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Thousands of people took to the streets of Denmark’s capital on Saturday to protest at US President Donald Trump’s push to take over Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory.The protest followed Trump’s warning on Friday that he “may put a tariff” on countries that oppose his plans to take over mineral-rich Greenland, which is an autonomous territory of Denmark.They also coincided with a visit to Copenhagen by a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress that has made clear the opposition of many Americans to the Trump administration’s sabre-rattling.Waving the flags of Denmark and Greenland, the protesters formed a sea of red and white outside Copenhagen city hall, chanting “Kalaallit Nunaat!” — the vast Arctic island’s name in Greenlandic.Thousands of people had said on social media they would to take part in marches and rallies organised by Greenlandic associations in Copenhagen, and in Aarhus, Aalborg, Odense and the Greenlandic capital Nuuk.”The aim is to send a clear and unified message of respect for Greenland’s democracy and fundamental human rights,” Uagut, an association of Greenlanders in Denmark, said on its website.A sister demonstration was scheduled to happen in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, at 4:00 pm (1500 GMT), to protest the US’ “illegal plans to take control of Greenland”, organisers said. Demonstrators would march to the US consulate carrying Greenlandic flags.The Copenhagen rally, which began at 12:00 pm (1100 GMT), was due to make a stop outside the US embassy in the Danish capital.- ‘Demand respect’ -“Recent events have put Greenland and Greenlanders in both Greenland and Denmark under pressure,” Uagut chairwoman Julie Rademacher said in a statement to AFP, calling for “unity”.”When tensions rise and people go into a state of alarm, we risk creating more problems than solutions for ourselves and for each other. We appeal to Greenlanders in both Greenland and Denmark to stand together,” she said. The demonstration in Greenland was “to show that we are taking action, that we stand together and that we support our politicians, diplomats and partners,” Kristian Johansen, one of the organisers, said in a statement.”We demand respect for our country’s right to self-determination and for us as a people,” added Avijaja Rosing-Olsen, another organiser. “We demand respect for international law and international legal principles. This is not only our struggle, it is a struggle that concerns the entire world.”According to the latest poll published in January 2025, 85 percent of Greenlanders oppose the territory joining the United States. Only six percent were in favour.- ‘No security threat’ -Speaking in Copenhagen, where the Congressional delegation met top Danish and Greenlandic politicians and business leaders, US Democratic Senator Chris Coons insisted there was no security threat to Greenland to justify the Trump administration’s stance.He was responding after Trump advisor Stephen Miller claimed on Fox News that Denmark was too small to defend its sovereign Arctic territory. “There are no pressing security threats to Greenland, but we share real concern about Arctic security going forward, as the climate changes, as the sea ice retreats, as shipping routes change,” Coons told the press.”There are legitimate reasons for us to explore ways to invest better in Arctic security broadly, both in the American Arctic and in our NATO partners and allies,” said Coons, who is leading the US delegation.Trump has repeatedly criticised Denmark — a NATO ally — for, in his view, not doing enough to ensure Greenland’s security.The US president has pursued that argument, despite strategically located Greenland — as part of Denmark — being covered by NATO’s security umbrella.European NATO members are deploying troops in Greenland for a military exercise designed to show the world, including the United States, that they will “defend (their) sovereignty”, French armed forces minister Alice Rufo said this week.Britain, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden have announced they are sending small numbers of military personnel to prepare for future exercises in the Arctic. The United States has been invited to participate in the excercise, Denmark said on Friday.

