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Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian American teenager and wounded two others in the occupied West Bank on Sunday, according to Palestinian officials.

Ramallah Gov. Laila Ghannam said a 14-year-old Palestinian American boy was shot dead by Israeli troops in the village of Turmusaya. Two other Palestinian American boys, ages 14 and 15, were injured in the incident, according to Turmusaya Mayor Lafi Shalabi.

The Israeli military said its soldiers opened fire during a counterterrorism operation in Turmusaya when they saw three “terrorists who hurled rocks toward the highway, thus endangering civilians driving.”

The soldiers killed one and hit the other two, the military said.

The military shared a blurry video purportedly showing the incident, in which three barely visible figures appear. It said it would continue operating in the West Bank “to protect the residents in the area.”

The injured boys were shot in the abdomen, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society.

One severely injured boy and another with minor wounds were taken to a hospital in Ramallah, the Palestinian Authority health ministry said.

The killing or detention of American citizens in occupied Palestinian territories by Israelis and concerns about a lack of accountability date back years. In 2003, American activist Rachel Corrie, 23, was crushed by an Israeli army bulldozer while trying to block it from razing Palestinian homes in Gaza. Nine years later, an Israeli civil court ruled her death an accident.

In February last year, Florida-born US citizen Mohammed Khdour, 17, was killed by Israeli forces who shot him in the head while he was in his car. The teenager was taking the car out during a study break, snacking on chocolate waffles, posing for Instagram.

Israeli military operations in the occupied West Bank have intensified since late January following the launch of an expanded military campaign there almost immediately after the Gaza ceasefire began. Since then, roughly 40,000 Palestinians have been displaced from their homes.

The Israeli military says it is targeting Palestinian militant groups who have mounted attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians, but Palestinians and human rights groups say the expanded assault is increasingly indiscriminate – killing civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure in a manner consistent with collective punishment. In late February, Israel deployed tanks to the occupied West Bank for the first time in two decades.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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It’s eaten with almost every meal, used to make sushi, made into sweets, fermented into alcohol and offered to the spirits at religious ceremonies.

Rice is everywhere in the diet of Japan – there are at least six ways in Japanese to describe the grain, from unhusked to ready to eat. It’s so popular that McDonald’s there added a burger bun made of rice to its menu.

But being so reliant on the staple leaves the country – the world’s fourth-biggest economy – vulnerable to the slightest supply glitch.

In recent years, a combination of bad weather, heatwaves and the threats of typhoons and earthquakes have sparked bouts of panic-buying in the nation of 124 million people.

The average price of a 60-kilogram bag rose to around $160 last year – up 55 per cent compared to two years ago, according to government figures.

The situation has become so dire that the government announced in February that it would release 210,000 tons of rice – more than a fifth of what it holds in its contingency reserve – for auction. The first bags of the reserve rice have now gone on sale in supermarkets.

The government built its rice reserve in 1995, two years after an unexpected cool summer crippled rice harvests forcing it to import overseas grains.

It dipped into the store following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in which 20,000 people died or went missing, and again following the deadly Kumamoto earthquake in 2016.

Other countries across Asia where rice is a staple, such as India, Vietnam and Thailand also hold rice stockpiles to shield their populations against shortages and price rises – which can spill into politics, like a recent surge in egg prices in the United States.

China also has a strategic reserve of the country’s favorite meat, pork, to deal with emergencies and stabilize prices when necessary.

In Japan, the first batch of 150,000 tons of rice went under the hammer last month, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.

“Prices now are exceptionally high,” Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Taku Eto said ahead of the auction.

“But I urge everyone not to worry,” he added, saying that he expected the injection of rice into the market would mean prices “eventually come down.”

Eto also attributed the recent price hikes to a supply chain issue, saying that there was sufficient rice in the system, only that it has failed to reach the shelves in supermarkets, without specifying why.

But, in a country that is particular about its rice – with various prefectures competing against one another for the title of best rice in the country – some said they would rather sit this batch out, skeptical of the grain’s quality.

Uchibori said she stocked up on supplies in early March after reading about prices going up and hoped what she had would last until prices ease.

