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Mexico has sued Google for changing the Gulf of Mexico’s name to “Gulf of America” for Google Maps users in the United States, President Claudia Sheinbaum said Friday.”The lawsuit has already been filed,” Sheinbaum said at her morning news conference, without saying where and when it was submitted.On Thursday, US lawmakers voted in favor of the name change, turning into federal law an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in his first week in office in January. Sheinbaum had warned Google, which is part of tech giant Alphabet, in February that she was considering legal action unless the company reversed its decision.Her government argues that Trump’s executive order on the subject only applies to the part of the continental shelf belonging to the United States”All we want is for the decree issued by the US government to be complied with,” Sheinbaum said.”The US government only calls the portion of the US continental shelf the Gulf of America, not the entire gulf, because it wouldn’t have the authority to name the entire gulf,” she added.In response to Trump, Sheinbaum has cheekily suggested calling the United States “Mexican America,” pointing to a map dating back to before 1848, when one-third of her country was seized by the United States.The neighboring countries are in talks to defuse tensions over Trump’s global trade war, which has included a series of tariff announcements targeting Mexico.

US President Donald Trump has fired the country’s top librarian, a senator said, cutting short the term of the only woman and first African American to take on the role.New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich shared an email late Thursday that he said Carla Hayden had received informing her of her termination from the role of librarian of Congress “effective immediately.” “Over the course of her tenure, Dr. Hayden brought the Library of Congress to the people, with initiatives that reached into rural communities and made the library accessible to all Americans, in person and online,” Heinrich said. “While President Trump wants to ban books and tell Americans what to read — or not to read at all — Dr. Hayden has devoted her career to making reading and the pursuit of knowledge available to everyone.”Hayden was nominated to manage the world’s largest library in 2016 but has been criticized by conservatives, including members of the American Accountability Foundation lobby group, which has accused her of seeking to “indoctrinate America’s children with radical sexual ideologies.””Carla Hayden is woke, anti-Trump, and promotes trans-ing kids,” the group posted on social media hours ahead of the librarian’s firing. “It’s time to get her OUT and hire a new guy for the job!”Hayden’s 10-year term was set to expire next year. The Library of Congress provides research and information for the legislative process as well as managing a vast collection of books, films, audio recordings and other materials.The librarian of Congress is responsible for setting policy and managing staff, while also overseeing the US Copyright Office and appointing the poet laureate.Hakeem Jeffries, who leads the Democrats in the House of Representatives, called her dismissal “a disgrace and the latest in his ongoing effort to ban books, whitewash American history and turn back the clock.””The Library of Congress is the People’s Library. There will be accountability for this unprecedented assault on the American way of life sooner rather than later,” he said in a statement.The library did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

US President Donald Trump signaled on Friday that he could lower tariffs on Chinese imports, as the rival superpowers prepare for trade talks over the weekend.”80% Tariff on China seems right!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, which would bring them down from 145 percent, with cumulative duties on some goods reaching a staggering 245 percent.He added that it was “Up to Scott B.”, referring to US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who will confer with China’s Vice Premier He Lifeng this weekend in Geneva to try to cool the conflict roiling international markets.In his post Trump did not say if he thought 80 percent should be the final, definitive level for tariffs on Chinese goods if and when the trade war ends, or an interim status.In retaliation China has slapped 125 percent levies on US goods.In another post, this time all in capital letters, Trump said “China should open up its market to USA — would be so good for them!!! Closed markets don’t work anymore!!!”Chinese official data on Friday showed that the country’s global exports rose in April despite the trade war.Experts said that the forecast-smashing 8.1-percent rise indicated that Beijing was re-routing trade to Southeast Asia to mitigate US tariffs while exports to the United States fell 17.6 percent.”The global supply chain is being rerouted in real time,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management wrote in a note.”The manufacturing juggernaut is diverting flow wherever the tariff pain isn’t,” he said.China has insisted its position that the United States must lift tariffs first remains “unchanged” and vowed to defend its interests.Bessent has said the meetings in Switzerland would focus on “de-escalation” — and not a “big trade deal”.Trump told reporters Thursday that he thought the Geneva talks would be “substantive” and when asked if reducing the levies was a possibility, he said “it could be”.- Markets up -Trump’s Truth Social post came a day after he unveiled what he called a historic trade agreement with Britain, the first deal with any country since he unleashed a blitz of sweeping global tariffs last month.Trump said the British deal would be the first of many, and that he hoped difficult talks with the EU — as well as China — could soon produce results too.Several countries have lined up to hold talks with Washington to avert the worst of Trump’s duties, which range from 10 percent for many countries to the sky high ones on China — Trump’s main target.Major stock markets mostly rose Friday on growing optimism that tariff tensions will ease.US futures were up while European markets were all in the green after a mixed showing in Asia.The Frankfurt DAX index hit a record high before Trump’s social media post, recouping losses spurred by the US president’s April tariffs announcements.In the first trade deal since Trump’s blitz of sweeping global tariffs, Washington agreed to lower levies on British cars and lift them entirely on steel and aluminium. In return, Britain will open up markets to US beef and other farm products, but a 10 percent baseline levy on British goods remained intact.