A US judge restricted federal agents on Friday from interfering with peaceful protesters in Minnesota, after President Donald Trump said there was no immediate need to invoke the Insurrection Act over the demonstrations.US District Judge Katherine Menendez ordered immigration agents to dial back their aggressive tactics, barring the detention or arrest of peaceful protesters and drivers and the use of pepper-spray against demonstrators.The 83-page order gives the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) current operation in the northern US city 72 hours to come into compliance, and follows two incidents where federal agents opened fire, killing one person and wounding another in the span of a week.In a separate legal move that could inflame the standoff between the White House and Minnesota elected officials, CBS News reported that the Justice Department (DOJ) was investigating Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey for impeding federal officers. Both have called for peaceful protests against immigration sweeps in their state.”This is an obvious attempt to intimidate me for standing up for Minneapolis, local law enforcement, and residents against the chaos and danger this Administration has brought to our city,” Frey wrote on X on Friday.Walz said the Trump administration has moved to investigate other Democrats who have spoken out against the president’s policies and mentioned the 37-year-old woman who was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer in Minneapolis on January 7. “The only person not being investigated for the shooting of Renee Good is the federal agent who shot her,” Walz wrote on X.The DOJ did not respond to a request for comment. However, Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote on X on Friday: “A reminder to all those in Minnesota: No one is above the law.”Trump threatened the drastic measure of invoking the Insurrection Act, which would allow him to deploy the military to police the protests, as the row escalated this week.”If I needed it, I would use it. I don’t think there is any reason right now to use it,” Trump told reporters at the White House when asked about the move.The Insurrection Act allows a president to sidestep the Posse Comitatus Act to suppress “armed rebellion” or “domestic violence” and deploy soldiers on US soil “as he considers necessary” to enforce the 19th-century law.Crowds of protesters have clashed with immigration officers across Minneapolis, opposing their efforts to target undocumented migrants. Some officers have responded with violence.Demonstrations grew dramatically following Good’s killing as the Trump administration pressed operations to catch undocumented migrants.- ‘Organized brutality’ -Federal agents fired their weapons in two separate incidents, wounding a man from Venezuela on Wednesday and in Good’s killing last week.In a separate incident, DHS confirmed on Friday that Heber Sanchez Dominguez, a 34-year-old Mexican national, died while detained in ICE custody two days earlier.At least four people have died in ICE detention so far this year, according to agency data.Trump backers have also begun to face off with protesters who oppose ICE’s actions in the state, leading to tense encounters.The Minnesota Star Tribune newspaper reported that divisions within the anti-ICE movement were beginning to emerge over how aggressively to resist the enforcement efforts. Activists have also become increasingly wary of “far-right provocateurs trying to bait demonstrators into rioting,” it said.Minnesota’s American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) chapter has reported an uptick in complaints against ICE officers.Walz accused federal agents of waging “a campaign of organized brutality against the people of Minnesota” in a video posted to X Wednesday night. Good’s family announced on Wednesday that they had retained a top law firm to probe the killing ahead of launching possible legal action against the officer and the government.The lawyers demanded on Thursday that federal officials — including the officer who shot Good — preserve records and evidence relating to the incident.

Large demonstrations are planned across Denmark and Greenland on Saturday to protest against US President Donald Trump’s designs to take over the Arctic island. Thousands of people have indicated on social media that they intend to take part in marches and rallies organised by Greenlandic associations in Copenhagen, Aarhus, Aalborg, Odense and the Greenlandic capital Nuuk.”The aim is to send a clear and unified message of respect for Greenland’s democracy and fundamental human rights,” Uagut, an association of Greenlanders in Denmark, said on its website.The protests follow Trump’s warning on Friday that he “may put a tariff” on countries that oppose his plans to take over Greenland, which is an autonomous territory of Denmark.The demonstration in Nuuk is scheduled to begin at 4:00 pm (1500 GMT), to protest “against the United States’ illegal plans to take control of Greenland”, organisers said. Demonstrators would march to the US consulate carrying Greenlandic flags.The Copenhagen rally was due to begin at 12:00 pm (1100 GMT), and make a stop outside the US embassy in the Danish capital around an hour later.”Recent events have put Greenland and Greenlanders in both Greenland and Denmark under pressure,” Uagut chairwoman Julie Rademacher said in a statement sent to AFP, calling for “unity”.”When tensions rise and people go into a state of alarm, we risk creating more problems than solutions for ourselves and for each other. We appeal to Greenlanders in both Greenland and Denmark to stand together,” she said. – ‘Demand respect’ -Uagut, along with the citizens’ movement “Hands Off Greenland”, and Inuit, an umbrella group of Greenlandic associations, were staging the demonstrations to coincide with a visit to Copenhagen by a bipartisan delegation of US lawmakers.On the event’s Facebook page, at least 900 people in Greenland said they planned to take part in the territory, which has a total population of about 57,000.”With this demonstration, we want to show that we are taking action, that we stand together and that we support our politicians, diplomats and partners,” Kristian Johansen, one of the organisers, said in a statement.”We demand respect for our country’s right to self-determination and for us as a people,” added Avijaja Rosing-Olsen, another organiser. “We demand respect for international law and international legal principles. This is not only our struggle, it is a struggle that concerns the entire world.”According to the latest poll published in January 2025, 85 percent of Greenlanders oppose the territory joining the United States. Only six percent were in favour.