“But it doesn’t look like it will go back to its original price,” she said.

Yuko Takiguchi, 53, a part time worker, said she would pass on the auctioned rice unless it became significantly cheaper.

She said she wouldn’t mind forking out more for quality rice as the price of flour had also gone up, driving up costs for other staples such as bread, udon and pasta.

“I prefer rice as a staple food since it is more filling. Also, since I have school-age children, rice is essential for their lunch boxes,” she said.

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For years, some of us have written about the Biden family’s multimillion-dollar influence-peddling operation and the Justice Department’s refusal to charge Hunter Biden with being an unregistered foreign agent. Now, years later, The New York Times has found evidence suggesting that the former president’s son was acting as a foreign agent as early as the Obama administration, when his father was vice president.

Last August, the New York Times ran a story about Hunter Biden seeking help from the government for his client, the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. A recent follow-up story had damaging new details:

Hunter Biden sought assistance from the U.S. government for a potentially lucrative energy project in Italy while his father was vice president, according to newly released records and interviews.

The records, which the Biden administration had withheld for years, indicate that Hunter Biden wrote at least one letter to the U.S. ambassador to Italy in 2016 seeking assistance for the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, where he was a board member…

The State Department did not release the actual text of the letter.

That is precisely what many of us have been writing about in asking why Hunter Biden was not charged with being an unregistered foreign agent, as Paul Manafort, Bob Menendez and others were under similar circumstances.

The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) covers anyone acting as ‘agent of a foreign principal,’ including but not limited to (1) attempting to influence federal officials or the public on domestic or foreign policy or the political or public interests in favor of a foreign country; (2) collecting or disbursing money and or other things of value within the United States; or (3) representing the interests of the foreign principal before U.S. Government officials or agencies.

It is sweeping. So is the definition of what a ‘foreign principal’ encompasses, including ‘a foreign government, a foreign political party, any person outside the United States (except U.S. citizens who are domiciled within the United States), and any entity organized under the laws of a foreign country or having its principal place of business in a foreign country.’

As I previously wrote, Special Counsel Robert Mueller seemed to charge by the gross under the act. He hit a line of Trump associates with such allegations from Manafort to Michael Flynn to George Papadopoulos to Rick Gates. The Justice Department used FARA to conduct searches on the homes and files of former Trump counsel Rudy Giuliani, Republican attorney Victoria Toensing and others.

However, the Justice Department and Special Counsel David Weiss seemed to tie themselves into knots to avoid tripping the wire on FARA even as it discussed Hunter Biden’s work for foreign clients.

The government also resisted FOIA requests from the Times and other media. More from the above article:

The request was initially filed under the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, in June 2021. After nearly eight months, the State Department had not released any records, and The Times sued. About 18 months later, the department moved to close the case after releasing thousands of pages of records — none of which shed light on Hunter Biden’s outreach to the U.S. government.

The Times challenged the thoroughness of the search, noting that the department had failed to produce responsive records contained in a cache of files connected to a laptop that Mr. Biden had abandoned at a Delaware repair shop. The department resumed the search and periodic productions, but had produced few documents related to Mr. Biden until the week after his father ended his re-election campaign and endorsed Vice President Harris for the Democratic nomination.

Now we have a copy of a key letter from Hunter Biden that gives us an insight into the evidence buried for years:

The State Department last week released a letter he wrote while his father was serving as vice president in which he sought assistance from the U.S. government for the Ukrainian energy company Burisma.

In the previously unpublished June 2016 letter on Burisma letterhead to the U.S. ambassador to Italy, Mr. Biden requested ‘support and guidance’ in arranging a meeting with an Italian official to resolve regulatory hurdles to geothermal energy projects Burisma was pursuing in the Tuscany region…

The letter requested help arranging a meeting between Burisma officials and Enrico Rossi, the president of the Tuscany regional government at the time, ‘to introduce geothermal projects led by Burisma Group, to highlight their social and economic benefits for local communities and develop a common action plan that would lead to further development of the Tuscany Region.’

How could any Justice Department official, let alone a special counsel, read that letter and not see the glaring disconnect between the handling of the case involving Joe Biden’s son and others like Manafort?

