News

• Large protests are expected across the U.S. on Saturday to express voice discontent with President Trump's administration.
• Organizers aim to make the protests accessible by holding events in many places, including small towns.
• The protests reflect growing momentum and dissatisfaction with Trump's policies on immigration, transgender rights, and the firing of federal workers.

https://archive.ph/089uC

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump offered a rosy assessment after the stock market dropped sharply Thursday over his tariffs, saying, “I think it’s going very well.”

“The markets are going to boom, the stock is going to boom, the country is going to boom,” he said when asked about the market as he left the White House to fly to one of his Florida golf clubs.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped more than 1,600 points on Thursday as U.S. stocks led a worldwide selloff after the Republican president’s announcement of tariffs against much of the world ignited a shock like none seen since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Summary

The New Civil Liberties Alliance filed a lawsuit accusing Trump of illegally imposing tariffs on Chinese imports using emergency powers under the 1977 IEEPA.

The conservative legal group argues only Congress can levy tariffs and claims Trump's actions violate the Constitution’s separation of powers.

The complaint says Trump’s justification—Chinese opioids and the trade deficit—fails to meet the legal standard of necessity.

NCLA seeks a court order to block the tariffs, stating the IEEPA does not authorize taxes and Trump's executive orders bypass required congressional procedures.

> US stocks were battered by a sell-off Friday after China retaliated against the United States for President Donald Trump’s tariffs in a tit-for-tat that escalates a global trade war. > > The Dow plunged by 1,950 points Friday afternoon, or 4.82%, pulling back slightly after being down more than 2,000 points. The broader S&P 500 was 5.4% lower. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was 5.36% lower and on track to close in a bear market — down more than 20% from its record high in December.

> "The president single-handedly wiped out Americans' retirement savings overnight and subjected businesses to intense whiplash with his increasingly erratic and chaotic policies that continue to drive consumer and business uncertainty."

A health-care executive has slapped Last Week Tonight host John Oliver with a lawsuit, alleging the comedian-turned-talk-show-host defamed him in a 2024 episode by twisting his words and making “false accusations.”

The episode in question, which aired in April of last year, linked Dr. Brian Morley, a hospital administrator and former medical director for AmeriHealth Caritas in Iowa, to a drastic decrease in Medicaid services and accused him of thinking “it’s OK if people have s–t on them for days.”

The complaint, filed late last week in the New York Southern District Court, claims that Oliver and his team “entirely snipped out of context and manipulated two sentences of Morley’s testimony” during an administrative proceeding so that they could “accomplish their defamation,” reports Entertainment Weekly.

(For those interested here is the episode. Dr. Morley speaks at 21:22.)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bVIsnOfNfCo

The firings encompassed four staffers who were fired overnight, after the meeting, and two who were removed over the weekend. It created the extraordinary situation where Loomer appeared to have more influence than the national security adviser, Mike Waltz, over the NSC and undercut Waltz in having aides axed under him.

Loomer brought a booklet of papers laying out the perceived disloyalty of about a dozen staffers, including Waltz’s principal deputy, Alex Wong, to the meeting, which was also attended by JD Vance, the chief of staff Susie Wiles, the commerce secretary Howard Lutnick and Waltz himself.

The fired officials included Brian Walsh, the senior director for intelligence who previously worked for now secretary of state Marco Rubio on the Senate intelligence committee; Thomas Boodry, the senior director for legislative affairs who previously served as Waltz’s legislative director in Congress; and Maggie Dougherty, the senior director for international organizations, the people said.

> Actor and political pundit Russell Brand is facing multiple charges of rape and sexual assault, London's Metropolitan Police announced on Friday, listing charges that span more than six years.

In the 10 days since Tufts University PhD student Rümeysa Öztürk was detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, her lawyers say their client has had three asthma attacks. During that time, according to three Democratic legislators and Öztürk’s lawyers, ICE has not provided the student her inhaler or other medication as required by law. (ICE did not return a request for comment.)

Öztürk, who studies child psychology, was moved by ICE agents from Massachusetts to Vermont and then to Louisiana, her attorneys report. For nearly 24 hours, her legal team was unable to contact or locate her. En route to Louisiana, she suffered her first of three asthma attacks. Hearings in Öztürk’s case began yesterday, with her lawyers describing the way she was transported across several state lines as “venue shopping” by the government and “an act of either furtiveness or bad faith.” They also revealed that in the days since being moved to a detention center in Louisiana, Öztürk has suffered two more asthma attacks.

