primary elections, to make that determination. The Supreme Court upheld the decision of a state judge in March who agreed with Republicans’ position.

Louisiana hearing leads to death threats

Louisiana state Sen. Jay Morris, a Republican who drafted redistricting bills that would eliminate one or both of the state’s majority-Black districts, told lawmakers Monday that he received death threats after Friday’s contentious hearing in which he told members of the public to “shut up.”

Morris acknowledged the outburst but denied the Louisiana Democratic Party’s assertion — blasted across social media and in a news release — that he also used the derogatory term “boy” toward its executive director, Dadrius Lanus, who is Black.

State Sen. Gary Carter, one of three Black Democrats serving alongside six white Republicans on the Senate committee overseeing redistricting, told the Associated Press on Tuesday that he had withdrawn from the committee “to help restore the decorum and focus that this moment demands” after shouting at Republicans during Friday’s hearing. Carter publicly apologized Monday to Morris and his Senate colleagues for having “lost my temper” and for any remarks that were taken as “personal attacks.”

Carter is the nephew of U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, a Democrat who represents New Orleans and is at risk of losing his seat in the redistricting process. Gary Carter is being replaced on the committee with state Sen. Royce Duplessis, a Democrat representing New Orleans.

South Carolina weighs political risks of redistricting

The Republican push for South Carolina to join the national redistricting battle by redrawing its U.S. House map fizzled Tuesday as an initial vote in the state Senate fell short.

Trump had urged South Carolina to redraw its congressional districts ahead of the November elections in an attempt to help Republicans win another seat in the closely divided chamber. The state House had voted in favor of letting lawmakers return after the regular session ends this week to consider redistricting, and had proposed a new map that could eliminate the state’s only Democratic-held seat.

But the Senate had to give permission to take up redistricting, too.

The 29-17 vote failed, with just two votes short of the two-thirds needed. Five Republicans joined all the Democrats in the chamber to reject the proposal.

Trump said Monday on social media that he was closely watching the redistricting vote, urging South Carolina senators to “be bold and courageous” and to delay the House primaries so new districts can be drawn.

Although Republicans have a supermajority in the chamber, some GOP senators weren’t sure the proposed map would guarantee the party could unseat longtime Democratic U.S. Rep. James E. Clyburn. They also said it could push enough Democrats into other districts to backfire, resulting in a 5-2 or even a 4-3 Republican split.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey acknowledged the pressure from Trump, but said he doesn’t like being asked to bend to someone’s will instead of doing what’s best for his state.

“I got too much Southern in my blood,” Massey said. “I’ve got too much resistance in my heritage.”

Lieb, Collins, Brook and Chandler write for the Associated Press. Brook reported from Baton Rouge, La.; Chandler from Montgomery, Ala.; Collins from Columbia; and Lieb from Jefferson City, Mo.

May 12 (UPI) — The South Carolina Senate voted Tuesday against a measure to extend its legislative session to redraw the state’s congressional map. President Donald Trump has pressured lawmakers to move forward with redistricting to give Republicans an advantage.

Five Republicans joined Democrats in voting against the resolution, which would have extended the session by a week, NBC News reported. This would have given the Senate more time to vote on a plan that would break up the state’s only Black-majority district. The legislative session ends Thursday, and the state’s primaries are June 9.

The redistricting push by Trump comes after a U.S. Supreme Court decision in late April that badly weakened a key part of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, one that had helped ensure minority groups could elect their choice of candidates.

State Sen. Shane Massey, a Republican and Senate majority leader, spoke out about the efforts before the vote, saying it’s a show of weakness to use redistricting to quash minority votes, Greenville News reported.

“My conscience is clear on this one,” Massey said. “I know what the right thing to do is.”

Massey said he’d received a call from Trump in recent days about pushing forward redistricting. On Monday night, Trump posted on social media that he was watching the vote closely.

“South Carolina Republicans: BE BOLD AND COURAGEOUS, just like the Republicans of the Great State of Tennessee were last week!” he wrote.