The letter references a trip on which Hunter Biden, as was his pattern, used official travel with his father to make these business connections. The letter mentions meeting a key ambassador on Air Force Two as he seeks assistance for his client.

The ambassador then sent a follow-up letter saying he knew the president of Tuscany and identified a Commerce Department official working at the U.S. embassy who could help ‘see where our interests may overlap.’

It was another example of alleged influence peddling through his father and work for a foreign client in lobbying the government.

During this period, the Justice Department seemed to be on a hair-trigger for FARA charges. Yet, when it came to Hunter Biden, the entire department seemed composed of legal Sgt. Schultzes.

Many in the media attacked those of us who have been writing about this corruption stretching back to the Obama administration. Many simply insisted that there was no evidence, while taking no steps to find out. While the media was unrelenting in investigating Trump allegations of Russian collusion and business improprieties, it took a largely passive stance in pursuing this story.

Even The New York Times, which can be credited with pursuing this FOIA information, did comparably little with the ample evidence of corruption by the Bidens in securing millions through influence peddling.

What remains is a corruption scandal involving not only what the Bidens did but also what the Justice Department did not do over this extended period. It appears to heed the advice not of whistleblowers but politicians like former Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) that ‘everybody needs to back off’ the influence-peddling story.

Of course, Joe Biden ultimately broke his repeated promise not to pardon his son. What was most notable, however, was that not only did he pardon him for any crimes from human trafficking to tax evasion but also for a period running from Jan. 1, 2014 to Dec. 1, 2024.

This letter explains why such a sweeping, extended pardon was needed. Yet, in the end, the greatest indictment from this scandal was of the Justice Department itself.

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Billionaire Elon Musk says he hopes the U.S. and Europe can develop their economic relationship toward eliminating the need for tariffs.

Musk made the statement during a video interview with Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini on Saturday.The billionaire says he has advised President Donald Trump to bolster the relationship with European countries.

‘At the end of the day, I hope it’s agreed that both Europe and the United States should move ideally, in my view, to a zero-tariff situation, effectively creating a free trade zone between Europe and North America,’ Musk said.

He went on to say he would like to see greater freedom of movement between Europe and the U.S. as well.

‘If people wish to work in Europe or wish to work in North America, they should be allowed to do so in my view,’ Musk said, adding that this ‘has certainly been my advice to the president.’

Musk’s statement comes less than a week after Trump unveiled sweeping tariffs against virtually every major country on earth.

The initial 10% ‘baseline’ tariff took effect at U.S. seaports, airports and customs warehouses on Thursday. Higher taxes on goods from 57 larger trading partners are set to start later this week.

European Union imports will face a 20% tariff, while Chinese goods will be hit with a 34% tariff, bringing Trump’s total new taxes on China up to 54%.

World leaders in Europe and elsewhere have vowed to retaliate against the tariffs. China, hit harder than any other nation, promised to ‘take countermeasures to safeguard its own rights and interests’ last week.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen says Europeans ‘feel let down by our oldest ally.’

‘Uncertainty will spiral and trigger the rise of further protectionism. The consequences will be dire for millions of people around the globe,’ she said.

Fox News’ Landon Mion and Reuters contributed to this report.

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Left-wing movie director Oliver Stone slammed Democrats for weaponizing federal law enforcement and ‘lying’ in their attempts to charge the president with Russian collusion during the 2016 election.   

Stone, meanwhile, applauded President Donald Trump for taking steps to find out what really happened, adding that he is ‘absolutely’ right that the federal government has been weaponized to attack political opponents.

Trump recently signed a new executive order directing the FBI to immediately declassify files concerning Crossfire Hurricane, the initial investigation launched in 2016 that sought information on whether members of the Trump campaign were colluding with the Russians to undermine the election. The president has also taken steps to go after the law firms involved in the scandal, including by suspending the security clearances for their attorneys and barring them from entering any federal buildings. 

‘Russiagate – we paid for it,’ Stone said. ‘I applaud [what Trump is doing], and I hate what they did with Russiagate, I really do. I think it’s – again, the lying, the lying, the lying, and selling that to the American people.’

