AFP USA

The US Supreme Court appeared divided on Thursday on whether federal judges have the right to issue nationwide blocks to presidential decrees, as they heard arguments about President Donald Trump’s bid to scrap birthright citizenship.The case before the court involved Trump’s executive order ending automatic citizenship for children born on American soil, but the question at hand was whether a single district court can freeze an executive branch move with a universal injunction.Other Trump initiatives have also been blocked by judges — both Democratic and Republican appointees — leading the president to make an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court, where conservatives make up a 6-3 majority.A ruling by the court in favor of the administration could have far-reaching ramifications for the ability of the judiciary to rein in Trump or future American presidents.Both conservative and liberal justices expressed concerns during oral arguments about the increasing use of nationwide injunctions by district courts in recent years, but appeared divided and uncertain about how to tackle the issue.Arguments had been scheduled for an hour but went on for more than two and barely touched on the legality of Trump’s birthright citizenship order, which has been paused by courts in Maryland, Massachusetts and Washington state that deemed it unconstitutional.Justice Samuel Alito, an arch-conservative, said nationwide injunctions pose a “practical problem” because there are hundreds of district court judges and every one of them is “convinced” they know best. Justice Elena Kagan, one of the three liberals on the court, noted that justices across the ideological spectrum have “expressed frustration at the way district courts are doing their business,” but said in the birthright case, “the courts keep deciding the same way.””You just keep losing in the lower courts,” Kagan told the government’s lawyer, Solicitor General John Sauer.- ‘Nuclear weapon’ -Sauer compared nationwide injunctions to a “nuclear weapon,” saying they “disrupt the Constitution’s careful balancing of the separation of powers.”The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to restrict the application of a district court’s injunction solely to the parties who brought the case and the district where the judge presides.”Courts grant relief to the people who sue in front of them,” Sauer said. “So the notion that relief has to be given to the whole world because others who have not taken the time to sue are not before the courts results in all these problems.”Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a liberal, pushed back.”Your argument seems to turn our justice system… into a ‘catch me if you can’ kind of regime,” Jackson said, “where everybody has to have a lawyer and file a lawsuit in order for the government to stop violating people’s rights.”And I don’t understand how that is remotely consistent with the rule of law.”Sauer responded that the government is the one being forced to go “racing from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, having to sort of clear the table in order to implement a new policy.”Past presidents have also complained about national injunctions shackling their agenda, but such orders have sharply risen under Trump, who has seen more in two months than Joe Biden did during his first three years in office.- ‘Chaos’ -Jeremy Feigenbaum, solicitor general of New Jersey, one of 23 states opposing the bid to end birthright citizenship, said there is an “extraordinary basis” for a nationwide injunction in this case.Allowing separate court rulings on the birthright issue would lead to “chaos on the ground where people’s citizenship turns on and off when you cross state lines,” Feigenbaum said.Trump’s executive order decrees that children born to parents in the United States illegally or on temporary visas would not automatically become citizens.The three lower courts ruled that to be a violation of the 14th Amendment, which states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”Trump’s order “reflects the original meaning of the 14th Amendment, which guaranteed citizenship to the children of former slaves, not to illegal aliens or temporary visitors,” Sauer said.The Supreme Court rejected such a narrow definition in a landmark 1898 case.Whatever the justices decide on nationwide injunctions, the actual question of whether Trump can legally end birthright citizenship is expected to be back in front of the top court before long.

US President Donald Trump’s son Eric on Thursday assured the world’s leading crypto conference that Washington would hoard “a tremendous amount of bitcoin,” aided by his father’s policies of slashing environmental protections to ramp up energy production.In front of a packed crowd at the Consensus conference in Toronto, the younger Trump promoted his latest venture into the crypto industry, American Bitcoin, which he said aims to mine the digital currency more cheaply than its rivals. The US crypto industry has welcomed Trump’s return to the White House, praising policies its says mark a clear departure from the deep skepticism of the previous Democratic administration toward digital currencies.But the Trump family’s entry into the crypto sector, from American Bitcoin to family-backed projects like World Liberty Financial and the $TRUMP meme coin, have increased potential ethical concerns.$TRUMP saw a spike in value when it announced that its top 220 holders would be invited to a dinner with the president — with the top 25 receiving “an exclusive reception” beforehand — set to take place on May 22 at the Trump National Golf Club near Washington.Eric Trump told the conference his father’s administration’s commitment to drive down US energy costs would help large-scale crypto mining businesses that need data centers, which consume massive amounts of energy. “We have a president in the United States that actually believes in having a proper energy policy in the United States of America, where he wants the cheapest energy anywhere in the world because that’s going to fuel all the innovation that we’re talking about right now,” he said.- ‘We can win that race’ -The Trump administration has made bringing down energy prices and increasing domestic supply a key policy, along with rolling back clean energy initiatives and opening more federal land and offshore areas for oil and gas drilling.Similar bitcoin mining businesses in France and Scotland are not viable, Eric Trump argued, because “the energy price is too high.”Trump said he sees the bitcoin sector as a competition with “two races.”One area is the accumulation of bitcoin, whose value topped $100,000 again this month. “Then I think there’s the game of who can mine it the cheapest.”American Bitcoin will strive to “accumulate a tremendous amount of bitcoin,” he said.  “But I also want to be the person who’s mining it, by far the cheapest. And I think we can win that race.”Bitcoin mining involves using computing power to solve complex mathematical problems.The data centers increasingly required for large-scale mining have drawn criticism from environmentalists over their substantial energy needs. American Bitcoin announced plans this week to go public on the New York Stock exchange via a merger with Gryphon Digital Mining Inc. 

