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The postal services of Germany and France on Friday announced a raft of restrictions on package deliveries to the United States due to tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump.DHL, which owns the Deutsche Post service, said that from Saturday it would “temporarily suspend” its standard category of US package delivery, the preferred option for many small businesses.”The reason for the restrictions, which we expect to be temporary, are new processes for postal delivery which have been put in place by the US authorities,” DHL said in a statement.”Important questions have not yet been answered, including who will have to pay the tariffs and how,” it added.France’s La Poste told AFP it would suspend from Monday package deliveries to the United States, except for gifts sent by individuals with a value of less than 100 euros ($116).It said the new rules had been issued only on August 15, “leaving European postal services with an extremely limited timeframe to get prepared.”Moreover, their related documentation still requires further clarification,” La Poste added in a statement.Each year the French service sends 1.6 million packages on average to the United States, 80 percent from businesses and 20 percent from individuals. – Extra checks -Other European postal services, including in Belgium, Austria and Denmark, have already taken similar measures.DHL said a more expensive “express” service for packages weighing up to 70 kilograms (154 pounds) would still be available.Individual customers will also still be able to send items as presents with a maximum value of $100 (86 euros) but DHL warned that these would be subject to extra checks to prevent the service being used for commercial goods.In late July the Trump administration said that as of August 29 it would abolish a tax exemption on small packages entering the US.Such packages with a value of less than $800 will now be taxed at 15 percent, the same rate as other imports from the European Union.That general tariff rate was agreed under a deal struck between Brussels and Washington late last month.In April, DHL said it was suspending delivery of packages to the United States with a value in excess of $800.It cited changes to US Customs rules as part of Trump’s trade war, which lowered the threshold at which parcels to individuals require formal entry processing by US Customs to $800 from $2,500 — leading to significant delays.

FBI agents on Friday raided and searched the home of one of President Donald Trump’s most outspoken critics, his former national security adviser John Bolton.Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation entered Bolton’s home in the Washington suburb of Bethesda early in the morning, an AFP reporter said. A police car with flashing lights was stationed outside the house, while journalists and onlookers gathered in the leafy street.The director of the FBI, Kash Patel, posted on X: “NO ONE is above the law… @FBI agents on mission.”According to The New York Times and other US media outlets, the search was ordered to determine whether Bolton had illegally shared or possessed classified information.Bolton served as Trump’s adviser in his first term and angered the administration with the publication of a highly critical book, “The Room Where it Happened.”Legal efforts to block release of the book for allegedly containing classified information were eventually dropped when Joe Biden replaced Trump in the presidency in 2021.Bolton has since become a highly visible and pugnacious critic of Trump, frequently appearing on television news shows and in print to condemn the man he has called “unfit to be president.”A longtime critic of Iran’s ruling powers, Bolton was a national security hawk and has received death threats from Iranians.The raid by the FBI comes seven months after Trump stripped him — and multiple other critics — of government security protections.Since returning to power in January, Trump has embarked on a campaign to punish political opponents or simply anyone not fitting his right-wing agenda.The onslaught has targeted private individuals like Bolton, senior civil servants, elite universities, law firms and opposition Democratic politicians.