When asked if he felt Trump was right about there being weaponization of the federal government against conservatives, Stone responded: ‘There was.’

Stone, who has produced several documentaries supporting Russian narratives about Ukraine, added that the underlying premise behind Russiagate – that Russia is a nefarious actor – is wrong and ‘un-American.’

‘They are potentially our best partners, as are the Chinese. I mean, we have this mentality that they’re the enemy,’ Stone said. ‘That’s all been inculcated by propaganda. If you go out there to China, and you go out to Russia, you don’t hear that kind of vituperative dialogue.’

However, while Stone said he agreed with Trump’s approach to taking on those involved with Russiagate, he did lament the president’s attacks on pro-Palestinian protesters over alleged antisemitism.  

‘I don’t like this new thing about censorship coming from Trump,’ said Stone. ‘Against the anti – what he calls ‘antisemitic news’ – I mean, I don’t agree. I don’t know where he’s coming from, and it’s not what he promised.’

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White House Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett doubled down on the effectiveness of President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Sunday, saying dozens of countries are now seeking to open negotiations and U.S. manufacturing is booming.

Hassett made the claim during an appearance on ABC News’ ‘This Week’ with host George Stephanopoulos. He said that over 50 countries have already said they want to negotiate new trade agreements with Trump’s administration since the tariffs hit last week, though he acknowledged there may be short-term pain for consumers.

He pointed to the decrease in prices that has existed since China entered the World Trade Organization in 2000, arguing that the loss of jobs outweighs the low prices.

‘If cheap goods were the answer, if cheap goods were going to make Americans’ real wages better off, then real incomes would have gone up over that time. Instead, they went down because wages went down more than prices went down. So we got the cheap goods at the grocery store, but then we had fewer jobs,’ he said.

Hassett added that he has received ‘anecdotal word’ that some U.S. auto plants are adding second shifts to their work schedules in response to the tariffs.

Stephanopoulos then pressed Hassett to explain why Russia wasn’t targeted with any additional tariffs.

‘There’s obviously an ongoing negotiation with Russia and Ukraine, and I think the president made the decision not to conflate the two issues. It doesn’t mean that Russia in the fullness of time, is going to be treated wildly different than every other country,’ Hassett responded.

‘But Russia’s one of the only countries, one of few countries that is not subject to these new tariffs, aren’t they?’ Stephanopoulos pressed.

‘They’re in the middle of a negotiation, George, aren’t they?’ Hassett countered. ‘Would you literally advise that you go in and put a whole bunch of new things on the table in the middle of a negotiation that affects so many American and Ukrainian and Russian lives?’

‘Negotiators do that all the time,’ Stephanopoulos argued.

‘Russia is in the midst of negotiations over peace that affects really thousands and thousands of lives of people and that’s what President Trump’s focused on right now,’ Hassett said.

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Elon Musk’s high-profile role in the Trump administration is dominating headlines. His DOGE recommendations are roiling the Washington establishment. His young staffers with backpacks are looking at waste in multiple government agencies, and he himself is frequently advising the president. While Musk’s prominent role is certainly unusual, history reveals some parallels to presidential advisers who have had an enormous influence in previous administrations. History also shows that having a high-profile non-traditional role also paints a big target on your back.

One of the first uber-powerful outside advisers was in the Woodrow Wilson administration. House was a wealthy Texan who had been advising Democratic politicians in his home state when he connected with then-New Jersey Governor Wilson. 

When Wilson won the presidency, House had little interest in a Cabinet slot. According to Wilson’s personal physician Cary Grayson, House ‘wanted no office himself and his one desire, it seemed, was to be helpful to the President in the selection of men for appointments.’ 

House became Wilson’s main foreign policy adviser. He lived in the White House, which gave him access day and night to Wilson, and controlled the flow of information to Wilson. House recalled that Wilson ‘seldom reads the newspapers and gains his knowledge of public affairs largely from the matter brought to his attention….’ With House culling what was brought to Wilson’s attention, it’s unsurprising that Wilson once called House ‘my second personality,’ adding ‘his thoughts and mine are one.’ 

