AFP USA

The United States hinted Thursday at an expanded reprieve for Canada and Mexico from President Donald Trump’s steep tariffs, with a one-month pause for car imports potentially extended to all goods covered by a North American trade pact.Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CNBC: “It’s likely that it will cover all USMCA compliant goods and services, so that which is part of President Trump’s deal with Canada and Mexico are likely to get an exemption from these tariffs.”He added that the reprieve would be for one month, a day after the White House gave automakers temporary relief too from the levies that hit everything from lumber to avocado imports.But after a month, Canadian and Mexican goods could still face reciprocal tariffs, Lutnick told CNBC, with Trump promising an announcement on April 2.Trump’s 25-percent tariffs on US imports from Canada and Mexico — with a lower rate for Canadian energy — kicked in Tuesday, sending global markets downward and straining ties between the neighbors.Ottawa swiftly announced retaliatory levies, while Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum similarly promised countermeasures.On Thursday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned that Ottawa and Washington would be in a trade war “for the foreseeable future,” saying his country would not back down until US tariffs were fully lifted.Since taking office in January, Trump has made a series of tariff threats on allies and adversaries alike, imposing levies on Canada, Mexico and China over illegal immigration and fentanyl concerns.Canada contributes less than one percent of fentanyl to the United States’ illicit supply, according to Canadian and US government data. But Trump has shrugged off these figures.- Record deficit -Trump has referred to tariffs as a way to raise government revenue and remedy trade imbalances and practices Washington deems unfair.This came as the US trade deficit surged to a new record in January according to government data Thursday, as imports spiked while tariff worries flared in the month of Trump’s inauguration.Trump returned to the White House with pledges to ease cost-of-living pressures for voters, but on the campaign trail he also raised the possibility of sweeping levies across US imports.The overall trade gap of the world’s biggest economy ballooned 34 percent to $131.4 billion, on the back of a 10 percent jump in imports for the month, said the Commerce Department.This was the widest deficit for a month on record, dating back to 1992, and the expansion was more than analysts anticipated.Trump said on social media that the US trade gap was massive, adding: “I will change that!!!”The latest figures came after the US economy saw its goods deficit hit a fresh record too for the full year of 2024 — at $1.2 trillion.In January, imports came in at $401.2 billion, some $36.6 billion more than the level in December, Commerce Department data showed.US exports rose $3.3 billion between December and January to $269.8 billion.On Thursday, the International Monetary Fund warned Trump’s tariffs could have “a significant adverse economic impact” on Canada and Mexico.- Tariff jitters -Analysts say the US deficit was likely bolstered by gold imports.But “stripping out this impact, all other imports rose 5.5 percent, indicating front-loading of shipments was in full swing,” said Oxford Economics senior economist Matthew Martin.This refers to a tendency for businesses to try and get ahead of additional costs from potential tariffs, and possible supply chain disruptions.Economists at Pantheon Macroeconomics said of the surge in gold imports: “Tariff threats are reportedly prompting a mass repatriation of gold holdings to the US from elsewhere, mostly via Switzerland.”US deficits with other economies were a key focus of Trump’s first administration, and at the time he waged a bruising tariffs war with China in particular.On the campaign trail ahead of November’s election, Trump vowed reciprocal tariffs on nations that taxed US-made products, dubbing this the “Trump Reciprocal Trade Act.”Since returning to office, the Republican has launched plans for “reciprocal tariffs” tailored to each US trading partner, to tackle trade practices deemed unfair by Washington, while also threatening tariffs on other imports ranging from semiconductors to autos.