The US government rested its case against Facebook-owner Meta on Thursday, as it tries to persuade a US judge that the tech giant bought Instagram and WhatsApp to neutralize them as rivals.The landmark case, brought by the Federal Trade Commission, could see Meta forced to divest itself of the two apps, which have grown into global powerhouses since their buyouts.The trial, held in a federal court in Washington, is presided over by Judge James Boasberg who will decide the outcome of the case.At the heart of the antitrust battle is the question of whether the crucial ingredient that undergirds Meta’s success is its ability to make connections between friends or family across its apps.The argument — that real-life connections are the glue that make Facebook’s apps successful — is the foundation of the government’s argument that describes a world where only youth-targeted Snap is a credible, if very distant, rival.Meta counters that its rivals are YouTube and TikTok and that it competes furiously in a much wider and ever-changing market to capture the eyeballs and attention of the world’s users.The trial, expected to continue for several more weeks, has seen top Meta executives take the stand, including founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and former Meta chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg.Much of the testimony has been devoted to government lawyers building their case that Facebook and its family of apps constitute a market that is distinct from TikTok and YouTube, apps where personal connections have very little impact on usage.The US government argues that Meta’s hold on friends and family offers a unique ability to build out its products and rake in billions of dollars in profits every quarter.As a sign of the monopoly, the government also points to widespread reports of customer dissatisfaction with Meta products but continued success and growth of its apps.Meta executives argue that its apps are facing major headwinds and that calling them a monopoly is wrong.On the government’s last day of calling its witnesses, the head of Facebook, Tom Alison told the court the company is in an “upheaval,” facing generational changes in online habits as young users prefer TikTok-style short video content over sharing pictures and text.”The reality is that Facebook was built 21 years ago and Gen Z users have different expectations,” Alison said.But the government believes that Facebook’s hold on friends and family shields its business from swings in the market and that it bought Instagram and WhatsApp, in 2012 and 2014 respectively, to remove potential threats to its dominance.- ‘Failed’ -Testimony in the past weeks has included revelations by Kevin Systrom, the founder of Instagram, that he felt that Zuckerberg had undermined the success of his photo-sharing app in favor of Facebook once he was bought out.This seemed to back the government’s argument that the purchase of Instagram was originally intended as an effort to remove a potential rival, before it became successful in its own right.Meta on Thursday began calling its own list of witnesses, beginning with executives from Snap.”After five weeks of trial, it is clear that the FTC has failed to meet the legal standard required under antitrust law,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement.”Regardless, we will present our case to show what every 17-year-old in the world knows: Instagram competes with TikTok (and YouTube and X and many other apps),” Meta added.