House’s influence grew with America’s entry into World War I in 1917. House came up with the idea for and populated The Inquiry, a proto think tank that examined the potential scenarios in the war’s aftermath. Wilson’s famous 14 Points speech, laying out his framework for a post-war world, was based on a draft written by Inquiry member Walter Lippman and then refined by House and Wilson. As House recalled his efforts on that speech, he and Wilson ‘finished remaking the map of the world…at half past twelve o’clock.’

Although the war initially increased House’s power, it also set the stage for his downfall. There was resentment within the White House and the State Department about House’s outsized role. Wilson’s second wife Edith did not much like him, either. Wilson also felt that House conceded too much to the European powers in the Versailles negotiations. House further pushed his luck by urging Wilson to negotiate with Senate Republicans to secure passage of the Versailles Treaty, good advice that Wilson did not want to hear.

On June 28, 1919, House and Wilson met for the last time as Wilson was about to return to the U.S. to begin his ultimately unsuccessful effort to ratify the treaty. He said, ‘Good-by, House,’ and the two men never spoke again.

Franklin Roosevelt also had a top administration priority run by a man with a military title in a non-traditional appointment. Ex- was working for the wealthy investor and Democratic fixer Bernard Baruch when he became a member of Roosevelt’s ‘Brain Trust.’ He then headed Roosevelt’s new National Recovery Administration, where, according to the New York Times, he was given ‘almost unlimited powers.’ 

Johnson’s job as head of the NRA was to get companies to adhere to Roosevelt’s New Deal policies. Here the similarities to DOGE are apparent, except NRA was initially an executive branch creation targeting the private sector, while DOGE aims to rein in government. Congress created the NRA, and Roosevelt signed it into law, on June 16, after Johnson had started. Within one month, Johnson got 2 million companies to sign on to the NRA codes, allowing them to display the ‘Blue Eagle’ of compliance.

Johnson used heavy-handed tactics to get companies to comply. Ford founder Henry Ford learned this firsthand when he refused to sign on. In response, Johnson criticized Ford publicly and went to Michigan to confront Ford, even threatening to sic the Department of Justice on Ford. Ford pushed back, issuing a company statement saying that Johnson was ‘assuming the airs of a dictator.’

Ford’s resistance notwithstanding, Johnson was lionized by the press, and he was named TIME’s ‘Man of the Year’ in 1933. The power and accolades, however, seemed to go to Johnson’s head. His former employer Baruch warned FDR that Johnson was ‘a born dictator.’ Cabinet members like Labor Secretary Frances Perkins and Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau complained about him as well, but Roosevelt defended Johnson, saying that ‘every administration needed a Peck’s Bad Boy.’ Roosevelt even spurned an offer from Johnson to resign, prompting Johnson to tell the press, ‘My feet are nailed to the floor for the present… I am not going to resign.’

Despite Roosevelt’s initial support, the pressure eventually became too great. Roosevelt forced Johnson to resign in September of 1934. In his resignation speech, Johnson called the NRA ‘as great a social advance as has occurred on this earth since a gaunt and dusty Jew in Palestine declared, as a new principle in human relationship, ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.’’ Johnson’s love for the administration that ousted him did not last, though, as he became a Roosevelt critic, particularly of Roosevelt’s effort to remake, or ‘pack’ the Supreme Court that had invalidated Johnson’s NRA in 1935.

In Roosevelt’s third term, he changed priorities from what he called ‘Dr. New Deal’ to ‘Dr. Win the War.’ In this, one of his top needs was to shift America’s industrial base to producing war material. To do so, Roosevelt needed someone not from government but from the private sector that he had spent much of his first two terms trying to bring to heel. FDR looked to Baruch for advice. Baruch responded: ‘First, Knudsen. Second, Knudsen. Third, Knudsen.’ Baruch was referring to , president of General Motors, at the time the largest company on earth. FDR called Knudsen, who forgo an enormous $300,000 salary – about $6.5 million today – to become a dollar-a-year man in Washington. FDR also made Knudsen a lieutenant general in the Army, an unusual move for someone coming directly from the civilian ranks.