The son of Iran’s late shah said Friday he was confident that mass protests would topple the Islamic republic and urged international action, as US President Donald Trump holds off on intervening in the unrest.Reza Pahlavi, who lives in exile in the Washington area, has presented himself as leader of the opposition as the cleric-run state ruthlessly represses mass protests.”The Islamic republic will fall — not if, but when,” Pahlavi told a news conference in Washington.Since the demonstrations erupted in late December with a rallying cry of solving Iran’s severe economic woes, Pahlavi has pleaded for US intervention.Trump had repeatedly warned Iran that if it kills protesters, the United States would intervene militarily. He also encouraged Iranians to take over state institutions, saying “help is on the way.”But two weeks after he first suggested help, he has not acted. Security forces in the meantime have killed at least 3,428 protesters, according to Norway-based group Iran Human Rights, with other estimates putting the toll at more than 5,000 or possibly as high as 20,000.Trump instead has highlighted what he said was an end to the killing of protesters, as the size of demonstrations diminished in recent days.Trump wrote Friday on his Truth Social platform that Iran had called off executions of hundreds of protesters and said to the clerical state, “Thank you!”Pahlavi also took to social media Friday, with posts on X and Instagram calling for Iranians across the country to “raise your voices in anger and protest with our national slogans” at 8:00 pm on Saturday and Sunday.Pahlavi, seeking to touch a nerve with Trump, called on him not to be like Democratic predecessor Barack Obama who negotiated with Tehran.”I believe that President Trump is a man of his word and ultimately he will stand with the Iranian people as he has said,” Pahlavi said when asked if Trump had given false hope.”Iranian people are taking decisive actions on the ground. It is now time for the international community to join them fully.”Gulf Arab monarchies, despite frequent friction with Iran, have urged Trump to show caution.- ‘Surgical’ strikes -Pahlavi called for targeting the command structure of the elite Revolutionary Guards, as it is key to “instituting terror at home or terrorism abroad.””I’m calling for a surgical strike,” said Pahlavi, who controversially backed Israel’s military campaign on Iran in June.He also urged all countries to expel diplomats from Iran and to help restore internet access, which has been severely hampered.Many protesters have chanted the name of Pahlavi, whose pro-Western father fled in 1979 in the Islamic revolution.While Iran’s last Shah presented a glamorous image of the oil-rich nation to the world — replete with caviar, glittering crown jewels and a jet-setter lifestyle — domestically, repression and the brutality of his secret police force as well as a lack of economic mobility opened the door to political challenge.Asked about repression under his father, Pahlavi told reporters, “I let historians write history. I’m here to make history.”Pahlavi, 65, said he wants to be a figurehead to lead a transition to a secular democracy, with a popular referendum to choose the next system of government.He also has plenty of detractors who suspect a desire by his supporters to restore the monarchy and say changes should come from the opposition within Iran.”I reaffirm my lifelong pledge to lead the movement that will take back our country from the anti-Iranian hostile force that occupies it and kills its children,” Pahlavi said.”I will return to Iran.”Pahlavi promised that a new Iran would have better relations with the leadership’s sworn enemies — the United States and Israel — and integrate into the global economy.He said Iran would quickly normalize relations with Israel in a “Cyrus Accord,” a reference to Cyrus the Great, the celebrated Persian emperor who freed Jews from Babylonian captivity.”Iran today should have been the next South Korea of the Middle East,” he said. “Today we have become North Korea.”

