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China confirmed on Friday details on the framework of a trade deal with the United States, saying Washington would lift “restrictive measures” while Beijing would “review and approve” items under export controls.The two sides agreed after talks in Geneva in May to temporarily lower steep tit-for-tat tariffs on each other’s products.China also committed to easing some non-tariff countermeasures but US officials later accused Beijing of violating the pact and slow-walking export licence approvals for rare earths.They eventually agreed on a framework to move forward with their Geneva consensus following talks in London this month.A White House official also told AFP on Thursday that President Donald Trump’s administration and China had “agreed to an additional understanding for a framework to implement the Geneva agreement”.That clarification came after Trump told an event that Washington had “just signed” a deal relating to trade with China, without providing further details.Beijing confirmed on Friday that an agreement had been reached.”It is hoped that the United States and China will meet each other halfway,” a spokesperson for the commerce ministry said in a statement.It said both sides had “further confirmed the details of the framework”.Under the deal, China “will review and approve applications for the export control items that meet the requirements in accordance with the law”.”The US side will correspondingly cancel a series of restrictive measures against China,” the commerce ministry said.A top priority for Washington in talks with Beijing had been ensuring the supply of the rare earths essential for products including electric vehicles, hard drives and national defence equipment.China, which dominates global production of the elements, began requiring export licences in early April, a move widely viewed as a response to blistering tariffs imposed by Trump.Separately on Thursday, the White House also indicated that Washington could extend a July deadline when steeper tariffs affecting dozens of economies are due to kick in.Trump imposed a sweeping 10 percent levy on most trading partners this year but also unveiled — then halted — higher rates on dozens of economies while negotiations took place.That pause is set to expire July 9.

Amazon tycoon Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez are expected to tie the knot Friday at a sumptuous, secluded ceremony attended by celebrity friends on an island in Venice’s lagoon.The tech magnate, 61, and his fiancee, 55, kicked off a three-day wedding celebration Thursday with guests including Kim and Khloe Kardashian, Oprah Winfrey and Orlando Bloom.Venice, home to the oldest film festival in the world, is used to VIPs whizzing around in speed boats, and happily hosted the star-studded nuptials of Hollywood actor George Clooney in 2014.But Bezos — one of the world’s richest men and founder of a company regularly scrutinised for how it treats its workers — is different.And the festivities have sparked protests from environmentalists and locals who accuse authorities of pandering to the super rich while the city drowns under tourists.Bezos and former news anchor and entertainment reporter Sanchez are staying at the Aman hotel, a luxury 16th-century palazzo on the Grand Canal with a view of the Rialto bridge.They will exchange vows at a black-tie ceremony on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, according to Italian media reports.The wedding itself is expected to take place in a vast open-air amphitheatre on the island, which sits across from St Mark’s Square.The newlyweds will then be serenaded by Matteo Bocelli, the son of famed opera singer Andrea Bocelli, the reports said.Sanchez is alleged to have prepared 27 outfits to wear during the festivities.Italian designer Domenico Dolce — half of the duo Dolce & Gabbana — was seen leaving the Aman hotel on Thursday, possibly following a fitting.- ‘Enchanted’ -Wedding guests snapped by paparazzi as they hopped into boats included Jordan’s Queen Rania, US football player Tom Brady, American fashion designer Spencer Antle, singer Usher, and Ivanka Trump — the daughter of US President Donald Trump.The guests reportedly lunched together Thursday in the gardens of Villa Baslini, on the islet of San Giovanni Evangelista.The celebrations are set to end Saturday with a party likely at the Arsenale, a vast shipyard complex dating back to when the city was a naval powerhouse.Bezos and Sanchez are donating three million euros ($3.5 million) to the city, according to Veneto’s regional president Luca Zaia, and are employing historic Venetian artisans.Venice’s oldest pastry maker Rosa Salva is baking 19th-century “fishermen’s biscuits” for party bags which will also contain something by Laguna B, renowned for its handblown Murano glass.Trump and her family visited a glass-blowing workshop on the small island of Murano on Wednesday, according to the owner.”They were amazed and enchanted by the magic of glass,” Massimiliano Schiavon told the Corriere della Sera, adding that the family had had a go at blowing their own.Some locals say the A-list guests and their entourages bring good business but critics have accused billionaire Bezos of using the UNESCO site as his personal playground.And environmental activists have also pointed to the carbon footprint of the mega yachts and dozens of private jets bringing the rich and famous to the canal city.At least 95 private planes requested permission to land at Venice’s Marco Polo airport for the wedding, the Corriere della Sera said.