Like House and Johnson before him – and Musk in our day – Knudsen had his critics. New Dealers were angry that Knudsen refused to shut down the production of cars for civilian use. Knudsen held his ground before FDR, explaining that shutting down production would necessitate closing the plants, which would get in the way of war production. 

Criticism notwithstanding, Knudsen did his job well. In marshaling America’s industrial might to help the United States and its allies, Great Britain and the Soviet Union, win the war, Knudsen got some praise from an unusual source. At the 1943 meeting of the Big Three allies in Tehran, Josef Stalin proposed a toast ‘to American production, without which this war would have been lost.’ It might as well have been a toast to Knudsen himself.

Following the war, TIME founder saw in Dwight Eisenhower an opportunity to return Republicans to the White House. Luce backed Eisenhower in a variety of ways: with favorable TIME coverage, foreign policy advice, and the loan of several staffers to Eisenhower’s 1952 presidential campaign. When Eisenhower won, some of the Luce people joined the administration, and Luce’s wife Clare Boothe Luce served as ambassador to Italy.

During Eisenhower’s administration, Luce continued to provide both advice and favorable coverage, although the latter came at a cost. TIME staffers did not like serving as ‘Eisenhower’s mouthpiece.’ More broadly, TIME began to be seen as biased towards the Republicans, an example of reputational damage stemming from being too close to a sitting administration. 

In the Nixon administration, another prominent CEO would take a hit for his closeness to a Republican president. In 1968, long before was a presidential candidate, the Texas billionaire and founder of EDS met Richard Nixon through PepsiCo Chairman Donald Kendall. Perot, who had become rich selling data processing to the federal government, told Nixon that computers could be an important tool in a presidential campaign. He provided 10 paid employees – and an EDS airplane – to the Nixon campaign to demonstrate how it could be done. 

When Nixon won, Perot became a presence in the Nixon White House. He never took an official position, but he did join the Nixon Foundation, and was a source of ideas, staff, and money – or at least promises of money. He also highlighted the issue of American POWs held by the North Vietnamese, something that the Nixon administration appreciated. For its part, the Nixon administration helped Perot as well, siding with EDS in some government contract disputes and aiding EDS in its efforts to secure additional contracts.

While helpful in some ways, Perot was also a pest. Some of his ambitious plans, like buying the Washington Post or ABC to improve their Nixon coverage, did not come to fruition. Still, the idea of a billionaire buying a platform that could aid a president politically has at least some familiarity. In addition, Nixon White House aide Gordon Strachey characterized him as ‘Difficult to please Perot.’ 

The Nixon link would eventually cost Perot. The Nixon administration asked Perot to help the struggling but prominent Wall Street firm F. I. Dupont, Glore Forgan and Co. Perot initially put in $10 million, then poured in more, ultimately totaling $100 million. In the end. Dupont fell apart, and EDS stock plummeted from $162 a share to $10, significantly reducing Perot’s net worth. As Perot later recalled, ‘They said it was a $5 million problem. So we waded in like Boy Scouts and then found out the vault was out of control.’

When Perot later ran for president in 1992, he lost to Bill Clinton. As president, Clinton enlisted his former Rhodes Scholar friend and business consultant as staff director of his health care task force. Magaziner had eschewed offers of a Cabinet slot to help direct the administration’s biggest issue. Magaziner enlisted hundreds of volunteers, many from the private sector, to work on the task force, working 15-hour days in 30 different sub-task forces, and meeting with Clinton on a nearly daily basis.

Like Musk, Magaziner tried to attack a challenging problem in a new way. As his wife Suzanne said of him, ‘Ira is always trying to redefine the square. He’s not constrained by limits just because they’re there.’ He also took his share of hits. The Washington Post’s Steven Pearlstein said of Magaziner that ‘There is about him a supreme self-confidence that sometimes slips into arrogance.’ 

Ultimately, the health effort failed, and Republicans took control of the House and Senate in part because of the backlash against the Magaziner-led initiative. The American Association of Physicians and Surgeons sued the administration, arguing that non-governmental appointees could have meetings with governmental officials that were not open to the public. Federal Judge Royce Lamberth ruled that Magaziner was ‘misleading at best’ in the discovery process. Lamberth added that the government needed to be ‘accountable when its officials run amok,’ and fined Magaziner more than $285,000. 