In an amended lawsuit filed Wednesday, Öztürk’s lawyers said that due to her not having access to her medications, “each day Ms. Öztürk remains in detention puts her life at risk.” Due to crowding in ICE detention facilities, Öztürk is arguably also at increased risk of catching Covid-19, which could exacerbate her existing respiratory problems.

> "This was an illegal act," U.S. Federal District Judge Paula Xinis told Justice Department lawyers at a federal court hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland about the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who lived in the U.S. legally and had a work permit. Abrego Garcia was arrested and deported last month — despite having been granted protection by an immigration judge in 2019 that should have prevented him from being deported to El Salvador.

>Judge Xinis ordered the government to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. by 11:59 p.m. on Monday, April 7. She said keeping him in El Salvador constitutes irreparable harm.

>"From the moment he was seized, it was unconstitutional," Judge Xinis said during the hearing. "If there isn't a document, a warrant, a statement of probable cause, then there is no basis to have seized him in the first place. That's how I'm looking at it," the judge said.

Summary

Harvard faculty are organizing against fears the university will yield to Trump administration pressure after federal threats to revoke $9B in grants over alleged campus antisemitism.

Critics see President Alan Garber's vague response as appeasement. Trump’s actions mirror broader crackdowns on activism nationwide.

Over 600 faculty signed letters urging resistance and legal action. Faculty unions and national groups like AAUP have launched lawsuits and coalitions.

Despite recent program suspensions and resignations, many argue Harvard’s $53B endowment positions it to defend academic independence and resist political interference.

Trump had sought to bring a suit against former MI6 officer Christopher Steele who authored the so-called Steele dossier which alleged the US leader had been compromised by Russian agents.

https://archive.ph/GTIXj

Summary

Tesla faces a second consecutive year of sales decline after a 13% drop in Q1 2024 deliveries, the steepest in nearly three years.

CEO Elon Musk’s alignment with Donald Trump and far-right politics has damaged Tesla’s brand, triggering global protests and vandalism.

Analysts attribute the sales slide primarily to reputational harm, compounded by aging models and fierce competition from BYD and others.

Deutsche Bank forecasts a 5% sales dip this year. Musk’s political role has fueled calls for boycotts, with concerns that prolonged involvement could cause lasting brand damage.

The case was the first of dozens of pending lawsuits to reach trial in Louisiana against the world’s leading oil companies for their role in accelerating land loss along the state’s rapidly disappearing coast. The verdict – which Chevron says it will appeal – could set a precedent leaving other oil and gas firms on the hook for billions of dollars in damages tied to land loss and environmental degradation.

Jurors found that energy giant Texaco, acquired by Chevron in 2001, had for decades violated Louisiana regulations governing coastal resources by failing to restore wetlands impacted by dredging canals, drilling wells and billions of gallons of wastewater dumped into the marsh.

The jury awarded $575 million to compensate for land loss, $161 million to compensate for contamination and $8.6 million for abandoned equipment — a total of $744.6 million. Including interest from when the lawsuit was filed in 2013, the amount earmarked for restoration exceeds $1.1 billion, according to attorneys for Talbot, Carmouche & Marcello, the firm behind the lawsuit.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/27776806

KEY POINTS

• The so-called Magnificent Seven stocks lost a combined $1.8 trillion in market value over the last two trading sessions.
• Apple led the losses for the group shaving off more than $533 billion in market capitalization.
• The Nasdaq recorded its worst week since 2020 as markets responded to mounting fears of a global trade war that could push the U.S. into a recession.

The bill sidestepped the usual lawmaking process by tacking a new proposal onto a bill without sending it to a regular committee, where lawmakers and members of the public could weigh in. Democrats in the House Rules Committee raised alarms about the last-minute effort without a clear motive.

Skeptics say the hurried process was especially concerning for a bill that could shield information about lawmakers’ work from those who elect them and further restrict what police departments have to share with the public after they respond to a call about a crime.

Elberton Republican Rep. Rob Leverett said at the committee meeting the bill would simply “clean up” language related to public records issues that have come up in court. He called other added protections for legislators a “reasonable extension of existing law.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is reportedly looking for a way out of the Trump administration following the Republican president’s disastrous tariff rollout damaged his “credibility,” alleged MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle on Friday.