A South Carolina man convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend’s parents is to be put to death by firing squad on Friday in the first such execution in the United States in 15 years.Brad Sigmon, 67, is to be executed at a prison in Columbia, the South Carolina capital, for the 2001 murders of David and Gladys Larke, who were beaten to death with a baseball bat.Sigmon, who confessed to the murders and admitted his guilt at trial, had a choice between lethal injection, firing squad or the electric chair as his manner of execution.Gerald “Bo” King, one of his lawyers, said Sigmon had chosen the firing squad after being placed in an “impossible” position, forced to make an “abjectly cruel” decision about how he would die.”Unless he elected lethal injection or the firing squad, he would die in South Carolina’s ancient electric chair, which would burn and cook him alive,” King said.”But the alternative is just as monstrous,” he said. “If he chose lethal injection, he risked the prolonged death suffered by all three of the men South Carolina has executed since September.”The last US firing squad execution in the United States was in Utah in 2010. Two others have also been carried out by firing squad in the western state — in 1996 and in 1977.The 1977 execution of convicted murderer Gary Gilmore was the basis for the 1979 book “The Executioner’s Song” by Norman Mailer.The vast majority of executions in the United States have been done by lethal injection since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.Alabama has carried out four executions recently using nitrogen gas, which has been denounced by UN experts as cruel and inhumane. The execution is performed by pumping nitrogen gas into a facemask, causing the prisoner to suffocate.Three other US states — Idaho, Mississippi and Oklahoma — have joined South Carolina and Utah in authorizing the use of firing squads.- Death chamber renovated -According to the South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDC), the death chamber at the prison where Sigmon is to be executed has been renovated to accommodate a firing squad.Bullet-resistant glass has been placed between the witness room and execution chamber.Sigmon will be restrained in a metal chair with a hood over his head 15 feet (five meters) away from a wall with a rectangular opening.A three-person firing squad of SCDC volunteers will shoot through the opening.All three rifles will have live ammunition.An “aim point” will be placed above Sigmon’s heart by a member of the execution team.There have been five executions in the United States this year and there were 25 last year.The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states, while three others — California, Oregon and Pennsylvania — have moratoriums in place.Three states — Arizona, Ohio and Tennessee — that had paused executions have recently announced plans to resume them.President Donald Trump is a proponent of capital punishment and on his first day in the White House he called for an expansion of its use “for the vilest crimes.”

A drill for ice, a 4G network test, three rovers, and a hopping drone: a US company is hours away from its second lunar landing attempt on Thursday, aiming to advance technologies for future human missions.Houston-based Intuitive Machines, which made history last year as the first private firm to land on the Moon, is targeting a 12:32 pm ET (1732 GMT) touchdown at Mons Mouton, a point nearer the lunar south pole than any robot has ever ventured.The 15.6-foot (4.8-meter), hexagonal Athena lander — about the height of a giraffe — began its descent maneuver earlier, with a webcast set to begin an hour before landing.Intuitive Machines’ milestone landing in February 2024 was partly marred by the lander tipping onto its side — an outcome the company hopes to avoid repeating. For the final and trickiest phase, known as terminal descent, Athena will be relying on an Inertial Measurement Unit that senses acceleration, as its cameras and lasers are obscured by lunar dust kicked up by its engines.”Terminal descent is like walking towards a door and closing your eyes the last three feet. You know you’re close enough, but your inner ear must lead you through the door,” the company said.Pressure is high after Texas-based Firefly Aerospace successfully put its Blue Ghost lander on the Moon on Sunday. Both missions are part of NASA’s $2.6-billion CLPS program, designed to partner with private companies to reduce costs and support Artemis — the effort to return astronauts to the Moon and, eventually, Mars.- A hopper named Grace -Athena is targeting highland terrain about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the Moon’s south pole, where it will deploy three rovers and a unique hopping drone named Grace, after late computer science pioneer Grace Hopper.One of Grace’s boldest objectives is a hop into a permanently shadowed crater, a place where sunlight has never shone — a first for humanity.While NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter proved flight is possible on Mars, the Moon’s lack of atmosphere makes traditional flying impossible, positioning hoppers like Grace as a key technology for future exploration.MAPP, the largest of Athena’s rovers and roughly the size of a beagle, will assist in testing a Nokia Bell Labs 4G cellular network linking the lander, itself, and Grace — technology designed to one day integrate into astronaut spacesuits.Yaoki, a more compact rover from Japanese company Dymon, is designed to survive drops in any orientation, making it highly adaptable.Meanwhile, the tiny AstroAnt rover, equipped with magnetic wheels, will cling to MAPP and use its sensors to measure temperature variations on the larger robot.Also aboard Athena is PRIME-1, a NASA instrument carrying a drill to search for ice and other chemicals beneath the lunar surface, paired with a spectrometer to analyze its findings.- Sticking the landing -Before any experiments can begin, Intuitive Machines must stick the landing — a challenge made harder by the Moon’s lack of atmosphere, which rules out parachutes and forces spacecraft to rely on precise thrusts and navigation over hazardous terrain.Until Intuitive Machines’ first mission, only national space agencies had achieved the feat, with NASA’s last landing dating back to Apollo 17 in 1972.The company’s first lander, Odysseus, came in too fast, caught a foot on the surface and toppled over, cutting the mission short when its solar panels could not generate enough power.This time, the company has made critical upgrades, including better cabling for the laser altimeter, which provides altitude and velocity readings to ensure a safe touchdown.Athena launched last Wednesday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which also carried NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer probe — but not everything has gone smoothly.Ground controllers are struggling to re-establish contact with the small satellite, designed to map the Moon’s water distribution.These missions come at a delicate time for NASA, amid speculation that the agency may scale back or even cancel the crewed Moon missions in favor of prioritizing Mars — a goal championed by President Donald Trump and his advisor Elon Musk.