At a wine shop in Washington’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, bottles sourced from Europe are becoming costlier to import — and soon, pricier for customers to buy, the owner says — thanks to a resident just down the road in the White House.President Donald Trump has slapped a 15-percent tariff on many goods coming from the European Union, as part of a deal the bloc negotiated to avoid even steeper levies.The continent’s important wine and spirits industry hoped to have a carveout, but details released Thursday showed no exemption to the double-digit duty.The new EU rate took effect this month, replacing a 10-percent levy Trump imposed in April on most trading partners. But even the lower tariff has forced importers to hike prices — and retailers are feeling the pinch.”Everybody’s redoing their price books at this point,” said Michael Warner, co-owner of wine boutique DCanter in Washington’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.He told AFP that price increases from importers and distributors became apparent around June, ranging from 10-15 percent.Over 80 percent of wine in Warner’s store is imported, with about two-thirds from Europe.Businesses may have stocked up to mitigate a price shock from Trump’s duties, but inventory is depleting.As the euro strengthened against the dollar this year too, Warner said many importers “are seeing a 20-percent swing in their costs.” “As more and more importers are increasing their costs, we see that there will be more and more price increases, certainly in the next coming months and going into the holiday season,” he said.- No ‘special treatment’ -EU negotiators have sought to exempt alcohol such as Irish whiskey and French champagne from Trump’s tariffs, but their efforts have been fruitless so far.The bloc’s trade commissioner Maros Sefcovic maintained Thursday that “these doors are not closed forever.”The French wine exporters federation said it was “hugely disappointed” in the outcome.The Italian Wines Union foresees potential losses of 317 million euros ($368 million) over the next 12 months.”We now need determined action to reintegrate our sectors among those that enjoy a totally open US market,” said Giacomo Ponti, president of Italy’s wine and spirits federation.A White House official told AFP this week that the Trump administration “did not agree to any special treatment of EU alcohol” as part of the tariff deal.US Wine Trade Alliance president Ben Aneff argues, however, that his country has “a huge economic surplus on the sale of wines from the EU.”The American wine industry generally operates in a tiered system, where foreign producers sell to importers, who then sell to distributors. They in turn sell to retailers and restaurants.”For every dollar we spend in the European Union on wine, we make $4.52,” Aneff said of the economic impact of the wine changing hands through the supply chain.He estimates the United States buys some $5.3 billion worth of wine annually from the EU: “But that makes us about $24 billion in the United States.”The industry supports hundreds of thousands of jobs in importing and distribution, alongside tens of thousands of independent wine retailers — who in turn sell to consumers.”There’s no guarantee there will be an exclusion but we do know it’s something that the administration is considering seriously,” Aneff said.- ‘Extraordinarily trying time’ -Harry Root, who operates a wine distribution and import company with his wife, said they have paid “more than $100,000 worth of tariffs already this year.””We made less than $400,000 last year, so this is already like a 25-percent tax on our business,” he said. His firm, Grassroots Wine, serves South Carolina and Alabama.The funds to pay tariffs, according to Root, come from business capital that otherwise would have gone to wine makers, including dozens in the United States.”It puts a big strain on our ability to support our American producers,” he said.US wine producers also rely on imported components ranging from bottles made in Asia to barrels from Europe — and tariffs raise those costs too.While Root has not laid off staff, he has delayed replacing workers who left — departing from ambitious growth plans at the start of the year to expand the business.”Once the tariffs really became a reality, we curtailed that,” he said, adding that the company has had to cut costs.”This is a really, extraordinarily trying time.”

The seatbelt sign pings on, trays rattle, drinks slosh in their glasses. For many flyers, air turbulence can be an unnerving experience — and in a world warming under the effects of climate change, it is only set to worsen, according to a growing body of scientific evidence.Here are the key things to know during another searing summer in 2025.- Why turbulence matters -Beyond making people uneasy, turbulence is also the leading cause of in-flight weather accidents, according to official data.The numbers remain relatively small: there were 207 reported injuries on US commercial flights between 2009 and 2024. But high-profile incidents have thrust the issue into the spotlight.These include an Air Europa flight last year, in which 40 passengers were hurt, and a Singapore Airlines flight where one elderly passenger died and dozens were injured.”Typically injuries (are) to unbelted passengers or cabin crew rather than structural damage,” John Abraham, a mechanical engineering professor at the University of St. Thomas told AFP.”Modern aircraft withstand turbulence, so the main risk is occupant injury, not loss of the plane.”Still, planes must be inspected after “severe” encounters with turbulence — about 1.5 times the normal force of Earth’s gravity — which occur some 5,000 times a year over the US, said Robert Sharman, a senior scientist emeritus at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.Turbulence also increases fuel consumption when pilots must leave optimal altitudes, alter routes or change speeds, Abraham added.