One of the most pressing issues facing Pope Leo XIV is tackling sexual abuse by clergy in the Catholic Church — and campaigners say he has a mixed record.Two victims’ rights groups, SNAP and Bishop Accountability, issued statements following his election as the first pope from the United States on Thursday, questioning the 69-year-old’s commitment to lifting the lid on the scourge.As head of the Augustinian order worldwide and then as bishop of the Peruvian diocese of Chiclayo between 2015 and 2023, “he released no names of abusers”, Bishop Accountability’s Anne Barrett Doyle alleged.The same was true of his two years as head of the powerful Dicastery for Bishops, a key Vatican department that advised Pope Francis on the appointment of bishops, she said.”Prevost oversaw cases filed… against bishops accused of sexual abuse and of cover-up. He maintained the secrecy of that process, releasing no names and no data,” Barrett Doyle added. “Under his watch, no complicit bishop was stripped of his title.” “Most disturbing is an allegation from victims in his former diocese in Peru that he never opened a canonical case into alleged sexual abuse carried out by two priests,” she added.The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), for its part, said that when Leo was bishop of Chiclayo, three victims reported their accusations to the diocese but nothing happened.The trio went to the civil authorities in 2022.”Victims have since claimed Prevost failed to open an investigation, sent inadequate information to Rome, and that the diocese allowed the priest to continue saying mass,” the group said.As provincial head of the Augustinians in the Chicago area, SNAP added, the future pope also allowed a priest accused of abusing minors to live in an Augustinian friary near a school in the city in 2000.- ‘Opened the way’ -Yet Bishop Accountability also highlighted positive reports of Leo’s role in exposing the scandal of abuse and corruption against Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (SCV), an ultra-conservative lay congregation in Peru dissolved by Francis this year.Survivor Pedro Salinas — a journalist who wrote an expose against the group — last month included Prevost among five bishops who played an “extremely important role… on behalf of the victims”.That case “gives us reasons to hope”, Barrett Doyle said, adding: “We pray we see more of this decisive action by Prevost when he is pope.”On Thursday, the head of the Peruvian Bishop’s Conference, Carlos Garcia Camader, also defended the new pope’s record.As bishop, he “opened the way here in Peru to listen to the victims, to organise the truth commission” in the SCV scandal.First accusations of abuse emerged in the early 2000s, but the case exploded in 2015 with a book citing victims that detailed “physical, psychological, and sexual abuse” carried out by the movement’s leaders and founder, according to the Vatican’s official news outlet.After a seven-year investigation, Pope Francis dissolved the group just weeks before he died, after expelling 10 members. About 36 people, including 19 minors were abused, according to Vatican News. In January, Prevost joined Francis in a meeting with Jose Enrique Escardo, one of the first victims to denounce the religious movement’s abuses.”We reject the cover-up and secrecy, that does a lot of harm, because we have to help people who have suffered because of wrongdoing,” Prevost told Peruvian daily La Republica in an interview in June 2019.