Sean “Diddy” Combs’s lawyers will deliver their closing arguments in his defense Friday, one day after the prosecution spent nearly five hours detailing a “climate of fear” they say he created as the alleged head of a decades-long criminal ring.Defense attorney Marc Agnifilo is expected to take the floor for Combs, the 55-year-old music mogul who faces upwards of life in prison if convicted on charges including racketeering and sex trafficking.Combs, who was once one of the most powerful figures in music and entertainment, denies all charges.He opted against testifying on his own behalf, a common strategy of defense teams who are not required to prove innocence, only to cast doubt on government allegations of guilt.For nearly five hours on Thursday US attorney Christy Slavik methodically walked the jury through the charges, weaving the thousands of phone, financial, travel and audiovisual records along with nearly seven weeks of testimony into an intelligible narrative.She told them Combs “counted on silence and shame to keep his crimes hidden.””Up until today, the defendant was able to get away with these crimes because of his money, his power, his influence. That stops now,” she said.In explaining the most serious charge of racketeering, the prosecution said Combs led a criminal enteprise of “loyal lieutanants” and “foot soldiers” who “existed to serve his needs.”Core to the prosecution’s racketeering argument is that high-level employees including his chief-of-staff and security guards — none of whom testified — were well-aware of his crimes, and helped him carry them out.”He became more powerful and more dangerous because of the support of his inner circle and his businesses,” Slavik said. – Consent or coercion? -As they did in opening statements, his defense is expected to insist that while some of his relationships included domestic violence, they didn’t involve the sex trafficking he’s accused of.The prosecution showed examples they say are “crystal clear” evidence of trafficking that included coercion into drug-addled sex with paid escorts under threat of reputational, physical or financial harm.But it’s anticipated the defense will say the alleged victims were simply adult women making adult choices.Both the women involved in the sex trafficking charges — the singer Casandra Ventura and a woman who testified under the pseudonym Jane — were in long-term relationships with Combs, and the defense team said in opening statements the sex was consensual, if unorthodox.Jurors were shown many phone records that included messages of affection and desire from both women — but prosecutor Slavik said taking those words literally, and in isolation, doesn’t paint the whole picture.Throughout her arguments she referenced testimony from a forensic psychologist who explained to jurors how victims become ensnared by their abusers.And in one powerful moment she asked jurors to put themselves in the shoes of Ventura, who testified of harrowing physical abuse for years under Combs.”Imagine the terror of never knowing when the next hit might come,” Slavik said. “Now imagine trying to say no to that person.” Government witnesses also included former assistants and other employees, as well as escorts, friends and family of Ventura, and a hotel security guard who said he was bribed with $100,000 in a paper bag.The defense opted against calling witnesses, including Combs himself, a strategy that’s not uncommon.The obligation to prove guilt lies on prosecutors, and unless jurors decide they have done so, the defendant is presumed innocent.It’s possible the defense believes they cast enough doubt on the prosecution’s arguments during their extensive questioning of the 34 people US attorneys brought in.After closing arguments wrap, judge Arun Subramanian will instruct jurors on how they are to apply the law to the evidence during their deliberations.

The US Supreme Court is scheduled to issue its final rulings on Friday ahead of its summer break.These are the major outstanding cases:- Birthright citizenship -The case is ostensibly about Donald Trump’s bid to scrap birthright citizenship but it actually turns on the broader question of whether federal judges have the right to issue nationwide blocks to presidential decrees.It is perhaps the most significant of the remaining cases since it could have far-reaching ramifications for the ability of the judiciary to rein in Trump or future US presidents.Trump’s executive order ending automatic citizenship for children born on American soil has been paused by district courts in Maryland, Massachusetts and Washington that deemed it unconstitutional.But the question before the Supreme Court is whether a single district court can freeze an executive branch move with a universal injunction.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.Whatever the nine justices decide, the actual question of whether Trump can legally end birthright citizenship is expected to be back in front of the top court before long.- Porn site age verification -The case — Free Speech Coalition vs Paxton — involves a Texas law requiring pornographic websites to verify visitors’ ages, part of a growing effort to limit access by minors to online sexual content.Texas is one of nearly 20 states to institute such a requirement, which critics argue violates First Amendment free speech rights.A district court sided with a challenge by an adult entertainment industry trade group, the Free Speech Coalition, saying the law restricted access by adults to constitutionally protected content.But a conservative-dominated appeals court upheld the age verification requirement, prompting the trade group to take its case to the Supreme Court, where conservatives have a 6-3 supermajority.- Students and LGBTQ-themed content -This religious rights case examines whether parents have the right to pull their children from public school classes when books containing LGBTQ-related content are read or discussed.The schools, in a Maryland county, had offered parents the chance to opt out of classes featuring books aimed at combating prejudice and discussing gender identity and homosexuality, but later retracted the option.Parents are suing because the opt-outs were canceled. They say the schools’ inclusive curriculum choices infringe on their Christian and Muslim faiths and First Amendment rights. Court precedent has generally established that exposing students to ideas contrary to religion does not constitute coercion.- Voting rights -This case is a challenge by a group of white voters to a congressional map adopted last year by the state legislature of Louisiana creating a second Black majority district.African-Americans make up one-third of the population of Louisiana, which has six congressional districts, and they generally vote Democratic.Opponents of the redrawn map argue that using race to design congressional maps is racial gerrymandering prohibited by the Constitution.The eventual Supreme Court ruling could have an impact on whether Democrats or Republicans control the House of Representatives in the 2026 midterm elections.