- How climate change is making it worse – Mohamed Foudad, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Reading in the UK, explained there are three main types of turbulence: convective, mountain wave and clear-air turbulence (CAT).Convective turbulence is linked to rising or sinking air currents from clouds or thunderstorms that can be detected visually or by onboard radar, while mountain wave turbulence occurs over mountain ranges. CAT, by contrast, is invisible — and therefore the most dangerous.It generally arises from jet streams: fast-moving westerly winds in the upper atmosphere at the same altitude as commercial jets, about 10–12 kilometers up.With climate change, the tropics are warming faster at cruising altitude than higher latitudes. That increases the temperature difference between the higher- and lower-latitudes, driving up jet stream velocity and wind shear — volatile shifts in vertical air currents that trigger CAT.Foudad and colleagues published a paper last year in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres analyzing data from 1980 to 2021.”We find a clear, positive trend — an increase in turbulence frequency over many regions, including the North Atlantic, North America, East Asia, the Middle East and North Africa,” he told AFP, with increases ranging from 60 to 155 percent. Further analysis attributed the rising turbulence in certain regions to increased greenhouse gas emissions.- What happens next? -A 2023 paper led by Isabel Smith at the University of Reading found that for every degree Celsius of near-surface warming, winters would see an increase of about nine percent in moderate CAT in the North Atlantic, and summers a rise of 14 percent.Winter has historically been the roughest season for turbulence, but warming is now amplifying CAT in summer and autumn, closing the gap.Jet stream disruption is not the only concern: climate change is also fueling stronger storms.”Climate change may also increase the frequency and severity of thunderstorms under future scenarios, and turbulence encounters near thunderstorms are a major component of turbulence accidents,” Sharman told AFP.In terms of mitigation strategies, Foudad is working on two studies: optimizing flight routes to avoid turbulence hotspots and improving forecasting accuracy.Some airlines are moving towards strategies involving passengers wearing seatbelts more often, such as ending cabin service earlier.Promising technologies are also being tested, says Sharman, including onboard LIDAR, which beams lasers into the atmosphere to detect subtle shifts in air density and wind speed.Ultimately, cutting greenhouse gas emissions will be essential, Foudad added.Aviation is responsible for about 3.5 percent of human-caused warming. Airlines are exploring cleaner fuels to help reduce the industry’s footprint, though progress has been “disappointingly slow,” according to the International Air Transport Association. 

A US federal judge on Thursday barred the Trump administration and Florida state government from bringing any new migrants to the detention center known as “Alligator Alcatraz” and ordered much of the site to be dismantled, effectively shuttering the facility.Florida’s government swiftly announced it would appeal the decision. The detention center was hastily assembled in just eight days in June with bunk beds, wire cages and large white tents at an abandoned airfield in Florida’s Everglades wetlands, home to a large population of alligators. President Donald Trump, who has vowed to deport millions of undocumented migrants, visited the center last month, boasting about the harsh conditions and joking that the reptilian predators will serve as guards. The White House has nicknamed the facility “Alligator Alcatraz,” a reference to the former island prison in San Francisco Bay that Trump has said he wants to reopen.The center was planned to hold 3,000 migrants, according to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.But it has come under fire from both environmentalists and critics of Trump’s crackdown on migration, who consider the facility to be inhumane.The new ruling on Thursday by District Judge Kathleen Williams comes after a lawsuit filed against the Trump administration by Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity.The environmental groups argue that the detention center threatens the sensitive Everglades ecosystem and was hastily built without conducting the legally required environmental impact studies.- Sixty-day deadline -Earlier this month, Williams had ordered further construction at the center to be temporarily halted.Now she has ordered the Trump administration and the state of Florida — which is governed by Republican Ron DeSantis — to remove all temporary fencing installed at the center within 60 days, as well as all lighting, generators and waste and sewage treatment systems.The order also prohibits “bringing any additional persons onto the… site who were not already being detained at the site.”Several detainees have spoken with AFP about the conditions at the center, including a lack of medical care, mistreatment and the alleged violation of their legal rights.”They don’t even treat animals like this. This is like torture,” said Luis Gonzalez, a 25-year-old Cuban who called AFP from inside the center.He recently shared a cell with about 30 people, a space enclosed by chain-linked fencing that he compared to a chicken coop.The Trump administration has said it wants to make this a model for other detention centers across the country. 