Pope Leo XIV will celebrate mass Friday, the day after becoming the first US head of the Catholic Church, with the world watching for signs of what kind of pope he will be.Chicago-born Robert Francis Prevost became on Thursday the 267th pope, spiritual leader to the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, after a secret conclave by his fellow cardinals in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel.At 11:00 am (0900 GMT) Friday, the 69-year-old sometimes referred to in Rome as the “Latin Yankee” for his time as a missionary in Peru, will return to the chapel to celebrate a private mass with cardinals that will be broadcast by the Vatican, delivering his much-anticipated first homily as pope.Tens of thousands of well-wishers cheered Leo as he appeared on the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica on Thursday evening — with many having no idea who the modest man before them was.The American, who spent two decades in Peru and was only made a cardinal in 2023, had been on many Vatican watchers’ lists of potential popes, although he is far from being a globally recognised figure.Over the coming days, from Friday’s mass to Sunday’s midday Regina Coeli prayer and a meeting with journalists at the Vatican on Monday, the actions and words of Leo will be closely scrutinised.Across the globe in Peru, well-wishers including the bishop of El Callao outside Lima, Luis Alberto Barrera, saluted the Augustinian’s engagement in the Andean country.”He showed his closeness and simplicity with the people,” Barrera told AFP.”He was a very simple person who adapted to everything, like any good missionary.”In Chicago, locals celebrated his love of baseball, deep-dish pizza and his working-class South Side neighbourhood in the United States’ third-largest city.The Chicago Tribune called him “the pride and joy of every priest and nun” at his local parish, where he went to school and served as an altar boy.- Build bridges -In his first speech to the crowds packed into St Peter’s Square on Thursday evening, Leo echoed his predecessor Pope Francis with a call for peace.”Help us, and each other, to build bridges through dialogue, through encounter, to come together as one people, always in peace,” he said.”We must seek together how to be a missionary Church, a Church that builds bridges, which holds dialogues, which is always open.”World leaders raced to welcome his election and promised to work with the Church on global issues at a time of great geopolitical uncertainty.Leo faces a momentous task. As well as asserting his moral voice on a conflict-torn world stage, he must try to unite a divided Church and tackle burning issues such as the continued fallout from the sexual abuse scandal.As Cardinal Prevost, the new pope had defended the poor and underprivileged and had reposted articles online critical of US President Donald Trump’s anti-migrant policies.But Trump nevertheless welcomed his election, saying on Thursday it was a “great honour” to have a pope from the United States.It was not known how many ballots it took to elect Leo XIV, but the conclave followed recent history, wrapping up in less than two days.- Consensus candidate -The crowds erupted with cheers when white smoke billowed into the sky from the Sistine Chapel chimney, the traditional sign that a new pope has been elected. “I’m not an overly religious person but, being here with all these people just blew me away,” said 39-year-old Joseph Brian from Belfast in Northern Ireland.With the choice of Prevost, experts said, the cardinals had opted for continuity with the late Francis, a progressive from Argentina who shook up the Church in his 12-year papacy.”He is a moderate consensus candidate who fits into a soft continuity, a gentle continuity with Pope Francis, who will not alienate conservatives,” said Francois Mabille, a researcher at the Paris-based think tank IRIS and author of a book on Vatican strategy.”At least, he has not alienated them.”Vatican watchers agreed that Prevost’s more soft-spoken style should help him as he navigates turbulent waters on the international stage, acting as a counterpoint to more divisive voices.”It is a posthumous success for Pope Francis, with undoubtedly some different accents and embodiment of the pontifical role,” said Mabille.