Last Thursday, the Tennessee state legislature passed a redistricting map that eliminated the state’s last Democrat-leaning, Black-majority district. Other Southern states have also been moving in this direction.

Senate Minority Leader Brad Hutto said the vote sends a message that the state rejects a White House power grab, Greenville News reported.

“The people of this state expect us to focus on real issues affecting their daily lives, not carry out an outside political agenda,” he said.

Later Tuesday, Republican candidates for governor in South Carolina criticized the members of their party who voted against the resolution.

Rep. Nancy Mace, who’s been endorsed by Trump for the governor position, posted on social media that the state needs “a Governor who the statehouse will fear and listen to.”

“You know I’d whip every single ‘NO’ vote into shape if I was Governor,” she posted.

May 12 (UPI) — A nonpartisan office said Tuesday that President Donald Trump‘s proposed Golden Dome missile defense system could cost $1.2 trillion over two decades – far more than the $175 billion he said it would cost last year.

The Congressional Budget Office said in a report that this analysis isn’t based on final blueprints, as full details of the system’s architecture haven’t been announced, Time reported. It said this estimate shows the price of “one illustrative approach rather than an estimate of a full Administration proposal.”

The CBO said that acquisition costs for the system would alone cost more than $1 trillion, and of that, about 70 percent of the cost would be for the interceptor layer, orbital weapons meant to destroy missiles after they’re launched, The Hill reported. This would include about 7,800 satellites.

Gen. Mike Guetlein, the Pentagon official in charge of the project, said in March that it would cost about $185 billion. The CBO report said that this difference in estimated price may mean that the “objective architecture is more limited” for the project than the system accounted for by the CBO, The Hill reported.

Congressional Republicans have earmarked $25 billion for the project in the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The Pentagon has asked for $17 billion more in a reconciliation bill this year.

The Trump administration’s fiscal 2027 budget request, which includes $750 billion earmarked for the Golden Dome system, says the system “keeps Americans safe, while using innovative program management and acquisition approaches to prudently employ taxpayer dollars,” The Hill reported. Trump has said he wants the system operational by the end of his term.

The CBO said the system it used in its estimate could counter a limited attack but would be overwhelmed by a large-scale one, Time reported. Israel’s similar air-defense system, often called the Iron Dome, has intercepted missiles from Iran and other localized groups but is meant for a smaller area and shorter-range threats, as opposed to the United States’ need to defend a much larger area from long-range attacks, it said.

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., requested the CBO report. He said Tuesday that the report shows the Golden Dome project “is nothing more than a massive giveaway to defense contractors paid for entirely by working Americans” that will “do little to advance American national security.”

May 12 (UPI) — Polycystic ovary syndrome, known to more than 170 million women suffering from the condition worldwide, was renamed polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome Tuesday by patients and medical organizations.

PMOS causes fluctuations in hormones, with impacts on weight, metabolic and mental health, skin and the reproductive system.

“For too long, the name reduced a complex, long-term hormonal or endocrine disorder to a misunderstanding about ‘cysts’ and a focus on ovaries. This contributed to missed diagnoses and inadequate treatment,” a press release from the Endocrine Society said.

Professor Helena Teede, director of Monash University’s Monash Centre for Health Research & Implementation and an endocrinologist at Monash Health in Melbourne, Australia, led the name change process after spending decades researching the condition and seeing the patient impacts firsthand, the release said.

“What we now know is that there is actually no increase in abnormal cysts on the ovary, and the diverse features of the condition were often unappreciated,” Teede said in a statement. “It was heart-breaking to see the delayed diagnosis, limited awareness and inadequate care afforded those affected by this neglected condition.

“While international guidelines have advanced awareness and care, a name change was the next critical step towards recognition and improvement in the long-term impacts of this condition.”

While the name change was published Tuesday in The Lancet, it took 14 years of collaboration between those who live with the condition and experts.

Teede led the name change process with Professor Terhi Piltonen, president of the International Androgen Excess and Polycystic Ovary Syndrome Society from Oulu University and Oulu University Hospital, Finland, and AE-PCOS Society Executive Director Anuja Dokras from the United States and Chair of Verity Rachel Morman. There were 56 other patient and professional organizations involved.

