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Donald Trump told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday to make a deal with Russia, pouring cold water on Kyiv’s hopes for Tomahawk missiles as the US leader renews a push to settle the war.Trump said as recently as last month that he believed Ukraine could take back all its territory — but a day after agreeing to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin for a new summit, the American had changed his tune, though Zelensky did not rule out Trump changing his mind again in the future.”It’s good that President Trump didn’t say ‘no,’ but for today, (he) didn’t say ‘yes'” to providing Kyiv with Tomahawks, Zelensky told US broadcaster NBC on Friday.After meeting with Zelensky at the White House, Trump said on social media that their talks were “very interesting, and cordial, but I told him, as I likewise strongly suggested to President Putin, that it is time to stop the killing, and make a DEAL!””They should stop where they are. Let both claim Victory, let History decide!” he posted online, while flying to his Florida estate.Upon landing, he told reporters that Ukraine and Russia should “stop right now at the battle line.””Go by the battle line wherever it is or else it gets too complicated,” he added.Zelensky meanwhile said after the meeting that Russia was “afraid” of the US-made long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles, and that he was “realistic” about receiving the weapons from Washington.He told reporters that while he and Trump discussed long-range weapons they “decided that we don’t speak about it because… the United States doesn’t want escalation.”- ‘Get the war over’ -Zelensky came to Washington after weeks of calls for Tomahawks, hoping to capitalize on Trump’s growing frustration with Putin after a summit in Alaska failed to produce a breakthrough.But the Ukrainian left empty-handed as Trump eyes a fresh diplomatic breakthrough on the back of last week’s Gaza peace deal.Trump has appeared far more upbeat about the prospects of a deal since his lengthy call Thursday with Putin, in which they agreed to meet soon in Budapest.”Hopefully we’ll be able to get the war over with, without thinking about Tomahawks,” Trump told journalists as he hosted Zelensky.Trump added that he believed Putin “wants to end the war.”Zelensky, who came to push for the long-range US-made weapons, said however that he would be ready to swap “thousands” of Ukrainian drones in exchange for Tomahawks.Zelensky congratulated Trump on his recent Middle East peace deal in Gaza and said he hoped he would do the same for Ukraine. “I hope that President Trump can manage it,” he said.- ‘Many questions’ -Diplomatic talks on ending Russia’s invasion have stalled since the Alaska summit.The Kremlin said Friday that “many questions” needed resolving before Putin and Trump could meet, including who would be on each negotiating team.But it brushed off suggestions Putin would have difficulty flying over European airspace.Hungary said it would ensure Putin could enter and “hold successful talks” with the United States despite an International Criminal Court arrest warrant against him for alleged war crimes.Since the start of his second term, Trump’s position on the Ukraine war has shifted dramatically back and forth.Initially Trump and Putin reached out to each other as the US leader derided Zelensky as a “dictator without elections.”Tensions came to a head in February, when Trump accused his Ukrainian counterpart of “not having the cards” in a rancorous Oval Office meeting.Relations between the two have since warmed as Trump has expressed growing frustration with Putin.But Trump has kept a dialogue channel open with Putin, saying they “get along.”The US leader has repeatedly changed his position on sanctions and other steps against Moscow following calls with the Russian president.Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, describing it as a “special military operation” to demilitarize the country and prevent the expansion of NATO.Russia now occupies around a fifth of Ukrainian territory — much of it ravaged by fighting. On Friday the Russian defense ministry announced it had captured three villages in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv regions.