US President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer unveiled a “historic” trade agreement Thursday, Trump’s first deal with any country since he unleashed a blitz of sweeping global tariffs.The deal will see Washington lower tariffs on British luxury cars and lifts them entirely on steel and aluminum, although a 10 percent baseline levy on British goods stays in place.As Trump announced the deal while making a phone call to Starmer in the Oval Office, he said Britain would in return will open up markets to US beef and other farm products.But the deal remained thin on details, despite Trump hailing it as a template for deals with other countries such as China after his “Liberation Day” tariffs in April.”I’m thrilled to announce that we have reached a breakthrough trade deal with the United Kingdom,” Trump said. “The deal includes billions of dollars of increased market access for American exports.”The deal came through at the last minute, with Starmer saying he learnt that Trump had given it his approval when he called him on Wednesday night as he watched a football match.”This is a really fantastic, historic day,” Starmer said during the call with Trump.He noted that it coincided with the 80th anniversary of “Victory Day” for allied forces — including Britain and the United States — over Nazi Germany in World War II.- ‘James Bond’ -Britain had made a major push to avoid Trump’s tariffs, which the Republican insists are necessary to stop the United States from being “ripped off” by other countries.Starmer launched a charm offensive as early as February when he came to the White House armed with an invitation from King Charles III for a historic second state visit for Trump.The reward came on Thursday, with a trade deal slashes export tariffs for British cars from 27.5 percent to 10 percent, Britain said. The move will apply to 100,000 vehicles from luxury makers like Rolls Royce and Jaguar, billionaire Trump added.”That is a huge and important reduction,” PM Starmer said during a visit to a Jaguar Land Rover factory in the central Midlands area of England.US automakers however said the deal “hurts” companies that have partnered with Canada and Mexico.The British government insisted that the deal to allow in more US agricultural products would not dilute British food standards, amid concerns over chlorinated US chicken and hormones in US beef.It also entirely lifts recently-imposed 25 percent tariffs on British steel and aluminium. World stock markets mostly rose on news of the deal but uncertainty remained over key issues.Trump said that “James Bond has nothing to worry about” from his threatened 100 percent tariffs on foreign movies, but did not spell out how Britain could get a carve out.The deal also failed to mention digital services, with the White House keen to tackle a recent digital services tax imposed by Britain on US tech giants.- ‘Maxed-out’ -Both sides said there would be further negotiations on a fuller deal, but Trump denied overselling the agreement.”This is a maxed-out deal — not like you said it really incorrectly,” he added, answering a reporter’s question on whether he was overstating the breadth of the deal.The deal is a fresh win for Labour leader Starmer after Britain this week struck a free-trade agreement with India, its biggest such deal since it voted to leave the European Union in 2016.Torturous negotiations between London and Washington in the years since the Brexit vote failed to produce a deal until now.But Trump has also been in need of a win after weeks of insisting that countries were lining up to make deals with the United States.Trump told reporters at the White House he was “working on three of them” and that the British deal could act as a template.US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said most countries would still be hit with higher tariffs than the 10 percent baseline “Liberation Day” tariffs, and only the “best” would escape.Top US and Chinese officials are due to meet in Switzerland over the weekend to kickstart trade officials, the first official meeting since Trump’s tariffs plunged the world’s two largest economies into a trade war.

The founder and former CEO of bankrupt cryptocurrency trading platform Celsius, Alexander Mashinsky, was sentenced Thursday to 12 years in prison on fraud charges.Mashinsky, 50, pleaded guilty last December to securities fraud in a deal that reduced the level of charges he faced.The sentence comes down nearly three years after the startup’s collapse as a cryptocurrency platform, which offered customers the ability to invest in digital currencies, including its own coin, CEL.According to the indictment, Celsius executives took more than $4 billion in customers’ assets to finance the platform’s operations, make unsecured loans and invest in high-risk items.Mashinsky was also accused of manipulating the price of CEL by using customers’ funds to purchase the currency, artificially inflating its price.At its peak in late 2021, Celsius had more than one million clients and held more than $25 billion in assets.But the company hit hard times in the spring of 2022 as the value of cryptocurrencies plummeted.Facing deep customer withdrawals, Celsius on June 12, 2022 froze over $4.7 billion in customer accounts before filing for bankruptcy protection a month later.A progress report published in March found that 93 percent of the frozen assets had been recovered and returned to former Celsius customers.The 2022 cryptocurrency collapse affected a number of other startups in the field, including FTX, the second-largest crypto exchange that filed for bankruptcy in November 2022.