“Some [sources] have said to me, he’s looking for an exit door to try to get himself to the Fed, because in the last few days he’s really hurting his own credibility and history in the markets,” said Ruhle on MSNBC’s Morning Joe.

https://archive.ph/TrfrO

Heard Island and McDonald Island, two Antarctic outposts, are on the list of places that Trump is putting tariffs on. No human has even visited the islands in a decade. There are only penguins and elephant seals.

HYATTSVILLE, Md. (AP) — Lawyers for a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador will ask a federal judge on Friday to order the Trump Administration to return him to the U.S.

The White House already has argued against the idea in legal briefs. They have cast Kilmar Abrego Garcia as an MS-13 gang member and assert that U.S. courts lack jurisdiction over the matter because the Salvadoran national is no longer in the U.S.

Abrego Garcia’s attorneys have countered there is no evidence he was in MS-13. The allegation is based on a confidential informant’s claim in 2019 that Abrego Garcia was a member of a chapter in New York, where he has never lived.

Abrego Garcia’s mistaken deportation, described by the White House as an “administrative error,” has outraged many and raised concerns about expelling noncitizens who were granted permission to be in the U.S.

The 29-year-old had a permit from the Department of Homeland Security to legally work in the U.S., his attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg said. Abrego Garcia served as a sheet metal apprentice and was pursuing his journeyman license.

>Shortly after they landed, according to court filings, El Salvador apparently refused to take them. So they were shipped back, to be locked up again on American soil. > >Now, for the first time, two of those women are speaking out in an interview with NBC News, describing the chaos they say they witnessed during the Trump administration’s deportation efforts and how, they allege, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials deceived them about where they were being taken. > >“We were lied to,” said one of the women, Heymar Padilla Moyetones, 24. “They told us we were going to Venezuela, and it turns out that, no. When we arrived at our destination, that’s when they told us we were in El Salvador.” > >Trump administration officials have said all of the people it has sent to El Salvador were Venezuelans who were carefully vetted and had clear ties to Tren de Aragua, a gang from Venezuela that the administration has designated a terrorist organization. > >But the vetting process apparently did not include determining whether El Salvador would accept female detainees.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20250404115848/https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/two-women-trump-admin-tried-send-el-salvador-prison-speak-rcna198958

> In some parts of the state, misdemeanor defendants routinely face charges without representation.

Summary

The New Civil Liberties Alliance filed a federal lawsuit in Florida challenging Donald Trump’s new tariffs on Chinese imports, arguing he misused emergency powers under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

Trump imposed a 34% tariff on top of a 20% duty from February, citing China's role in the U.S. opioid crisis.

The lawsuit, filed for retailer Simplified, claims the tariffs violate constitutional separation of powers and lack required legal steps.

It seeks to block the tariffs and reverse changes to the U.S. tariff schedule.

archive link

Summary

Donald Trump's new 10% universal tariffs exclude many fossil fuel products, benefiting the oil and gas sector while raising prices for consumers.

The exemption covers crude oil from Canada, liquefied natural gas, and petrochemical inputs.

It follows $96 million in campaign donations from the industry and aligns with Trump’s deregulatory agenda. Critics call it favoritism for billionaire donors amid rising costs for Americans.

While the carveout softens tariff impacts on energy, broader economic fallout includes falling oil prices and inflation risks, contradicting Trump’s promises to fight high consumer costs.

Share prices fell sharply for a second day on Friday in Asia, and futures market trading indicated that American share prices might soon tumble further as well, as worries spread about the economic effect of President Trump’s broad tariffs.

The Nikkei 225 Index in Japan was down 3.8 percent. That followed a 2.8 percent drop on Thursday after Mr. Trump announced a far-reaching revision of American tariffs that included an extra 24 percent on goods from Japan.

In South Korea, the Kospi Index fell 1.7 percent on Friday after dipping 0.8 percent the prior day. President Trump this week put a 26 percent tariff on imports from South Korea.

American share prices have fallen faster than those in other markets since Mr. Trump’s inauguration, and their underperformance appeared set to continue on Friday. Futures on the S&P 500 were down 2.2 percent on Friday.

The S&P 500 suffered its worst single-day loss since 2020 on Thursday, plummeting 4.8 percent.

Archive part 1, part 2