A US judge pleaded not guilty on Thursday to helping a man evade immigration agents, court documents showed, as she argues that federal officials have no power to prosecute her.Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan was indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury on charges of obstructing an official proceeding and concealing a person from arrest. Her attorney issued a statement saying that Dugan “asserts her innocence and looks forward to being vindicated in court,” according to the New York Times.President Donald Trump has conducted a crackdown on undocumented migrants since coming to power in January, and has clashed with several courts which have argued he has not followed due process. Dugan’s arrest set off a torrent of criticism by Democrats and applause by some Republicans, while more than 150 former state and federal judges signed a letter to the Justice Department calling the arrest an attempt to intimidate the judiciary.Dugan is seeking to dismiss the case, arguing that she cannot be prosecuted over actions she took as a judge in and around her courtroom, according to local media. Her lawyers have pointed to a Supreme Court decision last year that found that Trump was immune from prosecution for official acts.The charges stem from a standoff with federal agents outside Dugan’s courtroom in downtown Milwaukee in April. They had come to arrest Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, a 30-year-old Mexican defendant appearing on misdemeanor battery charges whom immigration officials say was deported in 2013.Prosecutors say Dugan sent the agents down the hall to see the chief judge and, while they were away, postponed Flores-Ruiz’s hearing and escorted him through a jury exit to a private part of the courthouse.The area leads to the public hallway where immigration agents were waiting. But Flores-Ruiz was allowed to leave the building before being arrested outside.Dugan was arrested a week later in a sting publicized by FBI Director Kash Patel, who posted a photo on social media of her being led away in handcuffs. Attorney General Pam Bondi accused Dugan of “protecting a criminal defendant over victims of crime.”Protesters gathered outside the court in Milwaukee in support of Dugan, waving signs reading “Stop Trump’s war on democracy,” “Intimidation is a tool of fascism” and “No justice, no peace.”A trial has been scheduled for July.

Walmart on Thursday reported another solid quarter but warned of price increases due to President Donald Trump’s tariffs on China and other major trading partners.”We will do our best to keep our prices as low as possible but given the magnitude of the tariffs, even at the reduced levels, we aren’t able to absorb all the pressure,” Chief Executive Doug McMillon said in a conference call with analysts.Executives with the big box store chain welcomed the de-escalation of the US-China trade war announced this week, but said the levies on China remained too high. The tariffs have a particularly strong impact on items such as electronics and toys.Consumers will begin to see more price increases in the latter part of May, with a more noticeable impact in June, said Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey.”If you’ve got a 30 percent tariff on certain items, you’ll likely see a double digit” price increase, Rainey said in an interview with Yahoo Finance.Walmart officials said the extent to which tariffs are passed on to consumers will depend on the individual item.Rainey said Walmart saw an opportunity to play “offense” with some products, meaning the retail giant could absorb more of the tariff to keep prices lower and boost its market share.”We could see higher prices on some non-tariffed items and stable or even lower prices on some tariffed products,” said CFRA Research senior equity analyst Arun Sundaram.- Uncertain profit hit -The comments came as Walmart reported profits of $4.5 billion, down 12.1 percent from the year-ago level, but topping analyst expectations. Revenues rose 2.5 percent to $165.6 billion.The retail giant posted a 4.5 percent rise in first-quarter comparable sales in Walmart’s US stores behind another robust performance in groceries. McMillon said Walmart’s scale enables it to absorb tariffs on some items without passing them on to consumers. In some cases, suppliers have shifted to materials without tariffs such as fiberglass instead of aluminum, which has a tariff.McMillon flagged tariffs on countries like Costa Rica, Peru and Colombia on items such as bananas, avocados, coffee and roses.”We’ll do our best to control what we can control in order to keep food prices as low as possible,” McMillon said.Besides China, Walmart imports heavily into the United States from Mexico, Vietnam, India and Canada. The Trump administration is at various stages of negotiation following the president’s sweeping April 2 announcement that affected all US trading partners.While maintaining its full-year projections, the company did not offer a range on its second-quarter profit outlook, citing uncertainty around US trade policy.Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData, said Walmart was better positioned than other retailers amid the tariffs because of the importance of grocery, a category where “consumers will continue to prioritize spending out of necessity,” he said in a note.”Although the waves caused by tariffs now seem to be calmer, it would be incorrect to assume that the waters are completely safe. There will be a lot of further disruption ahead,” Saunders said, adding that Walmart is “one of the sturdiest ships” in retail.Shares initially rallied on the earnings, but fell after Walmart’s comments on pricing increases.CFRA analyst Sundaram said the fall in shares reflected investor disappointment that Walmart didn’t raise its full-year outlook after recent positive developments on the tariff front.”Uncertainty grew when Walmart chose not to provide second-quarter profit guidance,” Sundaram said. “While we still believe the company can exceed its full-year operating profit and (earnings) forecasts, we now expect more earnings volatility over the next few quarters compared to our initial projections.”