US President Donald Trump said Friday that Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro had offered major concessions to ease tensions with Washington and confirmed a new strike on a drug-smuggling vessel, which reportedly left survivors.Washington accuses Maduro of heading a drug cartel and has deployed significant military assets — including stealth warplanes and seven US Navy ships — as part of what it says are counter-narcotics efforts in the region.Maduro, an authoritarian socialist who is widely accused of stealing elections last year, claims Washington is plotting regime change.Asked at the White House about reports that Caracas had floated de-escalation plans, Trump was scathing.”He has offered everything, you’re right. You know why? Because he doesn’t want to fuck around with the United States,” he said.Venezuela’s vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, on Thursday denied a Miami Herald report that she had negotiated with Washington on a plan to oust Maduro.Venezuela is the alleged origin of some of the vessels, at least six of which have been targeted and mostly involving speedboats, in an unprecedented campaign of US strikes in the Caribbean since September.The latest attack left survivors on board, media outlets including CBS and NBC reported, citing unidentified US officials.US media later reported Friday the two survivors were in the custody of the US Navy, with no further details available on their conditions or circumstances.Trump said the target was a “drug-carrying submarine built specifically for the transportation of massive amounts of drugs.”Semi-submersibles built in clandestine jungle shipyards have for years been used to ferry cocaine from South America, particularly Colombia, to Central America or Mexico, usually via the Pacific Ocean.Washington says its Caribbean campaign is dealing a decisive blow to drug trafficking, but it has provided no evidence that the people killed — at least 27 so far — were drug smugglers.Experts say such summary killings are illegal even if they target confirmed narcotics traffickers.The US campaign has drawn in some of Venezuela’s neighbors.Police in Trinidad and Tobago, located off the coast of Venezuela, is investigating whether two of its citizens were killed in a strike on Wednesday.And Colombian President Gustavo Petro says he believes Colombians have also died in the attacks.A defiant Trump this week announced plans to ramp up operations against Venezuela, fuelling speculation that his administration aims to topple Maduro.Trump indicated he had authorized covert CIA operations against Venezuela and was considering strikes on land targets.Earlier this week, in a show of force, US-based B-52 bombers circled over the Caribbean off Venezuela’s coast for several hours, data from tracking website Flightradar24 showed.Venezuela has deployed 17,000 troops to Tachira state, which borders Colombia, in response to the US threats.Venezuelan forces are also stationed in southern Amazonas state, which borders both Colombia and Brazil, and multiple coastal areas. While Trump weighs whether to expand US military action from the sea onto land, the admiral overseeing the naval strikes in the Caribbean announced he will step down.The head of US Southern Command gave no reason for retiring just a year into his tenure, which follows multiple top US military officers being dismissed in recent months.burs-cb/jgc/mlm

A US judge on Friday granted an injunction barring Israeli spyware maker NSO Group from targeting WhatsApp users but slashed a $168 million damages award at trial to just $4 million.District Judge Phyllis Hamilton ruled that NSO Group’s behavior fell short of a “particularly egregious” standard needed to support the jury’s calculations on a financial penalty.But in the ruling, seen by AFP, she said the court “concluded that defendants’ conduct causes irreparable harm, and there being no dispute that the conduct is ongoing” the judge granted WhatsApp owner Meta an injunction to stop NSO Group’s snooping tactics at the messaging service.”Today’s ruling bans spyware maker NSO from ever targeting WhatsApp and our global users again,” WhatsApp boss Will Cathcart said in a statement.”We applaud this decision that comes after six years of litigation to hold NSO accountable for targeting members of civil society.”Evidence at trial showed that NSO Group reverse-engineered WhatsApp code to stealthily install spyware targeting users, according to the ruling.The spyware was repeatedly redesigned to escape detection and bypass security fixes at WhatsApp, the court concluded.The lawsuit, filed in late 2019, accused NSO Group of cyberespionage targeting journalists, lawyers, human rights activists and others using the encrypted messaging service.Hamilton ruled however that the $168 million damages verdict awarded to Meta earlier this year was excessive.”There have simply not yet been enough cases involving unlawful electronic surveillance in the smartphone era for the court to be able to conclude that defendants’ conduct was ‘particularly egregious’,” Hamilton wrote in the ruling which was seen by AFP.”As time goes on, more of a shared societal consensus may emerge about the acceptability of defendants’ conduct.”- ‘Malicious code’ -Founded in 2010 by Israelis Shalev Hulio and Omri Lavie, NSO Group is based in the seaside high-tech hub of Herzliya, near Tel Aviv.Media website TechCrunch reported Friday that a US investment group has acquired controlling interest in NSO Group.The Israeli firm produces Pegasus, a highly invasive tool that can reportedly switch on a target’s cell phone camera and microphone and access data on it, effectively turning the phone into a pocket spy.The suit filed in a California federal court contended that NSO tried to infect approximately 1,400 “target devices” with malicious software to steal valuable information.Infecting smartphones or other gadgets being used for WhatsApp messages meant the content of messages encrypted during transmission could be accessed after they were unscrambled.The complaint said the attackers “developed a program to enable them to emulate legitimate WhatsApp network traffic in order to transmit malicious code” to take over the devices.The software has been pinpointed by independent experts as being used by nation states, some of them with poor human rights records.NSO Group has maintained it only licenses its software to governments for fighting crime and terrorism.