Global sea ice cover reached a historic low in February, Europe’s climate monitor said Thursday, with temperatures spiking up to 11C above average near the North Pole as the world continued its persistent heat streak.Copernicus Climate Change Service said last month was the third hottest February, with planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions stoking global temperatures.That helped push combined Antarctic and Arctic sea ice cover — ocean water that freezes and floats on the surface — to a record minimum extent of 16.04 million square kilometres on February 7, Copernicus said.”February 2025 continues the streak of record or near-record temperatures observed throughout the last two years,” said Samantha Burgess of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, which runs the Copernicus climate monitor.”One of the consequences of a warmer world is melting sea ice, and the record or near-record low sea ice cover at both poles has pushed global sea ice cover to an all-time minimum.”Decreased ice cover has serious impacts over time on weather, people and ecosystems — not just within the region, but globally.When highly reflective snow and ice give way to dark blue ocean, the same amount of the sun’s energy that was bounced back into space is absorbed by water instead, accelerating the pace of global warming.Antarctic sea ice, which largely drives the global figure at this time of year, was 26 percent below average across February, Copernicus said.It said the region may have hit its annual summer minimum towards the end of the month, adding that if confirmed in March this would be the second-lowest minimum in the satellite record.The Arctic, where ice cover normally grows to an annual winter maximum in March, has seen record monthly lows since December, with February seeing ice cover eight percent below average for the month.”The current record low global sea ice extent revealed by the Copernicus analysis is of serious concern as it reflects major changes in both the Arctic and Antarctic,” said Simon Josey, Professor of Oceanography at the UK’s National Oceanography Centre.He added that warm ocean and atmospheric temperatures “may lead to an extensive failure of the ice to regrow” in the Antarctic during the southern hemisphere winter.- Heat streak -Globally, February was 1.59 degrees Celsius hotter than pre-industrial times, Copernicus said, adding that the December to February period was the second warmest on record.While temperatures were below average last month over parts of North America, Eastern Europe and across large areas of eastern Asia, it was hotter than average over northern Chile and Argentina, western Australia and the southwestern United States and Mexico.Temperatures were particularly elevated north of the Arctic Circle, Copernicus added, with average temperatures of 4C above the 1991–2020 average for the month, and one area near the North Pole hitting 11C above average.Copernicus said a lack of historical data from polar regions makes it difficult to give precise warming estimates compared to the pre-industrial period.Oceans, a vital climate regulator and carbon sink, store 90 percent of the excess heat trapped by humanity’s release of greenhouse gases.Sea surface temperatures have been exceptionally warm over 2023 and 2024, and Copernicus said readings in February were the second highest on record for the month.Climate scientists had expected the exceptional heat spell across the world to subside after a warming El Nino event peaked in January 2024 and conditions gradually shifted to a cooling La Nina phase.But the heat has lingered at record or near-record levels ever since, sparking debate among scientists.A single year above the Paris Agreement limit of 1.5C warming from pre-industrial levels does not mark a breach of the climate deal, but with record-breaking temperatures last year scientists warn that target is rapidly slipping out of reach.In the 20 months since mid-2023, only July of last year dipped below 1.5C, Copernicus said.The EU monitor uses billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations to aid its climate calculations.Its records go back to 1940, but other sources of climate data — such as ice cores, tree rings and coral skeletons — allow scientists to expand their conclusions using evidence from much further in the past.Scientists say the current period is likely the warmest the Earth has been for the last 125,000 years.