US immigration agents now remind many Americans of the Gestapo — and not just the left-wing activists who have taken to the streets to protest violent raids commanded by President Donald Trump.Avid Trump supporter and podcaster Joe Rogan, whose massive audience heard him repeat Republican talking points in the run-up to the 2024 election, fueled debate this week by airing those concerns.”Are we really gonna be the Gestapo, ‘Where’s your papers?’ Is that what we’ve come to?” Rogan asked millions of listeners.”You don’t want militarized people in the streets just roaming around, snatching up people — many of which turn out to be US citizens that just don’t have their papers on them,” he said.A growing number of Americans agree with that sentiment. In every national poll, a majority condemns the actions of the immigration officer who shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Good, a US citizen, in Minneapolis on January 7.A Quinnipiac survey found that 57 percent of voters condemn ICE’s methods, with 94 percent of Democratic voters and 64 percent of independents against Republicans, by contrast, support them at 84 percent.Another poll from Economist/YouGov found that, for the first time, 46 percent of respondents support abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), exceeding the 43 percent who oppose getting rid of it.- ‘Swing voter’ -“The most useful way to think about Joe Rogan is as America’s most famous swing voter,” left-wing commentator Ben Burgis posted on X this week.Rogan wasn’t the pliant conservative megaphone White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt may have had in mind when she reaffirmed the Trump administration’s hard line of the ICE officer’s innocence.ICE agents “are simply trying to enforce the law and the Democratic Party has demeaned these individuals,” Leavitt told reporters Thursday.”They’ve even referred to them as Nazis and as the Gestapo, and that is absolutely leading to the violence we’re seeing in the streets,” she added. Beyond differences on policy or polemics, the methods used by the masked and sometimes heavily armed federal agents run counter to deeply rooted principles within American political and legal culture, Steven Schwinn, a law professor at University of Illinois, Chicago, told AFP.During chaotic raids in Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis —  all Democratic strongholds across the country — Schwinn points to the identity checks and stops that have outraged Rogan, because such stops were only authorized with “reasonable suspicion,” a standard used by law enforcement to stop people in the United States.- ‘Absolute immunity’ -When ICE agents demand peaceful protesters produce their papers, or when they target people solely on the basis of their perceived ethnicity, “a lot of folks associate that with dictatorial and authoritarian regimes,” Schwinn said. “What is happening with ICE is unprecedented,” Schwinn added, both in the scale of the deployment — federal agents now number 22,000 nationwide, compared with 10,000 a year ago, according to the Department of Homeland Security — and in the protection they seem to enjoy from the White House.Senior Trump advisor Stephen Miller has said all ICE officers have “federal immunity” to conduct their raids, adding “anybody who lays a hand on you or tries to stop you or tries to obstruct you is committing a felony.” Vice President JD Vance agreed, saying the agent who shot and killed Good in Minnesota “is protected by absolute immunity.”Legal experts and local officials, including prosecutors, have denounced those views.And according to Axios, the Trump administration has conducted its own polling and found support for immigration police is eroding, even among right-leaning voters.An anonymous senior advisor told the site Friday that the president “wants mass deportations. What he doesn’t want is what people are seeing. He doesn’t like the way it looks. It looks bad, so he’s expressed some discomfort at that.”