For decades, long-suffering Chicago White Sox fans grumbled that it would take divine intervention for their baseball team to succeed. Now they have the holiest of supporters in their corner: Pope Leo XIV.Chicago-born Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, who on Thursday was elected pope to lead the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, has been a longtime fan of one of his two hometown baseball franchises.Initially it appeared that both Chicago teams were claiming Leo as their own, fueling a cross-town beef — until the pope’s brother weighed in.Speaking to local television station WGN, John Prevost made it abundantly clear where Leo’s sports allegiances lie.”Yeah he was never, ever a Cubs fan, so I don’t know where that came from,” John Prevost told the station, referring to the other Chicago team in Major League Baseball. “He was always a Sox fan.”Prevost also revealed some members of the family have been divided in their support.”Our mother was a Cubs fan… and our dad was a (St. Louis) Cardinals fan,” he said. “And all the aunts, our mom’s family, was from north side, so that’s why they were fans” of the Cubs, which are headquartered in that part of town.His brother? “He rooted for the White Sox.”The Sox swiftly took to X to capitalize on how the worldwide news touched their team, posting a photograph of a sign at their home stadium Rate Field, the former Comiskey Park, that reads: “HEY CHICAGO, HE’S A SOX FAN!”The team added in its post: “Well, would you look at that… Congratulations to Chicago’s own Pope Leo XIV.”Wrigley Field, longtime home of the Cubs, had posted a nearly identical message on its sign: “HEY CHICAGO, HE’S A CUBS FAN!”In one respect Leo is already following in the footsteps of papal predecessor Francis, the first Argentine pope, who was known for being a lifelong fan of his beloved local San Lorenzo football club in Buenos Aires.The White Sox won the World Series in 2005, ending an 88-year drought between their latest two Major League Baseball championship titles.

A Polish former model testifying through tears Thursday at the trial of Harvey Weinstein said the disgraced movie mogul sexually assaulted her when she was a minor at age 16.Kaja Sokola, 39, alleged in a New York criminal court circumstances surrounding an alleged assault in 2002 when she met with Weinstein in a Manhattan apartment.”I was scared, I never had been in an intimate situation before that,” Sokola said in graphic testimony, adding that as he molested her she noticed Weinstein “staring at me in the reflection” of a bathroom mirror.”I’ll never forget this,” she said.Sokola is being heard this week in criminal court for the first time, as one of three accusers in a 2020 New York case alleging Weinstein committed multiple sexual assaults. Weinstein does not face charges in the alleged 2002 incident with Sokola because it falls outside the statute of limitations.On Wednesday, Sokola testified that Weinstein also sexually assaulted her in spring 2006, in a Manhattan hotel when she was 19, claims the Miramax co-founder denies.The two other accusers — onetime production assistant Miriam Haley and then-aspiring actress Jessica Mann — testified at Weinstein’s original trial.Their accounts helped galvanize the #MeToo movement nearly a decade ago, but the case is being re-prosecuted as Weinstein faces a new trial in New York.His 2020 convictions on charges relating to Haley and Mann were overturned last year by the New York Court of Appeals, which ruled that the way witnesses were handled in the original trial was unlawful.Sokola said she was a 16-year-old aspiring actress when she met Weinstein at a dinner with other models. The film producer who is nearly 40 years her senior called her a few days later to propose a lunch meeting, she testified, but instead they arrived at an apartment and he told her to take off her clothes.”He forced me to the bathroom. I told him I didn’t want to do it, and he said I had to work on my stubbornness,” she told the court, testifying that Weinstein touched her and forced her to touch him until he ejaculated.Sokola recalled feeling “stupid, ashamed,” as the 73-year-old Weinstein, seated in a wheelchair, looked at the jury or rested his hands on his forehead.When she told Weinstein she wanted to leave, “he got upset” and said “I had to listen to him if I wanted to pursue my career in Hollywood,” added Sokola, who is now a psychotherapist.Sokola acknowledged that a year later she began losing weight and suffered from conditions including anorexia and bulimia.Asked by prosecutor Shannon Lucey why she never reported what happened, she said “I thought it was my fault.””I was a happy teenager before that,” she said. “I had boundaries, but this happened so rapidly without my permission.”Sokola said she saw Weinstein again at a lunch in 2006, and that he had lured her to a Manhattan hotel room under the pretext of showing her a script.She said Weinstein pushed her onto a bed and forced her to have sex.”I told him to stop,” he said in testimony set to continue Friday, “but he didn’t listen.”Weinstein, the producer of box-office hits “Pulp Fiction” and “Shakespeare in Love,” has never acknowledged wrongdoing.He is serving a 16-year prison sentence after being convicted in California of raping and assaulting a European actress more than a decade ago.