US prosecutors gave a graphic account Wednesday of the torture and murder of a transgender man whose case has highlighted the growing dangers faced by the trans community.Sam Nordquist was abducted, beaten and sexually assaulted for weeks before his body was hidden, prosecutors said, announcing seven adults had been indicted for the Black 24-year-old’s murder. Nordquist travelled from Minnesota to New York to meet an online contact who was among those indicted Wednesday.Nordquist’s family had not heard from him since January and the last time he was seen was in early February.The seven suspects had previously been indicted for lesser crimes, with the charge of first degree murder — the state’s most serious and carrying possible life imprisonment without parole — added Wednesday.Two children were also allegedly involved in the beating of Nordquist, who was brutalized in a motel in Canandaigua, located in upstate New York.”Sam was beaten, assaulted, sexually abused, starved, held captive, and we cannot make sense of that,” said Ontario County Assistant District Attorney Kelly Wolford at a briefing.Wolford said hate crime charges had not been brought because “we cannot put that on his gender, and we cannot put that on his race.””Sam was confined. He was forced to kneel and stand against a wall. He was physically assaulted,” Wolford added as she recounted the two children were believed to have been involved in Nordquist’s beating.”We have a seven-year-old and a 12-year-old who are also victims. They may have been forced to participate, but their lives are forever changed by what they saw,” she said. The seven adult suspects are alleged to have starved Nordquist, fed him feces, and forced him to drink urine.”They forced him to obey their commands, treating him like a dog,” said Wolford.The case has rocked the trans community and outraged activists.”We refuse to let Sam’s story fade into silence. We demand accountability, we demand justice, and we demand a world where transgender people are safe, respected, and able to live freely,” Sarah Kate Ellis, the president of the GLAAD LGBTQ campaign group, said in a statement last month.GLAAD reported that there had been more than 800 anti-trans incidents in the US since June 2022.Trump campaigned on a promise to ban transgender people from the military, outlaw federal funding for trans healthcare and to remove trans people from sports teams.Since coming to office, he has passed a slew of executive orders targeting the community, including purging mentions of transgender people from government websites and slashing LGBTQ programs.On his first day back in power, Trump signed an executive order recognizing only “two genders, male and female.”

The smash hit musical “Hamilton” has cancelled a planned run at the Kennedy Center because President Donald Trump has destroyed the political neutrality of the US capital’s premier cultural venue since taking over as its chairman, the play’s producer said Wednesday.The cancellation was a sharply worded rebuke to Trump’s takeover, part of his blitz of policy changes that are upending the city and the country as he attacks people, causes and policies that he describes as being too liberal.In a statement on X, “Hamilton” producer Jeffrey Seller said the stately white marble complex overlooking the Potomac River in Washington was founded as a place where Americans of all political persuasions could come together to enjoy the arts.”However, in recent weeks we have sadly seen decades of Kennedy Center neutrality be destroyed,” Seller wrote.”The recent purge by the Trump administration of both professional staff and performing arts events at or originally produced by the Kennedy Center flies in the face of everything this national cultural treasure represents,” he added.The third engagement at the Kennedy Center of “Hamilton,” a fabulously popular rap musical about the birth of the United States and its first treasury secretary, originally scheduled for March 3 through April 26 of next year, is now cancelled.The play was to have been performed as part of celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the US Declaration of Independence.The high-profile cancellation is the latest in a series of such exits since Trump took over as Kennedy Center chairman last month, ousting Democrats from the center’s board and replacing the long-serving president.The new board is packed with Trump loyalists and the new president is Richard Grenell, the outspoken ambassador to Germany during Trump’s first term in office who now serves as his special envoy.”So we took over the Kennedy Center. We didn’t like what they were showing and various other things,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office last month, The Washington Post reported.”I’m going to be chairman of it, and we’re going to make sure that it’s good and it’s not going to be woke.”A handful of artists have already cancelled plans to perform at the Kennedy Center since the Trump takeover, including the musician Rhiannon Giddens and actress Issa Rae.”This latest action by Trump means it’s not the Kennedy Center as we knew it,” the creator of “Hamilton,” Lin-Manuel Miranda, said in a joint New York Times interview with Seller on Wednesday.”The Kennedy Center was not created in this spirit, and we’re not going to be a part of it while it is the Trump Kennedy Center.”In a statement on X, Grenell called the cancellation “a publicity stunt that will backfire.””The Arts are for everyone — not just for the people who Lin likes and agrees with,” Grenell wrote.