Magaziner offered to resign after the health care failure, but Clinton refused the resignation. Magaziner remained a White House adviser on internet-related issues through 1998, and his fine was eventually reversed on appeal in 1999.

Clearly, no one is or could be exactly like Elon Musk: a mega-billionaire who runs electric car, social media, and space exploration companies while running a powerful government commission identifying waste, fraud, and abuse. But there have certainly been other prominent private sector actors who have worked on presidential priorities in non-traditional ways, bringing in their own people in the process. And there have also others who have been accused of arrogance and conflicts of interest, pilloried in the press and subjected to financial and reputational hits. The biggest open question is what happens in this kind of relationship between the president and the adviser. Whether the Musk-Trump relationship survives this experience remains the biggest and most interesting question out there.

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The Trump administration is slashing millions of dollars in DEI grants from a library and museum system as part of its overall Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) push to rid the government of waste, fraud and abuse.

The administration is cutting $15 million from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) in the form of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) grants in a move the agency says is aligned with both DOGE and President Donald Trump’s executive orders aimed at eliminating DEI from the federal government. 

The grants include $6.7 million to the California State Library to enhance equitable library programs and $4 million to the Washington State Library for diverse staff development and incarcerated support. 

A $1.5M DEI grant to the Connecticut State Library system to ‘integrate social justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion’ into their daily operations is also being cut along with $700,000 for a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit to study ‘post-pandemic DEI practices’ in American children’s museums that would formulate ‘enhanced equity-focused strategies.’

Additionally, a DEI grant of $265,000 going to Queens College in New York to conduct a research project on why ‘BIPOC’ teens read Japanese comic books will be cut along with $250,000 to fund the ‘Gay Ohio History Initiative’ to erect 10 ‘LGBTQ+ historical markers’ will be cut.

‘In keeping with the vision of the President’s executive orders, we are taking action to end taxpayer funding for discriminatory DEI initiatives in our nation’s museums and libraries,’ Acting IMLS Director Keith Sonderling told Fox News Digital in a statement.

‘Our cultural institutions should bring Americans together—not promote divisive ideologies. Moving forward, we must champion programs that uphold our founding ideals and reaffirm that the American Dream is within reach for all, through hard work and determination, not identity politics.’

The grant cuts come after IMLS reportedly cut 80% of its staff in a move aimed at slashing the bloated federal government while saving taxpayers additional millions. 

A recent study by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences found that federal funds represent only 0.3% of the total operating revenue for public libraries. The vast majority of funding comes from state and local sources.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services was one of seven government agencies targeted in Trump’s ‘Continuing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy’ executive order last month.

Trump’s DOGE efforts have saved the American taxpayer $140 billion, according to its website, which represents almost $900 saved per taxpayer.

The Trump administration says it has slashed hundreds of millions of dollars in DEI contracts, including at least $100 million at the Department of Education. 

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President Donald Trump said Sunday that he is not willing to make a deal with China unless the trade deficit of over $1 trillion is resolved first.

While speaking to reporters on Air Force One, Trump said with some countries there is a trade deficit of over a billion dollars, but with China, it is over $1 trillion.

‘We have a $1 trillion trade deficit with China. Hundreds of billions of dollars a year we lose to China, and unless we solve that problem, I’m not going to make a deal,’ he said. ‘I’m willing to make a deal with China, but they have to solve this surplus. We have a tremendous deficit problem with China… I want that solved.’

Trump also said because of the tariffs, the U.S. has $7 trillion of committed investments when it comes to building automotive manufacturing plants, chip companies and other types of businesses, ‘at levels that we’ve never seen before.’

But in terms of trade deficits, Trump said he has spoken with a lot of leaders in Europe and Asia, who are ‘dying’ to make a deal, but as long as there are deficits, he is not going to do that.

‘A deficit is a loss,’ he said. ‘We’re going to have surpluses, or we’re, at worst, going to be breaking even. But China would be the worst in the group because the deficit is so big, and it’s not sustainable.