US Catholics flocked to churches across the country in a celebratory mood to mark the “excitement” of the first-ever American pontiff following Thursday’s election of Pope Leo, who worshippers hoped would bring back lapsed believers.Outside Manhattan’s imposing St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Rosaria Vigorito, 66, said she could “feel the excitement just in the few minutes I’ve been walking around.”The Miami artist said she hoped Pope Leo, a 69-year-old from Chicago who spent much of his career in Peru, would be a reformist.”I have one issue with the Catholic Church that I’m hoping they’ll correct, and that is allowing women to become priests,” she said, a crucifix around her neck.”I think Mary Magdalene was an important apostle. There was a press release issued by the Vatican years ago — they called her the apostle to the apostles.”Crowds of faithful and journalists had gathered outside the church that first opened its doors in 1879, with hundreds of worshippers filing in to pray and light candles.Oscar Salvador, 45, a laborer from Mexico, said he hoped Leo would be able to stem the tide of people leaving the church.”I believe it is a blessing for the people of America,” he said. “Hopefully, he will leave a good legacy… so that more people stay in Catholicism, since lately we have seen many people leave for other religious sects.”- ‘A bit surprised’ -In Houston, the sprawling Texas city where more than a quarter of residents reportedly identify as Catholic, Azul Montemayor said she was “a bit surprised.””I was not expecting an American to be elected and I’m just hoping that he carries on (pope) Francis’s legacy of just being more inclusive” and “doesn’t get swayed by more conservative ideology” popular now under US  President Donald Trump, said the 29-year-old examinations officer.Analyst Ciro Benitez, 41, told AFP that Leo’s multiculturalism was a sign “that we can expand to different kinds of cultures, (and) I guess, to the world.” In Washington, Peruvian diplomat Julio Aiana, 32, said “we are happy that now we have a pope who is half Peruvian” — referring to the nationality Robert Francis Prevost acquired while ministering there years before becoming pope.”I believe that the times are changing,” Aiana said.Reverend Monsignor W. Ronald Jameson, director of St. Matthews cathedral, told AFP Leo “was a friend of pope Francis — and he has the ability to really listen and reflect on what was said, and to implement those various ideas he heard.”In Los Angeles, Francis Fah attended a special mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels to offer special prayers for Leo, as the first American pope.”I think that maybe this is a sign that hopefully he can do something to get some peace and stability in the country,” she told AFP.Back in New York, worshipper Tim Anderson, 61, said Leo’s strength would lie in his languages — reportedly speaking English, Spanish, Italian, French and Portuguese — in addition to reading Latin and German.”I’m still working on English so I think it’s gonna be interesting in this day and age where there’s so much craziness,” he laughed.”Maybe he can bring back a little bit of what I remember as a child growing up a Roman Catholic — and how full the churches were back then.”- ‘Welcoming to everybody’? -Vigorito said she wanted Leo “to bring us together.”She acknowledged the new pontiff would have a daunting task to “do as much as (he) can as a religious leader, because we deal with a lot of secular politics and issues.””I would love the new pope to help, especially with conflicts in any way possible, like in Ukraine,” she said.Salvador also voiced hope Leo “can reconcile the countries that are at war and help them to reach peace so that we do not continue on this violent path.”Having an American pope “will help bring more people to the Catholic Church, and even those that have walked away — maybe they’ll get reengaged,” added Vigorito.Annie Elm from North Carolina paid tribute to Francis, calling him “wonderful” and praising his legacy.”He loved everybody. He lived very modestly,” she said. “He was very humble.” Elm also said she hoped Leo would be “very kind and caring — welcoming to everybody.”gw-burs/sla