New Zealand will sack its top diplomat in London after he made a “deeply disappointing” remark questioning Donald Trump’s grasp of history, the foreign minister said Thursday.High Commissioner to the United Kingdom Phil Goff questioned whether the US president “really understands history” during a panel discussion about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The comments were “deeply disappointing”, said a spokesman for New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters. “They do not represent the views of the NZ government and make his position as High Commissioner to London untenable.” Goff compared recent Ukraine peace efforts with the 1938 Munich Agreement — a pact between European powers that allowed Nazi Germany to annex parts of Czechoslovakia. Some fear Trump could push Ukraine to accept a peace deal in which Russia holds on to large swaths of captured territory.”I was re-reading Churchill’s speech to the House of Commons in 1938 after the Munich agreement,” Goff said at London’s Chatham House this week, referencing the famed war-time leader. “He turned to (then Prime Minister Neville) Chamberlain and said: ‘You had the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour yet you will have war’.””President Trump has restored the bust of Churchill to the Oval Office, but do you think he really understands history,” Goff said. The United States has “paused” intelligence sharing with Ukraine after a dramatic breakdown in relations between Kyiv and the White House. Trump and Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelensky had a public falling out in the Oval Office last week, followed by the United States suspending crucial military aid to Ukraine.

A drill to search for ice. A 4G network test. Three rovers and a first-of-its-kind hopping drone.After becoming the first private firm to land on the Moon last year, Intuitive Machines is aiming for its second lunar touchdown on Thursday, carrying cutting-edge payloads to support future human missions.The Houston-based company is targeting no earlier than 12:32 pm ET (1732 GMT) at Mons Mouton, a plateau near the lunar south pole — farther south than any robot has ventured.NASA will livestream the landing an hour before touchdown as Athena, the 15.6-foot (4.8-meter) hexagonal lander — about the height of a giraffe — begins its descent.”It kind of feels like this mission is straight out of one of our favorite sci-fi movies,” said Nicky Fox, NASA’s associate administrator for science.Intuitive Machines’ first landing in February 2024 was a landmark achievement but ended with its lander tipping onto its side, an outcome the company is determined to avoid this time.The pressure is on after Texas rival Firefly Aerospace successfully landed its Blue Ghost lander on Sunday, becoming the second private company to reach the Moon.Both missions are part of NASA’s $2.6-billion Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, which partners with private industry to cut costs and support Artemis, the initiative to return astronauts to the Moon and eventually reach Mars.- A hopper named Grace -Athena is targeting highland terrain about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the Moon’s south pole, where it will deploy three rovers and a unique hopping drone named Grace, after late computer science pioneer Grace Hopper.One of Grace’s boldest objectives is a hop into a permanently shadowed crater, a place where sunlight has never shone — a first for humanity.While NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter proved flight is possible on Mars, the Moon’s lack of atmosphere makes traditional flying impossible, positioning hoppers like Grace as a key technology for future exploration.MAPP, the largest of Athena’s rovers and roughly the size of a beagle, will assist in testing a Nokia Bell Labs 4G cellular network linking the lander, itself, and Grace — technology designed to one day integrate into astronaut spacesuits.Yaoki, a more compact rover from Japanese company Dymon, is designed to survive drops in any orientation, making it highly adaptable.Meanwhile, the tiny AstroAnt rover, equipped with magnetic wheels, will cling to MAPP and use its sensors to measure temperature variations on the larger robot.Also aboard Athena is PRIME-1, a NASA instrument carrying a drill to search for ice and other chemicals beneath the lunar surface, paired with a spectrometer to analyze its findings.- Sticking the landing -Before any experiments can begin, Intuitive Machines must stick the landing — a challenge made harder by the Moon’s lack of atmosphere, which rules out parachutes and forces spacecraft to rely on precise thrusts and navigation over hazardous terrain.Until Intuitive Machines’ first mission, only national space agencies had achieved the feat, with NASA’s last landing dating back to Apollo 17 in 1972.The company’s first lander, Odysseus, came in too fast, caught a foot on the surface and toppled over, cutting the mission short when its solar panels could not generate enough power.This time, the company has made critical upgrades, including better cabling for the laser altimeter, which provides altitude and velocity readings to ensure a safe touchdown.Athena launched last Wednesday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which also carried NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer probe — but not everything has gone smoothly. Ground controllers are struggling to re-establish contact with the small satellite, designed to map the Moon’s water distribution.These missions come at a delicate time for NASA, amid speculation that the agency may scale back or even cancel the crewed Moon missions in favor of prioritizing Mars — a goal championed by President Donald Trump and his advisor Elon Musk.