Attorneys for Sean “Diddy” Combs on Thursday tried to chip away at the credibility of Casandra Ventura, the music mogul’s former girlfriend, after two days of her grueling testimony in his trial on sex trafficking charges.Ventura, the singer widely known as Cassie, told jurors that Combs raped, beat and forced her into drug-fueled sex parties during their more than 10 years together — excruciating accounts that now open her up to a grilling from defense lawyers.Combs’s attorney Anna Estevao focused on aspects of their relationship that were tender, admitting into evidence numerous emails and text exchanges that include Combs and Ventura expressing love for each other. Other messages were sexually explicit.When asked why she would look forward to seeing Combs after he had traveled, the 38-year-old Ventura replied: “Because I had fallen in love with him and cared about him very much.”One of the messages from Ventura to Combs, dated 2009, read: “I’m always ready to freak off lolol.”That refers to the so-called “freak-offs” with Combs, Ventura and male escorts — sex performances directed by the music mogul that sometimes lasted for days, according to Ventura.In her third day on the witness stand in Manhattan federal court, Ventura — who is heavily pregnant with her third child — was soft-spoken and matter-of-fact, answering many defense questions with a simple “yes.”Combs, 55, was once one of the most powerful figures in the music industry, but is now incarcerated on charges of sex trafficking and leading an illegal sex ring that enforced its power with crimes including arson, kidnapping and bribery.Combs — known during his career as Puff Daddy, P. Diddy and Diddy — has rejected all charges against him and pleaded not guilty. If convicted, he could spend the rest of his life in prison.Ventura is the prosecution’s star witness: On Tuesday and Wednesday, she described Combs as controlling and willing to wield his wealth and influence to fulfill his desires.She gave vivid accounts of coercive sex parties — she participated in hundreds, she testified — and brutal beatings.That testimony will underpin much of the prosecution’s case against Combs, who is alleged to have used violence and blackmail to manipulate women over many years.However, the defense contends that while Ventura’s relationship with Combs was complicated and included domestic abuse, it did not amount to sex trafficking, and that she behaved erratically and even violently herself.”Being a willing participant in your own sex life is not sex trafficking,” said defense lawyer Teny Geragos earlier this week.The defense implied Thursday that Ventura was taking an active role in planning the sexual encounters, though the singer reiterated that it was with Combs that she wanted to be intimate, not random escorts.- ‘Humiliating’ -On Wednesday, Ventura alleged that in 2018, as she and Combs were breaking up, he raped her in her living room.And she testified that her time with the artist — often credited with helping to usher hip-hop into the mainstream — left her with post-traumatic stress disorder, drug addiction and suicidal thoughts.The drugs were a “buffer” to withstand the “humiliating” and often filmed sexual encounters, she said.In a graphic hotel surveillance clip from March 2016 shown to jurors Monday, Tuesday and again Wednesday, Combs is seen brutally beating and dragging Ventura down a hallway.The prosecution played portions of the footage while Ventura was on the stand.When asked why she did not fight back or get up, Ventura answered simply that curled up on the ground “felt like the safest place to be.”Following the hotel assault, Ventura was forced to attend the premiere of her movie “The Perfect Match” days later while covered in bruises, the jury heard. She said she wore sunglasses to conceal a black eye.Judge Arun Subramanian on Thursday urged the defense to move more quickly in cross-examining Ventura given her late-stage pregnancy, and attorneys said they would attempt to wrap up by Friday.Trial proceedings are anticipated to continue well into the summer.

Retail sales in the United States were near-flat in April, government data showed Thursday, with indications that spending is slowing after consumers rushed to beat higher prices from President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs.Overall sales nudged up 0.1 percent to $724.1 billion last month, the Commerce Department said, slightly below a Briefing.com consensus forecast.But the rate was significantly down from March’s revised growth of 1.7 percent, when buyers sought to get ahead of Trump’s broad levies that he said were coming in April.From a year ago, retail sales were still up by 5.2 percent last month.”It does look like the consumers, as was generally expected, are starting to pull back,” Nationwide chief economist Kathy Bostjancic told AFP.”They pulled forward so much spending ahead of the tariffs. It’s only natural that we’re going to see some payback in the coming months,” she added.Analysts had expected headline retail sales to be relatively flat, in part after auto sales jumped in March.Excluding sales at motor vehicles and parts dealers, retail sales rose 0.1 percent between March and April.Sales at gasoline stations dropped 0.5 percent from the prior month in April, while those at vehicles and parts dealers slipped 0.1 percent too.But Oxford Economics’ deputy chief US economist Michael Pearce noted the auto sector’s performance remained resilient and that “a decent rise in spending at bars and restaurants” suggests a plunge in consumer confidence had yet to fully hit discretionary spending.Sales at restaurants and bars increased 1.2 percent.Although analysts at Pantheon Macroeconomics anticipated other components to hold up, spending on clothing and at department stores slid.- ‘Broader slowdown’ -The shifts came as consumer confidence fell last month, reflecting concerns about Trump’s tariffs on friend and foe, particularly targeting goods from China.Apart from imposing a 10 percent tariff on most trading partners, Trump targeted imports from China with much sharper levies above 100 percent, but now at 30 percent after a temporary de-escalation this week.Pearce of Oxford Economics said retail spending will likely weaken ahead, anticipating a “broader slowdown in response to tariff-fueled price increases.”Already, major retailer Walmart warned Thursday of higher prices and continued uncertainty over tariffs.”That’s going to weigh on spending,” said Bostjancic. “We also think that the labor market will continue to weaken,” translating to less job and income growth that consumers can tap to fund purchases.