President Donald Trump’s administration is finalizing its repeal of a foundational scientific determination that underpins the US government’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, with an announcement expected in the coming weeks.The Environmental Protection Agency proposed reversing the 2009 Endangerment Finding last July. After a public comment period that drew more than half a million submissions, the proposed final rule was sent to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget for review on January 7, records show.Here’s what to know.- What it is -The 2009 finding concluded that six greenhouse gases — including carbon dioxide and methane — endanger public health and welfare by driving climate change.That determination flowed from a 2007 Supreme Court decision, Massachusetts v. EPA, which ruled that greenhouse gases qualify as pollutants under the Clean Air Act and directed the EPA to determine whether they pose a danger to public health and welfare.Although then president George W. Bush’s administration delayed acting on the ruling, the EPA under president Barack Obama concluded that six greenhouse gases met the legal threshold for regulation.While the finding initially applied only to a section of the Clean Air Act governing vehicle emissions, it was later incorporated into other regulations, including limits on carbon dioxide from power plants and methane from oil and gas operations.As a result, repealing the finding would immediately affect vehicle emissions rules, while placing a broader suite of climate regulations in legal jeopardy.”If finalized, it would be the largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States of America,” EPA administrator Lee Zeldin said Friday at Ford’s Ohio Assembly Plant where he and other officials touted policies they said would lower vehicle prices. – The Trump administration’s arguments -The administration’s draft proposal rests on both legal and scientific arguments.Procedurally, it argues that greenhouse gases should not be treated as pollutants in the traditional sense because their effects on human health are indirect and global rather than local. Regulating them within US borders, it contends, cannot meaningfully resolve a worldwide problem.On the scientific front, the administration has sought to downplay the scale and impacts of human-caused climate change. It commissioned a Department of Energy working group filled with skeptics of human-caused climate change to produce a report challenging the scientific consensus.That report was widely criticized for misattribution and for misstating the conclusions of the studies it cited. Environmental groups sued the Energy Department, alleging the panel was convened behind closed doors in violation of federal rules. Energy Secretary Chris Wright later disbanded the group.- What happens next -Environmental organizations are expected to move quickly to challenge the rule in court.Challengers point out that despite the current conservative-dominated Supreme Court’s willingness to overturn precedent, the Endangerment Finding has survived multiple challenges and the underlying case Massachusetts v. EPA remains in effect.”Their efforts to undo the Endangerment Finding are the latest evidence that President Trump is trying to remake the Environmental Protection Agency into the Polluter Protection Agency,” Manish Bapna of the Natural Resources Defense Council said. “If the EPA follows through and tries to repeal the Endangerment Finding, we will see them in court.”

US President Donald Trump on Friday gave a key role in post-war Gaza to former British prime minister Tony Blair and appointed a US officer to lead a nascent security force.Trump named members of a board to help supervise Gaza that was dominated by Americans, as he promotes a controversial vision of economic development in a territory that lies in rubble after two-plus years of relentless Israeli bombardment.The step came after a Palestinian committee of technocrats meant to govern Gaza held its first meeting in Cairo which was attended by Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law who plays a key role on the Middle East.Trump has already declared himself the chair of a “Board of Peace” and on Friday announced its full membership that will include Blair as well as senior Americans — Kushner, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff, Trump’s business partner turned globe-trotting negotiator.Blair is a controversial figure in the Middle East because of his role in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Trump himself said last year that he wanted to make sure Blair was an “acceptable choice to everybody.”Blair spent years focused on the Israeli-Palestinian issue as representative of the “Middle East Quartet” — the United Nations, European Union, United States and Russia — after leaving Downing Street in 2007.The White House said the Board of Peace will take on issues such as “governance capacity-building, regional relations, reconstruction, investment attraction, large-scale funding and capital mobilization.”Trump, a real-estate developer, has previously mused about turning devastated Gaza into a Riviera-style area of resorts, although he has backed away from calls to forcibly displace the population.The other members of the board are World Bank President Ajay Banga, an Indian-born American businessman; billionaire US financier Marc Rowan; and Robert Gabriel, a loyal Trump aide who serves on the National Security Council.- Israel strikes -Israel’s military said Friday it had again hit the Gaza Strip in response to a “blatant violation” of the ceasefire declared in October.The strikes come despite Washington announcing that the Gaza plan had gone on to a second phrase — from implementing the ceasefire to disarming Hamas, whose October, 2023 attack on Israel prompted the massive Israeli offensive.Trump on Friday named US Major General Jasper Jeffers to head the International Stabilization Force, which will be tasked with providing security in Gaza and training a new police force to succeed Hamas.Jeffers, from special operations in US Central Command, in late 2024 was put in charge of monitoring a ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel, which has continued periodic strikes aimed at Hezbollah militants.The United States has been searching the world for countries to contribute to the force, with Indonesia an early volunteer.But diplomats expect challenges in seeing countries send troops so long as Hamas does not agree to disarm fully.- Committee begins work -Gaza native and former Palestinian Authority deputy minister Ali Shaath was earlier tapped to head the governing committee.The committee’s meeting in Cairo also included Bulgarian diplomat Nickolay Mladenov, who was given a role of high representative liaising between the new governing body and Trump’s Board of Peace. Committee members are scheduled to meet again Saturday, one of them told AFP on condition of anonymity.”We hope to go to Gaza next week or the week after; our work is there, and we need to be there,” he said.Trump also named a second “executive board” that appears designed to have a more advisory role.Blair, Witkoff and Mladenov will serve on it as well as Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan.Israel has refused a Turkish role in the security force, owing to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s fiery denunciations of Israel’s actions in Gaza. The board will also include senior figures from mediators Egypt and Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, which normalized ties with Israel in 2020.Trump also named to the board Sigrid Kaag, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Gaza, despite his administration’s efforts to sideline the world body.