Erik Menendez was denied parole Thursday more than three decades after he and his brother Lyle slaughtered their parents in the family’s luxury Beverly Hills home.A California panel ordered the 54-year-old to stay in prison, defying a lengthy campaign waged by family, friends and celebrities like Kim Kardashian.”Erik Menendez was denied parole for three years at his initial suitability hearing today,” said a brief statement from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR).The result will be a huge blow to a movement that has swelled in recent years, nourished by documentaries and TV dramas, including the smash Netflix hit “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.”The show and other productions have fixated on the grisly details of the 1989 shotgun murders and the televised jury trial that captivated audiences with accounts of their abusive upbringings and posh lifestyles.Thursday’s hearing came 36 years and a day after his family learned of his parents’ deaths, Erik Menendez told the parole board.”Today is the day all my victims learned my parents were dead,” he said during the 10-hour hearing. “So today is the anniversary of their trauma journey.”The parole denial comes the day before Lyle Menendez, 57, will appear before a panel to ask them to release him from prison.”This is a tragic case,” parole commissioner Robert Barton said after the decision was issued. “I agree that not only two, but four people, were lost in this family.”More than a dozen relatives testified to say they’ve forgiven the Menendez brothers, as they came to be known, and to call for their release.”Two things can be true,” Barton said. “They can love and forgive you and you can still be found unsuitable for parole.”- ‘Mafia hit’ -The men are among America’s most celebrated prisoners, and the stars of one of the first-ever televised murder trials.Jurors in the 1990s were told how the men killed Jose and Kitty Menendez in what prosecutors said was a cynical attempt to get their hands on a large family fortune.After setting up alibis and trying to cover their tracks, Erik and Lyle shot Jose Menendez five times with shotguns, including in the kneecaps.Kitty Menendez died from a shotgun blast as she tried desperately to crawl away from her killers.The brothers initially blamed the deaths on a mafia hit, but changed their story several times in the ensuing months.Erik, then 18, confessed to the murders in a session with his therapist.The pair ultimately claimed they had acted in self-defense after years of emotional and sexual abuse at the hands of a tyrannical father.During their decades in prison, changing social mores and greater awareness of sexual abuse helped elevate the men to something approaching cultural icons.- ‘Horrific’ -Thursday’s hearing, which was closed to the public, was expected to last just two to three hours.Instead, it went on all day.Erik Menendez appeared by video link from the San Diego prison where he and his brother are being held.Two or three panel members, whose identity was not released by CDCR, quizzed him on his behavior and attitude towards the murders.The parole hearing became possible when a judge earlier this year resentenced the men, reducing their original full-life tariff to one of 50 years with the possibility of release.Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman, who opposed the resentencing, applauded Thursday’s decision.”Importantly, the (parole) Board did not bow to public spectacle or pressure, a restraint that upholds the dignity and integrity of the justice system.”Lyle’s hearing on Friday is independent of his brother’s.

US Federal Reserve chief Jerome Powell is expected to walk a fine line while delivering a closely watched speech at a central banking conference on Friday, as he faces down attacks from President Donald Trump alongside mixed economic data.The US central bank chair may have used his keynote speech at the Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium last year to indicate the time had come for interest rate cuts — but analysts warn there is a murkier picture this time around.”The Fed is in a tough position as inflation remains above target and downside risks to the labor market are intensifying,” said Ryan Sweet, chief US economist at Oxford Economics.Powell is due to deliver his final Jackson Hole speech as Fed chair at 10:00 am Eastern Time (1400 GMT) on Friday. His term at the helm ends in May 2026.”Whether they cut or not in September will likely hinge on data that Powell won’t have in hand” at the symposium, Sweet told AFP.Yet, the independent Fed has come under intensifying pressure from the Trump administration this year to lower rates.- ‘No intention of being bullied’ -Trump has made no secret of his disdain for Powell, repeatedly saying that the Fed chair has been “too late” in lowering interest rates while calling him a “numbskull” and “moron.”The president has also taken aim at Powell over the Fed’s headquarters renovation in Washington, suggesting that cost overruns could be cause for ousting the central banker.Trump eventually backed off the idea but this week separately called for the resignation of a Fed governor, Lisa Cook, over claims of mortgage fraud. Cook pushed back, saying in a statement that she had “no intention of being bullied to step down” while adding that she would take questions about her financial history seriously.