New Yorkers run on coffee. From high-end experimental boutique cafes to the humble sidewalk cart, millions of cups of java are sold every day.But coffee-lovers are facing increasing pain as they pay for their simple espresso shots and elaborate pumpkin spiced lattes as the cost of beans has jumped 21 percent between August 2024 and August 2025 in the United States — the world’s largest market for coffee.Climate shocks drove the cost of arabica soaring, with the beans hitting an all-time high in February 2025. That has been compounded by elevated transport costs and the 50 percent tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump since August 6 on many products from Brazil.Brazil, the largest coffee producer, has been sanctioned by the Trump administration for its prosecution of former president Jair Bolsonaro for a coup attempt. It supplies 30 percent of the United States’s unroasted beans.”It’s having a major impact on us, on small business owners, on farmers, across the board,” Jeremy Lyman, co-founder of the New York-based chain Birch Coffee, told AFP.Founded in 2009, the brand has 14 outlets citywide, roasting its own specialty coffee in Queens since 2015.”The price of coffee on the market has just been on a steady incline over the last probably year. I think it’s gone up about 55 percent from this time last year…it’s impacting the prices that we charge,” Lyman said.He said that Brazil’s production had become “unaffordable” forcing Birch to look elsewhere for beans with its importer “pushing pause” on its orders unless specially requested.Cecafe, the Council of Coffee Exporters of Brazil, reports that exports to the United States have dropped almost 53 percent as of September compared to the year before with importers looking instead to Mexico, Peru and Ethiopia.- United by coffee -Lyman acknowledges market forces have meant price hikes for his customers, with Birch adding 50 cents to cups sold in-store, and $2 to $3 per bag of roasted coffee sold online. “Typically, it’ll be small, incremental (increases) because it also helps us get a little bit more time to navigate how we’re going to be sourcing,” he said, adding that he tried to give customers two weeks of warning.Other cafes have adopted a novel approach: adding an adjustable premium to the base price of each cup according to what level Trump has set tariffs that day, Lyman said.But customers will only swallow so much, the Birch founder warned, warning of a real risk of losing customers.Jason Nickel, 45, said that while he still seeks out a daily caffeine hit, he is “a little more careful about where I go.” He cannot imagine paying more than $6 a cup, including tip, for cortado — an espresso shot with a dash of milk foam.Anna Simonovsky, 32, said that her upper limit had gone from $7 for a latte — a milkier, frothier drink than a cortado — to as much as $10. She enjoys coffee as a treat for special occasions, like a visit with a friend.Trump recently threw a lifeline to the two-thirds of Americans who drink coffee daily when he placed coffee on a list of products not cultivated by US farmers in sufficient quantity — potentially exempting it from tariffs, alongside tea and cocoa.And in a rare glimmer of bipartisanship, coffee-loving Republicans and Democrats are jointly sponsoring a bill intended to protect coffee products.

There’s no rest for Jose Daniel Ferrer, a Cuban dissident who arrived in the United States this week and is determined to work with other exiles to democratically unseat the communist government in Havana.”We have to be proactive if we want to encourage Cubans to fight for their rights, for their freedom, instead of leaving the country with a ‘save yourself if you can’ type of mentality,” the longtime activist told AFP from his new home in Miami.Ferrer is the founder of the pro-democracy movement Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), and has paid a price for his efforts.The 55-year-old was detained during Cuba’s July 11, 2021 protests — the largest protests the island has seen since the 1959 communist revolution —  and was released in January of this year. He was imprisoned again in April until he was again released Monday, when he fled into exile.- Family and country -Ultimately, Ferrer said it wasn’t until Cuban authorities began pressuring his loved ones — threatening merchants that sold them goods and raiding his home — that he made the “very tough” decision to accept exile to the United States.”That whole situation, knowing that the government is going to increase the level of harassment toward my family — it caused a pain that is difficult to bear,” he said.In prison, Ferrer said he was beaten and forced to eat rotten food, and he struggled to engage with his network of activists as well as an apathetic population.”It hurts that my compatriots don’t care about my sacrifice or that of other opponents, and only think about leaving the country,” he said. “The fact that so many people are leaving Cuba, and that mentality of ‘nobody can fix this,’ has done a lot of harm,” he said.Ferrer was also imprisoned between 2003 and 2011, after being arrested with 74 others during the so-called “Black Spring” protests, and knows how hard it is to go against a government that uses “excessive repression.” But he believes “if more people were involved in the resistance, it would be harder to repress them.”- Creative activism -Despite the disappointments and hardships he’s faced, Ferrer vows to continue his fight from Miami.”With the exile community, we are going to promote creative and non-violent activism throughout the island, from Guantanamo to Pinar del Rio,” he said enthusiastically.Through a network of contacts, Ferrer wants to distribute flyers, spread graffiti and use other messaging tactics to inspire the people to question those in power.”We are going to tell the people: ‘The primary culprit isn’t simply the government that imposes its will, but also you who endure it. The solution is not to escape, but to fight for your rights,” he said.The activist believes the opposition hasn’t been able to address “what affects the population the most, and offer them solutions” to the daily problems Cubans face, like lack of access to food, medicine and electricity.”Amid so many needs, freedom and democracy seem like a dream that is too far off.”