The White House signaled trade progress with China on Thursday, with an official saying both sides have reached an understanding on issues including expediting rare earth shipments to the United States.After talks in Geneva in May, Washington and Beijing had agreed to temporarily lower steep tit-for-tat tariffs on each other’s products.China also committed to easing some non-tariff countermeasures, but US officials later accused Beijing of violating the pact and slow-walking export license approvals for rare earths.Both sides eventually agreed on a framework to move forward with their Geneva consensus following talks in London this month.On Thursday, a White House official told AFP that President Donald Trump’s administration and China have “agreed to an additional understanding for a framework to implement the Geneva agreement.”This clarification came after Trump told an event that Washington had “just signed” a deal relating to trade with China, without providing further details.Asked about Trump’s remarks on Bloomberg TV, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick referred to the London negotiations, saying the framework deal — which needed top-level approval — has now been “signed and sealed.”Separately on Thursday, the White House also indicated that Washington could extend a July deadline when steeper tariffs impacting dozens of economies are due to kick in.While Trump imposed a sweeping 10 percent levy on most trading partners this year, he unveiled — then halted — higher rates on dozens of economies while negotiations took place.That pause is set to expire July 9.Asked if there were plans to further the pause, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters: “Perhaps it could be extended, but that’s a decision for the president to make.””The deadline is not critical,” she said. “The president can simply provide these countries with a deal if they refuse to make us one by the deadline.”This means Trump can “pick a reciprocal tariff rate that he believes is advantageous for the United States,” she said.Lutnick told Bloomberg TV that Washington will announce some deals in the next week or so.”Those who have deals will have deals, and everybody else who’s been negotiating with us, they’ll get a response from us,” he said.”July 9 will go forward. And as the president said, if people want to come back and negotiate further, they’re entitled to, but that tariff rate will be set, and off we’ll go,” Lutnick added.On the progress of trade negotiations, Leavitt added that US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer is “working very hard” and has had “good and productive discussions with many of our key trading partners.”

New York mayor Eric Adams launched his re-election campaign Thursday by taking direct aim at the credentials of his presumed Democratic opponent, Zohran Mamdani.”It’s a choice between a candidate with a blue collar and one with a suit and a silver spoon,” Adams, who was elected in 2021 as a Democrat but is running as an independent, told supporters outside City Hall.Adams, 64, is now facing off against 33-year-old Mamdani, a self-declared socialist who on Tuesday surprisingly beat out former governor Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic Party primary.Mamdani’s win has yet to be certified, but Adams is already campaigning against him with accusations of empty idealism and false promises of “giving everything to everyone for free.””They have a record of tweets. I have a record on these streets. A record of results. They talk about problems? I fix them. That’s the difference. You don’t lead this city from a soapbox,” Adams said of Mamdani.Mamdani’s surprise win resonated as a political thunderclap, drawing the ire of US President Donald Trump and his collaborators, who accuse the left-leaning Democrat of being a radical extremist.In response Thursday, Mamdani said he launched his campaign to target Adams’s corruption and his failure to address affordability.”New Yorkers have been suffocated by a cost of living crisis and this mayor has taken almost every opportunity to exacerbate it, all while partnering with Donald Trump to tear our city apart,” Mamdani said.He promised to “end this era of corruption, incompetence and the betrayal of working class New Yorkers.”Adams faced a series of major federal corruption charges, but they were dropped by the Justice Department after Trump took office in January.Mamdani and other New Yorkers have accused Adams of allowing the Trump administration to conduct immigration raids in exchange for burying the charges.Polling currently shows Mamdani ahead of Adams and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa for the November election.Cuomo, though defeated in the primary, is still weighing a possible run as an independent, which could further complicate the race.