‘I was elected on this,’ Trump added.

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Americans nearing retirement and recent retirees said they were anxious and frustrated following a second day of market turmoil that hit their 401(k)s after President Donald Trump’s escalation of tariffs.

As the impending tariffs shook the global economy Friday, people who were planning on their retirement accounts to carry them through their golden years said the economic chaos was hitting too close to home.

Some said they are pausing big-ticket purchases and reconsidering home renovations, while others said they fear their quality of life will be adversely affected by all the turmoil.

“I’m just kind of stunned, and with so much money in the market, we just sort of have to hope we have enough time to recover,” said Paula, 68, a former occupational health professional in New Jersey who retired three years ago.

Paula, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she feared retaliation for speaking out against Trump administration policies, said she was worried about what lies ahead.

“What we’ve been doing is trying to enjoy the time that we have, but you want to be able to make it last,” Paula said Friday. “I have no confidence here.”

Trump fulfilled his campaign promise this week to unleash sweeping tariffs, including on the United States’ largest trading partners, in a move that has sparked fears of a global trade war. The decision sent the stock market spinning. On Friday afternoon, the broad-based S&P 500 closed down 6%, the tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped 5.8%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 2,200 points, or about 5.5%.

As Wall Street reeled Friday after China hit back with tariffs against the U.S., millions of Americans with 401(k)s watched their retirement funds diminish along with the stock market.

“I looked at my 401(k) this morning and in the last two days that’s lost $58,000. That’s stressful,” said Victor Fettes, 54, of Georgia, who retired last week as a senior director of risk management and compliance at Verizon. “If that continues, I can’t stay retired.”

Trump has said the tariffs will force businesses to relocate manufacturing and production back to the U.S. and bring back jobs. Some investors and business groups have pushed back, saying they are likely to lead to higher prices for U.S. consumers.

“Our country has been looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike,” Trump said recently. “But it is not going to happen anymore.”

The president has acknowledged the potential pain coming to some Americans’ wallets, but he continues to staunchly defend his agenda.

“MY POLICIES WILL NEVER CHANGE,” he posted to social media Friday. Later, he wrote, “ONLY THE WEAK WILL FAIL.”

Trump’s tariffs are steeper and more widespread than any in modern American history. They are potentially even broader than the tariffs of 1930 that historians said worsened the Great Depression.

Some Americans thinking about retirement told NBC News they feel their economic stability is being played with.

“I don’t want to have to worry that everyone is constantly changing my financial reality,” said Alison Carey, 64, of Oregon, a freelancer in the theater industry. “Let the economy do its machinations, but don’t put me in the gears.”

Paula said she and other older Americans are living with “anxiety about something where you don’t really know what’s going to happen. You can’t do anything though.”

She and her husband have decided to pause and reduce spending on big-ticket items. They are reconsidering vacations and home renovations.

“We can’t change anything right now, except our spending,” she said. “I’m sure there are consumers across the board that want to be cautious, too. Then it becomes a vicious cycle. Consumer confidence goes down.”

One in five Americans age 50 and over have no retirement savings, and more than half, 61%, are worried they will not have enough money to support them in retirement, according to a survey published by the AARP last April.

“It makes you realize how out of touch the current administration is with regular people,” said Benajah Cobb, 63, Carey’s husband, who also works in the theater industry.

He said he hoped the last few days of stock market turmoil would motivate lawmakers to put more checks and balances on the president.

“It’s happening so quickly. Things are falling apart so quickly,” he said. “I’m hoping Congress will try to step up a bit, the Republicans in Congress.”

Fettes said he has been calling his representatives about the tariffs and other issues “to make sure that as a constituent, our voices are being heard.”

“We believe firmly in our family that a democracy is a participatory game, and so we want to make sure that our representatives understand where we’re at and what we would like for them to do to represent,” he said.

Paula said that as she and her husband continue to monitor their retirement accounts, their biggest fear is how Trump’s policies could impact the quality of the rest of their lives — and when their funds will run out.

“That’s my big worry, when is that shortfall going to happen now?” she said.

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