- Dream of return -For his dreams to come true, Ferrer believes it’s crucial to train activists and organize aid from the international community. “If we were more unified inside and outside Cuba, we would have convinced Europeans and other Western governments that we deserve more solidarity, as Maria Corina Machado did,” he said, referring to the recent Nobel Peace Prize laureate who is leading the opposition in Venezuela against leftist president Nicolas Maduro.Ferrer added that he hopes to return to Cuba soon.”I don’t want to go back when everything is done. I want to return to Cuba to make the regime end and begin the transition process toward democracy,” he said. 

President Donald Trump on Friday commuted the sentence of disgraced former Republican lawmaker George Santos, who was convicted of committing wire fraud and identity theft to splurge on lavish vacations and Botox injections with funds stolen from campaign donors.”George has been in solitary confinement for long stretches of time and, by all accounts, has been horribly mistreated,” Trump wrote in a lengthy post to his Truth Social site Friday.”And at least Santos had the Courage, Conviction and Intelligence to ALWAYS VOTE REPUBLICAN,” he added.”Therefore, I just signed a Commutation, releasing George Santos from prison, IMMEDIATELY.”A presidential commutation is different to a pardon in that the original conviction stands — but the sentence passed is reduced.The 37-year-old ex-representative from New York state reported to prison in July, after being sentenced to seven years and three months in April for stealing campaign donors’ identities and using their credit cards, among other charges.A congressional ethics committee investigation revealed his use of stolen funds for Botox treatments and the OnlyFans porn website, as well as luxury Italian goods and vacations to the Hamptons and Las Vegas.Santos’s bizarre biographical fabrications included claiming to have worked for Goldman Sachs, being Jewish and having been a college volleyball star.He was expelled from the House in 2023, one year after he was elected to office, becoming only the third person to be ejected as a US lawmaker since the Civil War, a rebuke previously reserved for traitors and convicted criminals.

John Bolton has spent decades navigating the halls of power in Washington, earning a reputation as a leading foreign policy hawk.The veteran diplomat with the trademark bushy white mustache unrepentantly pushed the Iraq invasion and campaigned to bomb Iran and North Korea.Bolton was semi-retired and working as a talking head on Fox News when he was tapped by the television-loving Donald Trump in 2018 to become his national security advisor.But what appeared to be his dream job ended with Bolton becoming one of the Republican president’s fiercest critics and has now seen him indicted for allegedly mishandling classified information.The 76-year-old Bolton pleaded not guilty in a federal court in Maryland on Friday to 18 counts of transmitting or retaining top secret national defense information collected during his short-lived tenure at the White House.His indictment comes after two other prominent Trump foes — New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI director James Comey — were also slapped with criminal charges.While other former Trump advisors have kept respectful silences or narrowly tailored their critiques, Bolton wrote a blistering memoir after leaving the White House challenging Trump’s intelligence, ethics and basic competence.- Odd couple -Trump had already cycled through two national security advisors during his first term when he named Bolton to the post.The match appeared odd from the start.Trump was born into wealth and privilege while Bolton, the son of a working-class Baltimore firefighter, earned high school scholarships and eventually a place at elite Yale University, where he obtained a law degree.Trump took office railing against the so-called “Deep State,” while Bolton is a master of Washington’s bureaucracy, having served in top government positions since Ronald Reagan was president.And Trump is wary of involvement in foreign conflicts, whereas Bolton has long advocated taking a hard line with countries such as Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela and Iran, a stance which has reportedly earned him death threats from Tehran.Where Trump and Bolton found common cause was in a passion for fighting global institutions such as UN agencies and the International Criminal Court.In one of Bolton’s most memorable remarks, he dismissed the United Nations in a 1994 speech, quipping that if the 38-floor secretariat in New York “lost 10 stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.”That did not stop George W. Bush from making him US ambassador to the United Nations, although the president controversially bypassed the Senate where opposition to Bolton ran deep.- ‘Unfit to be president’ -Foreign policy disagreements — particularly over Iran and Trump’s engagement with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un — led to Bolton’s departure as Trump’s national security advisor in September 2019.The president claimed he was fired, but Bolton insisted that he had resigned.Bolton earned Trump’s lasting ire soon afterwards with the publication of his highly critical book, “The Room Where It Happened.”He has since become a highly visible and pugnacious detractor of Trump on television news programs and in print, condemning the man he has called “unfit to be president.”Trump, asked about Bolton’s indictment by reporters at the White House on Thursday, said his former national security advisor is a “bad guy.””That’s the way it goes,” Trump said.