“It was essential that the new name was scientifically correct but also considered across diverse cultural contexts to avoid certain reproductive terms that could heighten stigma and be harmful for women in some countries,” Piltonen said in a statement. “This made a culturally and internationally informed consultation critical to getting it right.”

May 12 (UPI) — Cuba’s foreign minister has denied his government received a $100 million offer in humanitarian aid from the United States, after Secretary of State Marco Rubio publicly claimed Washington tried to send assistance and Cuban authorities refused to distribute it.

In a message posted on X, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla described Rubio’s version as a “fable” and a “$100 million lie,” and questioned who would finance the aid, how it would be distributed and whether it would consist of cash, fuel, food or medicine.

“Someone should ask the U.S. secretary of state about the fable of the alleged offer of $100 million in humanitarian aid to Cuba, which nobody here knows anything about,” Rodríguez wrote.

Rodríguez also questioned whether the alleged assistance would be “a donation, a deception or a dirty business to undermine our independence,” and argued that “lifting the fuel blockade would be easier.”

The statements responded to comments made Friday by Rubio during a press conference in Italy, where he said the United States offered humanitarian aid to Cuba and that the island’s government did not allow its distribution.

“We have offered the regime there $100 million in humanitarian aid, which unfortunately so far they have not agreed to distribute to help the people of Cuba,” Rubio said.

The secretary of state added that Washington had previously delivered about $6 million in humanitarian aid channeled through Catholic charity Caritas and said the United States seeks to expand assistance because of the island’s economic and social deterioration.

“We want to help the people of Cuba, who are being hurt by this regime, which has destroyed the country and the economy,” Rubio said.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he will hold talks with Cuba, although he did not provide specific details about the scope of those contacts.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump described Cuba as “a failed country” and wrote, “Cuba is asking for help, and we’re going to talk!”

According to El Nuevo Herald, Rubio also said he discussed the Cuban situation with Pope Leo XIV during a meeting held at the Vatican. Rubio blamed the Cuban government for preventing greater humanitarian assistance.

The exchange came amid a renewed rise in tensions between the governments of Trump and Miguel Díaz-Canel after sanctions imposed by the Trump administration against the Cuban military conglomerate GAESA, its director and mining company Moa Nickel.

Rubio announced the measures last week as part of an economic offensive aimed at restricting the Cuban regime’s sources of income and pressuring the island for political and economic reforms.

“The sanctions imposed … demonstrate that the Trump administration will not stand idly by while the Cuban communist regime threatens our national security in our hemisphere,” Rubio wrote on social media.

May 12 (UPI) — Prices for consumer goods rose faster than expected in April, with food and energy prices driving the spike, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Tuesday.

The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers increased 0.6% on a seasonally adjusted basis in April, after rising 0.9% in March, the BLS said. Over the past 12 months, the all-items index increased 3.8% before seasonal adjustment.

The energy index rose 3.8% in April, which was more than 40% of the increase. That put the 12-month rise at 17.9%. The gasoline index rose 28.4% annually.

Airline fares rose 2.8%, making the 12-month rise at 20.7%, CNBC reported.

Food prices rose 0.5% for the month. The price of food at home rose 0.7%, which is the biggest monthly rise since August 2022, CNBC reported. The price for food away from home increased 0.2%, the BLS said.

When excluding energy and food, prices rose 0.4% in April. Those prices are calculated from household furnishings and operations, airline fares, personal care, apparel and education. That number puts inflation higher than the 2% goal set by the Federal Reserve, with the monthly rate at its highest since January 2025.

But the index for new vehicles, communication and medical care decreased in April. New vehicles and communication declined 0.2%, while medical care declined 0.1%. Used vehicle prices stayed flat.

Workers are feeling the pinch, too, as real average hourly wages dropped 0.5% for the month and 0.3% annually.