- Jobs, inflation risks -“We expect Powell to comment on both the latest jobs data and the latest inflation data before putting into context an assessment of appropriate monetary policy,” HSBC US economist Ryan Wang said in a note.The Fed, which holds its next policy meeting in mid-September, has kept interest rates steady at a range of between 4.25 percent and 4.50 percent since its last reduction in December.In keeping rates unchanged, policymakers cited resilience in the labor market as they monitored the effects of Trump’s wide-ranging tariffs on the world’s biggest economy.Higher tariffs on imports risk fueling price hikes, according to analysts. The Fed typically keeps interest rates at a higher level to sustainably rein in inflation.The Fed’s preferred inflation gauge rose 2.6 percent in June from a year ago, and a measure stripping out the volatile food and energy segments was higher at 2.8 percent. Both figures are above the Fed’s longer-term target of two percent.But cracks have meanwhile emerged in the jobs market, which could call for lower rates to boost the economy.Official employment data released this month showed that hiring in May and June was much weaker than originally estimated.Hours after the data was released, Trump ordered the firing of the commissioner of labor statistics, eventually picking an economist from a right-wing think tank as her replacement.Softening employment has raised concern among officials, with Fed governors Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman voting against the overall decision in July to hold rates steady for a fifth straight meeting.Both had preferred to lower interest rates by 25 basis points. It was the first time since 1993 that two Fed governors dissented.According to minutes of the meeting released Wednesday, Bowman argued that gradually reducing rates would help hedge against further cooling in the economy and the risk of damage to the labor market.Fed officials remain divided on whether Trump’s tariffs would have a one-off effect on inflation or cause more persistent effects.For now, CME Group’s FedWatch Tool shows the market sees a 73.5-percent chance that the Fed will lower rates in September. “With more employment data to come, we don’t think Powell can firmly guide toward easing at the next meeting,” JPMorgan analysts said in a recent note.

Shipping Nvidia’s H20 chips to China was “great” for Beijing and Washington and not a security threat, the tech giant’s chief said Friday.  The California-based company produces some of the world’s most advanced semiconductors but cannot ship its most cutting-edge chips to China due to concerns from Washington that Beijing could use them to enhance military capabilities.Nvidia developed the H20 — a less powerful version of its AI processing units — specifically for export to China. That plan stalled when the Trump administration tightened export licensing requirements in April.The H20 was “not a national security concern”, Jensen Huang told reporters in Taipei, describing the chip as “great for America” and “great for the Chinese market”.Huang insisted there were “no security backdoors” in the H20 chip allowing remote access, after China summoned company representatives to discuss security issues. “We have made very clear and put to rest that H20 has no security backdoors, there are no such things, there never has, and so hopefully the response that we’ve given to the Chinese government will be sufficient,” Huang said.He sidestepped a question about reports that Nvidia would pay the United States 15 percent of its revenues from the sale of H20 chips to China, which US President Donald Trump confirmed last week.Instead, Huang expressed gratitude to the Trump administration for allowing the chips to be shipped to the Chinese market. “The demand I believe is quite great and so the ability to ship products to, H20s to China, is very much appreciated,” the CEO said.Huang also said Nvidia is in talks with the US government about a new chip for China.”Offering a new product to China for the data center, AI data centers, the follow on to H20, that’s not our decision to make. It’s up to of course the United States government, and we’re in dialogue with them but it’s too soon to know,” he said.Huang met with Trump at the White House this month and agreed to give the federal government the cut from its revenues, a highly unusual arrangement in the international tech trade, according to reports in the Financial Times, Bloomberg and The New York Times.Investors are betting that AI will transform the global economy, and last month Nvidia — the world’s most valuable company and a leading designer of high-end AI chips — became the first company ever to hit $4 trillion in market value.The firm has, however, become entangled in trade tensions between China and the United States, which are waging a heated battle for dominance to produce the chips that power AI.It comes as the Trump administration has been imposing stiff tariffs, with goals varying from addressing US trade imbalances, wanting to reshore manufacturing and pressuring foreign governments to change policies.A 100 percent tariff on many semiconductor imports came into effect this month, with exceptions for tech companies that announce major investments in the United States.