An international vote to approve cutting maritime emissions was delayed by a year Friday in a victory for the United States, which opposes the carbon-cutting plan.The London-based International Maritime Organization (IMO), a United Nations body that governs shipping, voted in April for a global pricing system to help curb greenhouse gases.But a vote Friday on whether to formally approve the deal was delayed until next year after US President Donald Trump threatened sanctions against countries backing the plan.Increased divisions, notably between oil-producing nations and non-oil producers, emerged this week at meetings leading up to Friday’s vote.Delegates instead voted on a hastily arranged resolution to postpone proceedings, which passed by 57 votes to 49.Trump had said Thursday that the proposed global carbon tax on shipping was a “scam”, after the United States withdrew from IMO negotiations in April.A Russian delegate described the proceedings as “chaos” as he addressed the plenary Friday after talks had lasted into the early hours.Russia had joined major oil producers Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in voting against the carbon-reduction measure in April, saying it would harm the economy and food security.IMO Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez, representing 176 member states, said Friday that he hoped there would be no repeat of how the week’s discussions had gone.”It doesn’t help your organisation, it doesn’t help yourself,” he told delegates. A European Union source told AFP that “many countries have changed their minds under pressure from the United States.A spokesman for UN chief Antonio Guterres called it “a missed opportunity for member states to place the shipping sector on a clear, credible path towards net zero emissions”.The International Chamber of Shipping, representing more than 80 percent of the world’s fleet, also expressed disappointment.”Industry needs clarity to be able to make the investments needed to decarbonise the maritime sector,” its Secretary General Thomas Kazakos said in a statement.- Trump ‘outraged’ -Since returning to power in January, Trump has reversed Washington’s course on climate change and encouraged fossil fuel use by deregulation.”I am outraged that the International Maritime Organization is voting in London this week to pass a global Carbon Tax,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform Thursday. “The United States will NOT stand for this Global Green New Scam Tax on Shipping,” he added, telling countries to vote against it.Washington threatened to impose sanctions, visa restrictions and port levies on those supporting the Net Zero Framework (NZF), the first global carbon-pricing system.Major oil-producer Saudi Arabia also called for Friday’s vote to be postponed.”We agree with the United States that it’s important that these conversations are brought to light,” a Saudi representative said.Ahead of this week’s London gathering, a majority 63 IMO members that in April voted for the plan had been expected to maintain their support and to be joined by others to formally approve the NZF.Argentina, which in April abstained from the vote, now opposes the deal. Leading up to Friday’s decision, China, the EU, Brazil, Britain and several other members of the IMO reaffirmed their support.The NZF requires ships to progressively reduce carbon emissions from 2028 or face financial penalties.Shipping accounts for nearly three percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the IMO.The plan would charge ships for emissions exceeding a certain threshold, with proceeds used to reward low-emission vessels and support countries vulnerable to climate change.If the global emissions pricing system were adopted, it would become difficult to evade, even for the United States.IMO conventions allow signatories to inspect foreign ships during stopovers and even detain non-compliant vessels.burs-pml/js/rlp

US President Donald Trump suggested Friday it would be premature to give Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, saying as he hosted Volodymyr Zelensky that the war with Russia could probably be ended without them.Zelensky, who came to the White House to push for the long-range US-made weapons, said however that he would be ready to swap “thousands” of Ukrainian drones in exchange for Tomahawks.The US president’s reluctant stance came a day after he and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed in a call to hold a new summit in the Hungarian capital Budapest.”Hopefully we’ll be able to get the war over with without thinking about Tomahawks,” Trump told journalists including an AFP reporter as the two leaders met at the White House.Supplying Ukraine with the powerful missiles despite Putin’s warnings against doing so “could mean big escalation. It could mean a lot of bad things can happen.”Trump added that he believed Putin, whom he met in Alaska in August in a summit that failed to produce a breakthrough, “wants to end the war.”