Famed composer Lalo Schifrin, who created themes for a host of hit Hollywood films and television shows — including the instantly recognizable “Mission: Impossible” score — died Thursday aged 93, US media reported.Born in Argentina, Schifrin blended the influences of his classical and symphonic training with jazz and modern sounds in his diverse and vast oeuvre, which includes the scores for around 100 films, some of them the best-known of their generation.His death was confirmed by his son, Ryan Schifrin, to several entertainment trade publications.Schifrin’s work for film includes “The Cincinnati Kid (1965) and “Bullitt” (1968), both with Steve McQueen, Paul Newman’s “Cool Hand Luke” (1968), and Clint Eastwood’s “Dirty Harry” (1971).He also created the score to the 1960s “Mission: Impossible” television series, which inspired the theme of the massive film franchise starring Tom Cruise.A pipe-smoker in his younger years and bespectacled with a mane of silver hair later, he was also a highly respected international orchestra conductor and jazz pianist.Boris Claudio Schifrin was born in Buenos Aires on June 21, 1932 into a musical family, his father Luis Schifrin being the concert master of the city’s Philharmonic Orchestra for 25 years. He learned piano at a young age, developing an extensive knowledge of classical music.His introduction in his teens to jazz and the American sound — through its greats such as Charlie Parker, George Gershwin and Louis Armstrong — was like a conversion, he would say later, and set his life on a new course.After training in Paris, Schifrin returned to Buenos Aires and set up his own big band, with a performance notably impressing jazz legend trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie.”So after we finished, Dizzy came to me and said, did you write all these charts? And I said, yes. Would you like to come to United States? I thought he was joking. He wasn’t,” Schifrin recounted to NPR in 2007.”I wouldn’t be here had it not been for that moment,” he told the US radio.Schifrin moved to the United States in 1958 and became a US citizen over a decade later.In Hollywood, television producer Bruce Geller asked him to create scores for his television series “Mission: Impossible” (1966) and “Mannix” (1969). Geller’s brief was for “a theme that’s exciting, promising, but not too heavy” and anticipates the action to follow, Schifrin told NPR in 2015.Geller said that when “people go to the kitchen and get a Coca-Cola, I want them to hear the theme and say, Oh, this is ‘Mission: Impossible’,” he recounted.The score he delivered earned Schifrin two Grammy music awards in 1967, adding to two for the albums “The Cat” (1964) and “Jazz Suite On The Mass Texts” (1965).Shifrin received several Academy Award nominations for his film work including for “Cool Hand Luke.”In 2018, he received an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement, presented by Eastwood.

US President Donald Trump made his final pitch at a White House event Thursday for his massive tax relief and spending cuts package as the Senate eyes a vote in the coming days. The so-called “One, Big Beautiful Bill” would extend Trump’s expiring first term tax cuts at a cost of $4.5 trillion — but strip health care from millions of the poorest Americans and add more than $3 trillion to deficits over a decade.Trump told officials and supporters the package was “one of the most important pieces of legislation in the history of our country.” “And that’s everybody saying that — virtually everybody,” the Republican leader added. “The one big, beautiful bill (will) secure our borders, turbo charge our economy and bring back the American dream.”Senate Republicans want to begin a weekend of votes on the package — which Trump sees as crucial to his legacy — on Friday, with hopes of getting it to Trump’s desk by July 4.But those self-imposed deadlines look set to slip with deep divides over spending and debt dividing Republicans in both the Senate and the House.They are using a special process to avoid having to rely on votes from the minority Democrats but currently lack the support on their own side to get the package across the line.Independent analysis shows that the bill would pave the way for a significant redistribution of wealth from the poorest 10 percent of Americans to the richest.  It is deeply unpopular across multiple demographic, age and income groups, according to extensive recent polling. A handful of Senate Republicans are opposed to provisions that would gut the Medicaid health care program for low-income Americans and threaten scores of rural hospitals with closure. More than a dozen House Republicans have warned they won’t support the Medicaid cuts, yet lawmakers in both chambers have complained that the savings in the package don’t go far enough.  Although the House has already passed its own version, both chambers have to agree on the same text before it can be signed into law.Republican leaders were working Thursday to hammer out a version that can get a quick rubber-stamp in the House without returning to the negotiating table.Majority Leader John Thune can only lose three Senate Republicans on any vote, and the margin in the House — depending on attendance — is similar. Trump was joined in the White House by “everyday Americans” who would benefit from the bill, according to the White House, including waiters, food delivery drivers and border patrol agents. “We’re going to be celebrating for a long time, because we’re turning our country around,” Trump said. “We’re getting our country back, and we’re ruling with common sense.”