Republican-controlled Texas and Democrat-run California forged ahead Thursday with creating new congressional maps, in a cutthroat struggle to tilt the outcome of next year’s US midterm elections.The battle between the country’s two largest states was set off by President Donald Trump’s drive to protect the thin Republican majority in the US House of Representatives and avoid becoming mired in Democratic Party investigations from 2027.Under pressure from Trump, Texas fired the starting gun in a tussle that pro-democracy activists warn could spread nationwide. Its state house on Wednesday approved new congressional boundaries that would likely eke out five extra Republican districts.The state senate is expected to green-light the bill on Friday morning and send it to Governor Greg Abbott for a signature.California Governor Gavin Newsom — an early frontrunner for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination — struck back with a plan for a new map that would likely cancel out Texas by adding five Democratic seats.The state’s legislature on Thursday overwhelmingly approved the plan, with thumping majorities in the house and the senate, both of which are Democrat controlled.”We will not let our political system be hijacked by authoritarianism,” Speaker Robert Rivas said, shortly before the vote.”Today, we give every Californian the power to say no… to Donald Trump’s power grab and yes to our people, to our state and to our democracy.”Voters will now be asked if they want to temporarily redraw constituency boundaries for elections, up to and including 2030.The Texas House approved its new district boundaries after a two-week drama sparked by Democrats fleeing the state in an effort to block the vote and draw nationwide attention to the issue of partisan redistricting, known as “gerrymandering.”The Senate Special Committee on Congressional Redistricting passed the new map in a 5-3 vote Thursday lunchtime, teeing up a Friday vote of the full chamber.Redistricting usually occurs once every decade, taking into account population changes registered in the latest census.- ‘Clinging to power’ -The unusual mid-decade effort in Texas is expected to spark a tit-for-tat battle, potentially dragging in liberal-leaning Illinois and New York, and conservative Florida, Louisiana, Ohio, Indiana and Missouri. “The Great State of Missouri is now IN,” Trump announced Thursday on social media, in a post understood to be referring to redistricting.”I’m not surprised. It is a great State with fabulous people. I won it, all 3 times, in a landslide. We’re going to win the Midterms in Missouri again, bigger and better than ever before!”But New York’s Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul called the push the “last gasp of a desperate party clinging to power,” warning Trump that she would “meet him on the same field and beat him at his own game.” Former president Barack Obama endorsed California’s retaliation as a “smart and measured” response to anti-democratic moves by Trump.”(Since) Texas is taking direction from a partisan White House and gerrymandering in the middle of a decade to try and maintain the House despite their unpopular policies, I have tremendous respect for how Governor Newsom has approached this,” he said.Newsom has a tougher task than Abbott in pushing through the redistricting plans, as California voters must first agree in a referendum in November to bypass the independent commission that normally controls the process. Californians have traditionally been wary of partisan redistricting, and while Democrats have called for independent commissions nationwide, a new Politico-UC Berkeley Citrin Center poll shows they would make an exception for the pushback against Texas.Republicans are suing Democrats, alleging that November’s vote would be unlawful, although the California Supreme Court rejected an initial challenge late Wednesday.”Yes, we’ll fight fire with fire. Yes, we will push back. It’s not about whether we play hardball anymore — it’s about how we play hardball,” Newsom said in a call with reporters. 

A curious bear on the hunt for something sweet found itself behind the counter of a California ice cream shop over the weekend.The big animal appeared to be making itself right at home when sheriff’s deputies turned up to investigate in the resort city of South Lake Tahoe early Sunday.Officers shooed the ursine server out of the shop, but not before snapping a few pictures of their encounter.”With some encouragement, the bear ultimately left, but only after showing interest in the strawberry ice cream,” said a post on the Facebook page of El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office.”Thankfully, Fuzzy the bear caused barely any property damage and there was barely any cleanup.”Bears are common in California and frequently go looking for food in human settlements, including entering homes or vehicles.Attacks on people are rare, but the animals can sometimes cause damage, especially when they cannot find a way out.