- Drones for Tomahawks? -Zelensky congratulated Trump on his recent Middle East peace deal in Gaza and said he hoped he would do the same for Ukraine. “I hope that President Trump can manage it,” he said.Ukraine has been lobbying Washington for Tomahawks for weeks, arguing that the missiles could help put pressure on Russia to end its brutal three-and-a-half year invasion.Zelensky, meeting Trump in Washington for the third time since the US president’s return to power, suggested that “the United States has Tomahawks and other missiles, very strong missiles, but they can have our 1,000s of drones.”Kyiv has made extensive use of drones since Russia invaded in February 2022.On the eve of Zelensky’s visit, Putin warned Trump in their call against delivering the weapons, saying it could escalate the war and jeopardize peace talks.Trump said the United States had to be careful to not “deplete” its own supplies of Tomahawks, which have a range of over 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles).Diplomatic talks on ending Russia’s invasion have stalled since the Alaska summit.The Kremlin said Friday that “many questions” needed resolving before Putin and Trump could meet, including who would be on each negotiating team.But it brushed off suggestions Putin would have difficulty flying over European airspace.Hungary said it would ensure Putin could enter and “hold successful talks” with the US despite an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant against him for alleged war crimes.- Trump frustrations -Since the start of his second term, Trump’s position on the Ukraine war has shifted dramatically back and forth.Initially Trump and Putin reached out to each other as the US leader derided Zelensky as a “dictator without elections.”Tensions came to a head in February, when Trump accused his Ukrainian counterpart of “not having the cards” in a rancorous televised meeting at the Oval Office.Relations between the two have since warmed as Trump has expressed growing frustration with Putin.But Trump has kept a channel of dialogue open with Putin, saying that they “get along.”The US leader has repeatedly changed his position on sanctions and other steps against Russia following calls with the Russian president.Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, describing it as a “special military operation” to demilitarize the country and prevent the expansion of NATO.Kyiv and its European allies say the war is an illegal land grab that has resulted in tens of thousands of civilian and military casualties and widespread destruction.Russia now occupies around a fifth of Ukrainian territory — much of it ravaged by fighting. On Friday the Russian defense ministry announced it had captured three villages in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv regions.

A senior member of the US Federal Reserve on Friday indicated he could back another interest rate cut later this month, while urging a meeting-by-meeting approach going forward. “I could support a path with an additional reduction in the policy rate,” St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem said during a conference in Washington, which was streamed online. Musalem, who is one of 12 voting members of the Fed’s interest rate-setting committee this year, said his vote would ultimately depend on whether “further risks” to the labor market emerge, and provided that risks to inflation and inflation expectations remain under control.The Fed has a dual mandate to act independently to tackle both unemployment and inflation. Many Fed policymakers have indicated in recent months that they see the Fed’s dual mandate coming into better balance, meaning they are paying more attention to concerns in the labor market.However, their vantage point on the health of the world economy has been clouded since the start of the month by the lack of available official data due to the ongoing US government shutdown. Musalem took a somewhat tougher tone on Friday than many of his colleagues, some of whom have already said they would support an additional rate cut in December this year.  “I do think we need to not be on a preset course,” he said, on the last day before the Fed enters its regular pre-rate decision communications blackout. “I perceive limited space for easing before monetary policy could become overly accommodative,” he added, indicating his ongoing concern about inflation. Futures traders currently see a 100 percent chance that the Fed will cut interest rates by a total of at least 50 basis points over its two remaining meetings this year, according to data from CME Group.A further 50 basis points of cuts would lower the Fed’s benchmark lending rate to between 3.50 and 3.75 from its current rate of between 4.00 and 4.25 percent. “It’s important that while we’re providing support to the labor market, that we continue to lean against any potential persistence in inflation, whether that persistence comes from tariffs, from lower supply of labor or lower labor supply growth from sticky services or for whatever reason,” he said. “I think we’re in a particularly uncertain moment,” he added. “So I think it’s premature to say what I’ll be thinking into the meeting after the next.”