The first Melania Trump statue in her native Slovenia was destroyed by fire and now its bronze replacement has gone missing, prompting a police investigation.The life-sized bronze of the US first lady was unveiled near her hometown of Sevnica in 2020, towering over a field on a tree stump, after arson destroyed the previous wooden statue.According to police and the bronze’s creator, American conceptual artist Brad Downey, the statue was chopped off at the ankles and carted away.”The theft was reported on May 13 and immediately police officers visited the crime scene and launched an investigation,” police spokeswoman Alenka Drenik Rangus told AFP on Thursday.Downey said he learnt about the theft while preparing a new project in Germany and said he was “a bit sad that it’s gone”.”My feeling (is) that it has something to do with the new election (of Donald Trump), but who knows, right?” Downey told AFP.He added when the original statue had been burnt “it didn’t feel right” so he decided to replace it with a bronze copy, which he has described as an “anti-monument, anti-propaganda”.The original statue featuring a blue dress and heels had been carved with a chainsaw by local artist Ales Zupevc out of a tree.The bronze statue was placed on a private field — fixed with concrete and metal bars — near Sevnica toward the end of Donald Trump’s first term as US president, while he was campaigning for re-election.Melania’s arrival in the White House when her husband Donald became US president raised hope he may one day visit her homeland, which has yet to happen.Melania left the EU member of two million when it was still part of communist Yugoslavia.In Sevnica, some 90 kilometres (60 miles) east of the capital Ljubljana, she has inspired numerous products, including cakes and chocolates, named after her.

A 62-year-old man known as the “Cross-Country Killer” is set to be executed by lethal injection in the southern US state of Florida on Thursday.Glen Rogers is to be put to death at 6:00 pm (2200 GMT) at the Florida State Prison in Raiford for the November 1995 murder of Tina Marie Cribbs.Cribbs, a 34-year-old mother of two children, was stabbed to death and her body was found in a hotel bathtub.Rogers was also convicted of the murder that same year of Sandra Gallagher, 33, in California and was a suspect in the murders of at least two other women, one in Mississippi and another Louisiana.There have been 15 executions in the United States this year: 11 by lethal injection; two by firing squad; and two using nitrogen gas.The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states, while three others — California, Oregon and Pennsylvania — have moratoriums in place.President Donald Trump is a proponent of capital punishment and, on his first day in office, called for an expansion of its use “for the vilest crimes.”

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Thursday warned of the possibility of “more persistent” supply shocks, as US central bankers met for talks against a backdrop of uncertainty kicked up by Donald Trump’s tariff rollout.The US president’s on-again, off-again approach to tariffs has caused a surge in volatility, with sharp movements in both US and global financial markets.Before a de-escalation this week,steep US tariffs on China and retaliatory measures by Beijing also raised fears of potentially major trade disruptions between the two countries.”We may be entering a period of more frequent, and potentially more persistent, supply shocks — a difficult challenge for the economy and for central banks,” Powell told his colleagues in Washington. Powell’s remarks acknowledged the post-pandemic supply shock, when temporary supply chain problems caused a surge in inflation that the Fed has previously admitted it was too late to address.In the speech, which came at the start of the Fed’s first public strategy review for five years, Powell said the economic landscape had changed since the last meeting, when interest rates were far lower than they are today.The Fed’s key lending rate currently sits at between 4.25 percent and 4.50 percent as the policymakers look to cool inflation without pushing up unemployment. “Longer-term interest rates are a good deal higher now, driven largely by real rates given the stability of longer-term inflation expectations,” he said, referring to “real,” inflation-adjusted interest rates.The higher rates could also reflect fears of higher volatility going forward, he added. Powell also said the Fed may reconsider its focus on targeting average inflation over time — an approach which gives policymakers the leeway to take a longer-term view if inflation deviations from its long-run two percent target for short periods.But while Fed could tweak its approach to monetary policy, its key long-term inflation target will remain unchanged, Powell told his colleagues. “Anchored expectations are critical to everything we do, and we remain fully committed to the two percent target today,” he said.