US President Donald Trump, who has multiple ties to the crypto industry, will host the sector’s top players at a White House summit on Friday, as the field enjoys renewed momentum following his election.The US crypto community rallied behind Trump’s campaign, contributing millions of dollars towards his victory over Joe Biden, whose administration tightened regulations and expressed skepticism toward digital currencies. Now, they’re seeing their support pay dividends.Trump has waded into the space personally as well, partnering with exchange platform World Liberty Financial and launching his own “Trump” memecoin in January as his wife Melania did the same — moves that have prompted conflict of interest accusations.The president’s “crypto czar,” Silicon Valley investor David Sacks, will convene prominent founders, CEOs, and investors with members of a Trump working group to craft policies aimed at accelerating crypto growth and providing the legitimacy the industry has long wanted.Guests will include twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, founders of platform Gemini, with reports that Brad Armstrong of Coinbase and Michael Saylor, the boss of major bitcoin investor MicroStrategy, will also be in attendance.Hanging over the crypto resurgence is the fate of FTX, the once-leading crypto exchange that collapsed spectacularly when its CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was found to have defrauded clients massively. He is now serving a 25-year term in a US jail.For believers, cryptocurrencies represent a financial revolution that reduces dependence on centralized authorities while offering individuals freedom from traditional banking systems.Bitcoin, the world’s most traded cryptocurrency, is heralded as an alternative to gold or as a hedge against currency devaluation and political instability.- Crypto warnings -Critics maintain these assets function primarily as speculative investments with questionable real-world utility, warning that excessive deregulation could leave taxpayers on the hook for cleaning up market crashes.Law enforcement agencies see digital assets as a means to launder ill-gotten money.The proliferation of “memecoins” — cryptocurrencies based on celebrities, internet memes, or pop culture rather than technical utility — presents another challenge.Much of the crypto industry frowns upon this practice because they fear it tarnishes the business, amid reports of quick pump-and-dump schemes that leave unwitting buyers paying for assets that end up worthless.Despite his previous hostility toward cryptocurrencies, Trump has embraced the technology, declaring his intention to make the United States a crypto world power. His administration has already taken significant steps to clear regulatory hurdles.On Sunday, Trump confirmed plans for a strategic cryptocurrency reserve where the US government would deposit digital currency holdings acquired mainly from judicial seizures.Jacob Phillips of Lombard Finance called this potential move “one of the strongest endorsements the industry has ever seen,” noting that several founders and teams have already relocated to the United States in response to the improving regulatory climate.Trump also appointed crypto advocate Paul Atkins to head the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Under Atkins, the SEC has dropped legal proceedings against major platforms like Coinbase and Kraken that were initiated during Biden’s term. The previous administration had implemented restrictions on banks holding cryptocurrencies (since lifted) and allowed former SEC chairman Gary Gensler to pursue aggressive enforcement despite the absence of clear legal frameworks.- ‘Pivotal moment’ -Addressing ethics concerns, Sacks announced on X that he has divested from his substantial crypto holdings and investments, with industry figures quickly vouching for his integrity.Friday’s summit “marks a pivotal moment for the digital asset industry,” according to Elitsa Taskova of Nexo, a cryptocurrency financial services platform.However, meaningful change will likely require congressional action, where crypto legislation has remained stalled despite intense lobbying efforts by investors including Trump ally Marc Andreessen, an influential venture capitalist.Some lawmakers remain hesitant, troubled by scandals and recurring reports of market crashes, theft and scams. The recent $1.5 billion theft from the Bybit platform underscores the risks cryptocurrencies still present.Nevertheless, Dante Disparte of Circle, which issues the dollar-pegged USDC stablecoin, sees growing bipartisan support for crypto legislation.He attributed this emerging consensus to proposals that include strong transparency and anti-money laundering requirements alongside consumer and market protections.