US President Donald Trump said Friday there was no immediate need to invoke the Insurrection Act over protests against immigration raids in Minnesota, a day after threatening to use the law.But in a move that would inflame the standoff between the White House and Minnesota, CBS News reported that the Justice Department was investigating Minnesota governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey for impeding federal officers. They have both called for peaceful protests against immigration sweeps in their state. The DOJ did not respond to a request for comment.Amid the escalating row between Trump and Minnesota leaders this week, the president threatened the drastic measure that would have allowed him to deploy the military to police the protests.”If I needed it, I would use it. I don’t think there is any reason right now to use it,” Trump told reporters at the White House when asked about the law that grants the deployment of soldiers on US soil.The Insurrection Act allows a president to sidestep the Posse Comitatus Act to suppress “armed rebellion” or “domestic violence” and use the armed forces “as he considers necessary” to enforce the 19th-century law.Crowds of protesters have clashed with immigration officers across the city of Minneapolis, opposing their efforts to target undocumented migrants with some officers responding with violence.Demonstrations dramatically expanded following the killing of Renee Nicole Good, 37, by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer in Minneapolis on January 7 as the Trump administration pressed operations to catch undocumented migrants.- ‘Incitement of violence’ -Federal agents fired their weapons in two separate incidents, wounding a man from Venezuela Wednesday, and in Good’s killing last week.Federal prosecutors also charged a man with stealing a rifle from an FBI vehicle and he is due in court Friday.US Attorney Daniel Rosen claimed that local officials were responsible for the “incitement of violence against federal law enforcement… which resulted here in the theft of a firearm from an FBI vehicle.”A woman was roughly pulled from her car by officers Tuesday, an AFP correspondent saw, amid the escalating deployment of federal officers to the state.Proponents of immigration enforcement have also begun to face off with those who oppose it in the state, leading to tense encounters.The Minnesota Star Tribune newspaper reported that divisions within the anti-ICE movement were beginning to emerge over how aggressively to resist the enforcement efforts. Activists have also become increasingly wary of “far-right provocateurs trying to bait demonstrators into rioting,” the publication reported.Minnesota’s American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) chapter has reported an uptick in complaints against ICE officers.Democratic Minnesota Governor Tim Walz accused federal agents of waging “a campaign of organized brutality against the people of Minnesota,” in a video posted to X Wednesday night. On Wednesday, the family of Good announced that they had retained a top law firm to probe the killing ahead of launching possible legal action against the officer and the government.The lawyers demanded Thursday that federal officials — including the officer who fired the shots that killed Good — preserve records and evidence relating to the incident.