“Inflation is the key drag on the U.S. economy now,” said Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, CNBC reported. “This is hurting Americans. There is a real financial squeeze underway. For the first time in three years, inflation is eating up all wage gains. This is a setback for middle-class and lower-income households and they know it.”

Whether the Fed will lower interest rates in the wake of rising inflation is a concern for economists.

“Given that inflation is heading in the wrong direction and the labor market is holding up, it’s very unlikely that the Fed will be able to lower interest rates any time soon, and it’s possible that we may start pricing in rate hikes for next year,” said Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer at Northlight Asset Management, CNBC reported.

SEOUL, May 12 (UPI) — Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power, or KHNP, said Tuesday it partnered with Southern Nuclear Operating Co. of the United States to enhance nuclear engineering.

The state-backed enterprise signed a memorandum of understanding at its head office in Gyeongju, around 180 miles southeast of Seoul, with the U.S. nuclear company.

Under the agreement, KHNP said, the two would expand technical exchange programs and share best practices in operating nuclear facilities.

The South Korean company noted the partnership aligns with the efforts over the past few years to shift its operations toward an engineering-based system.

“This agreement is expected to help our engineers broaden their global perspective and provide an opportunity for our engineering system to advance further,” KHNP senior executive Kim Young-seung said in a statement.

“Down the road, we will do our utmost to perfect the Korean-style engineering system through close cooperation with overseas operators and international organizations,” he added.

Last June, KHNP signed a deal worth at least $18 billion to build two nuclear reactors in the Czech Republic. To support the project, the company plans to collaborate with various partners both at home and abroad.

As of the end of last year, KHNP ran a total of 26 nuclear reactors in South Korea. It is also constructing four new reactors in the country. KHNP is not publicly traded.

May 11 (UPI) — A gunman armed with an assault-style rifle fired dozens of rounds at vehicles as he walked Cambridge’s iconic Memorial Drive, seriously wounding two people before being shot by state police and an armed bystander, authorities said.

The suspect, identified as 46-year-old Tyler Brown of Boston, suffered multiple gunshot wounds to his extremities and was taken for treatment to a Boston hospital, where he remains under police custody in the intensive care unit.

The shooting began around 1 p.m. EDET, authorities said.

Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan told reporters during a Monday evening press conference the suspect was firing erratically at vehicles as he walked east down the center of the famous drive that banks Charles River near Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Two males in separate cars driving the street, one a ride-share driver, were shot, suffering life-threatening injuries, she said, adding: “That does not begin to address the trauma experienced by everybody who was out there: Those individuals on the river walking, pushing baby carriages, riding by.”

“We know that that weapon had the capacity to have struck people on the other side of that river,” she said.

The suspect fired upwards of 60 rounds, striking “at least a dozen” vehicles, Ryan said, adding that people were jumping from their cars and scattering in all directions, unsure of where to find safety. Some hid under their vehicles, she said.

A Massachusetts State Police trooper responding to the shooting and a civilian, a former Marine in legal possession of a firearm, confronted the suspect, who is accused of continuing to fire, striking the cruiser the trooper had exited.

The shooting ended when the trooper and civilian opened fire on the suspect.

“Clearly people’s lives were at risk,” Ryan said.

Ryan said they expect to charge Brown with two counts of armed assault with intent to murder, firearms offenses and potentially other offenses to be determined by the ongoing investigation.

Brown was moving to Cambridge and was under the supervision of either the Massachusetts Probation Department or the Department of Parole, Ryan said, adding that his criminal record, if there is one, will be addressed at his arraignment.

Boston Police had initially notified Cambridge Police at 1:06 p.m. of a person observed acting erratically while of a rifle, according to Ryan, who told reporters that they are still investigating how he came to be on the drive.

Cambridge Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui said she is “deeply grateful” to the first responders who acted, stating their “swift action protected our community during a dangerous and rapidly evolving situation.”

“My thoughts are with the individuals who were injured, those affected by today’s violence and victims of gun violence everywhere,” she said in a statement.

“I recognize how frightening this incident was for community members, and your safety is my first concern.”