A medical panel appointed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. voted Thursday to recommend a new preventive shot against RSV, a common respiratory illness that is the leading cause of hospitalization for infants in the United States.The vote marked the first by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) since Kennedy dismissed all members of the influential group of independent experts and replaced them with his own nominees, a move that made this decision a test of the new panel’s intentions.Clesrovimab was recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration as a shot for newborns and young babies experiencing their first respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) season.Marketed under the name Enflonsia by its manufacturer Merck, the antibody immunization shot was shown in clinical trials to be safe and effective at significantly reducing RSV infections and hospitalizations among infants.The ACIP panel was asked to adjudicate the next step after approval — namely, whether it should now be recommended for infants under eight months old entering their first RSV season who are not already protected by an RSV vaccine administered to their mother during pregnancy.They voted 5-2 in favor.The two dissenters were Retsef Levi, a professor of operations management at MIT who has questioned the safety of Covid-19 vaccines, and Vicky Pebsworth, a nurse and member of the anti-vaccine National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC).”I don’t feel this is ready to be administered to all healthy babies. I think we should take a more precautionary approach,” said Levi, explaining his “no” vote.Pebsworth did not offer comments, but the NVIC previously opposed the earlier-approved RSV antibody, nirsevimab.Kennedy — who spent decades spreading vaccine misinformation before becoming President Donald Trump’s top health official — abruptly fired all 17 members of the ACIP earlier this month, accusing them of conflicts of interest.

A newly appointed US medical panel voted Thursday to oppose the use of a vaccine ingredient long targeted by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over debunked claims it causes autism.Thimerosal, a preservative that prevents bacterial and fungal contamination in multidose vials, has been extensively studied, with authorities including the World Health Organization finding no evidence of harm beyond minor injection-site reactions.Although the substance is now rarely used in US vaccines, the recommendations by the influential Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices alarmed experts, who say the move has effectively embedded talking points championed by the anti-vaccine movement into national policy.Kennedy — who spent decades spreading vaccine misinformation before becoming President Donald Trump’s top health official — abruptly fired all 17 ACIP members earlier this month, accusing them without evidence of conflicts of interest.Across three votes, his new panelists recommended that thimerosal be removed from influenza vaccines for children, pregnant women and finally all adults.Cody Meissner, a professor of pediatrics at Dartmouth University and the lone voice of dissent, said: “The risk from influenza is so much greater than the nonexistent risk as far as we know from thimerosal,” adding that he was worried about the decision’s global impact.Although 96 percent of US flu vaccines in the 2024-2025 season did not contain thimerosal, the preservative remains important in lower income countries because they are more likely to use lower cost multidose vials that must be punctured repeatedly, raising the risk of contamination.Thimerosal contains an artificial form of mercury called ethylmercury that is cleared from the body far more quickly than the form of the chemical found in nature. US manufacturers voluntarily removed it from most pediatric vaccines in 2001.- ‘Platform for anti-vaccine talking points’ -“The fact that it’s being brought up again — something that’s already been adjudicated — shows how the ACIP is becoming a platform for anti-vaccine talking points to come back to life long after most of us thought they’d been put to rest,” Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins University, told AFP.Ahead of the vote, Lyn Redwood, a nurse and former leader of the anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense, which Kennedy once chaired, was invited to present arguments against thimerosal. A previous version of her slideshow, which was posted online before the meeting, was removed without explanation after it was found to contain a fabricated citation.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had prepared a rebuttal to Redwood’s presentation, but it was removed from the meeting website. Robert Malone, a new panel member known for spreading misinformation during the Covid-19 pandemic, including promoting the antiparastic drug ivermectin to treat the virus, said the CDC document had not been approved by the Office of the Secretary.”We now have a CDC ACIP that is voting based on vibes from an embarrassingly bad presentation from an external speaker,” Jeremy Faust, an emergency physician and editor-in-chief of MedPage Today, told AFP. “Taking thimerosal out of the few vaccines it’s in won’t change anything other than give credence to discredited notion. That will undermine confidence in vaccines, not improve it.”