The US Supreme Court agreed on Friday to hear a bid by German chemicals giant Bayer to put an end to a wave of lawsuits over the weedkiller Roundup.Bayer has spent more than $10 billion settling litigation linked to Roundup since it acquired its producer, the US agrochemical group Monsanto, in 2018.The International Agency for Research on Cancer considers glyphosate, one of Roundup’s ingredients, a probable human carcinogen, but Bayer says scientific studies and regulatory approvals show the weedkiller is safe.The top US court agreed to hear Bayer’s appeal of a $1.25 million award to a Missouri man who claimed Roundup was responsible for his blood cancer — one of thousands of similar “failure-to-warn” lawsuits facing the company.Bayer is arguing that it should be shielded from state lawsuits since the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved the sale of Roundup to consumers and farmers without any warnings.The Trump administration has backed Bayer’s stance that a federal statute on pesticide labels preempts state laws requiring warnings on products that may be carcinogenic.In a brief, Solicitor General John Sauer said the EPA had “for decades” classified glyphosate as “not likely to be carcinogenic in humans,” arguing that the agency’s determination should preempt state rules on the matter.The Missouri case means “a jury may second-guess the agency’s science-based judgments,” Sauer said. “A manufacturer should not be left to ’50 different labeling regimes.'”Bayer CEO Bill Anderson welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision to take the case.”It is time for the US legal system to establish that companies should not be punished under state laws for complying with federal warning label requirements,” Anderson said in a statement.Lori Ann Burd, the environmental health director at the Center for Biological Diversity, expressed disappointment.”It’s a sad day in America when our highest court agrees to consider depriving thousands of Roundup users suffering from cancer of their day in court,” Burd said in a statement.”Bayer keeps losing on the facts about its own product so now it’s asking the court to prevent juries from ever again hearing those facts,” she added.The Supreme Court is expected to hear the case in the spring and issue a ruling by June or early July.

OpenAI announced Friday it will begin testing advertisements on ChatGPT in the coming weeks, as the wildly popular artificial intelligence chatbot seeks to increase revenue to cover its soaring costs.The ads will initially appear in the United States for free and lower-tier subscribers, the company said in a blog post outlining its long-anticipated move. Premium Pro and Enterprise subscribers will remain ad-free.The integration of advertising has been a key question for generative AI chatbots, with companies largely reluctant to interrupt the user experience with ads.But the exorbitant costs of running AI services may have forced OpenAI’s hand.Only a small percentage of its nearly one billion users pay for subscription services, putting pressure on the company to find new revenue sources.Since ChatGPT’s launch in 2022, OpenAI’s valuation has soared to $500 billion in funding rounds — higher than any other private company. Some expect it could go public with a trillion-dollar valuation.But the ChatGPT maker burns through cash at a furious rate, mostly on the powerful computing required to deliver its services.With its move, OpenAI brings its business model closer to tech giants Google and Meta, which have built advertising empires on the back of their free-to-use services.Unlike OpenAI, those companies have massive advertising revenue to fund AI innovation — with Amazon also building a solid ad business on its shopping and video streaming platforms.”Ads aren’t a distraction from the gen AI race; they’re how OpenAI stays in it,” said Jeremy Goldman, an analyst at Emarketer.”If ChatGPT turns on ads, OpenAI is admitting something simple and consequential: the race isn’t just about model quality anymore; it’s about monetizing attention without poisoning trust,” he added.OpenAI’s pivot comes as Google gains ground in the generative AI race, infusing services including Gmail, Maps and YouTube with AI features that—in addition to its Gemini chatbot—compete directly with ChatGPT.OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman has long expressed his dislike for advertising, citing concerns that ads could create distrust about ChatGPT’s content.To address these concerns, OpenAI pledged that ads would never influence ChatGPT’s answers and that user conversations would remain private from advertisers.”Ads do not influence the answers ChatGPT gives you,” the company stated. “Answers are optimized based on what’s most helpful to you. Ads are always separate and clearly labeled.”- ‘Trust over revenue’ -The release was announced by Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s CEO of applications, a former Meta executive who oversaw the social media giant’s advertising business before leaving for Instacart.”As we introduce ads, it’s crucial we preserve what makes ChatGPT valuable in the first place,” Simo said in a blog post.”That means you need to trust that ChatGPT’s responses are driven by what’s objectively useful, never by advertising.”In an apparent reference to Meta, TikTok and Google’s YouTube — platforms accused of maximizing user engagement to boost ad views — OpenAI said it would “not optimize for time spent in ChatGPT.””We prioritize user trust and user experience over revenue,” it added.The commitment to user well-being is a sensitive issue for OpenAI, which has faced accusations of allowing ChatGPT to privilege emotional engagement over safety, allegedly contributing to mental distress among some users.The move comes as ChatGPT Go, the company’s $8 monthly subscription tier, becomes available in the United States and all markets where the service operates.