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The US Federal Reserve faces a tough choice Wednesday as it contends with President Donald Trump’s tariff rollout: Prioritize tackling inflation by holding interest rates high, do nothing, or stimulate growth and employment by cutting rates?Analysts and investors overwhelmingly think the Fed will choose to sit tight, preferring to wait and see how the new levies affect the US economy before moving on rates. The rate-setting committee’s second day of deliberations began at 9:00 am local time in Washington (1300 GMT) as scheduled, the Fed said in a statement. Their decision will be published later Wednesday, followed by a press conference held by Fed Chair Jerome Powell. “It’s an unfavorable mix for the Federal Reserve,” Nationwide chief economist Kathy Bostjancic told AFP. “They’re going to see upward price pressures at the same time when economic growth is slowing,” she said. “And then they’ll have to put a weight on what do they believe?”The US central bank has a dual mandate from Congress to act independently to achieve stable prices and maximum sustainable employment, which it does mainly by raising and lowering the level of its key short-term lending rate. Futures traders see a probability of more than 95 percent that the Fed will make no cuts this week, according to data from financial services company CME Group. – ‘Decisive evidence’ – Last month, Trump introduced steep levies on China and lower “baseline” levies of 10 percent on goods from most other countries, sparking weeks of turbulence in the financial markets. The White House also introduced higher tariffs on dozens of other trading partners, and then abruptly paused them until July to give the United States time to renegotiate existing trade arrangements.Data published in recent weeks point to an economic contraction in the first quarter of the year, as consumers and businesses stocked up on imports ahead of the introduction of the new measures.At the same time, the unemployment rate has hovered close to historic lows, and the inflation rate has trended towards — but remained just above — the Fed’s long-term target of two percent. “We continue to think that Fed officials will be willing to ‘look through’ tariff related goods inflation and cut policy rates to support the labor market,” economists at Citi bank wrote in a recent investor note. “But that will not occur until they see decisive evidence in hard data that labor markets are loosening,” they added. Other analysts, including those at Deutsche Bank, expect the Fed will pause for longer to see how the economic picture unfolds. If, as is widely expected, the Fed sits tight this week, its baseline rate will remain at between 4.25 percent and 4.50 percent, where it has sat since December 2024. – ‘Neither good nor bad enough’ -“Incoming data are neither good nor bad enough to force the FOMC to reveal its intentions,” Steve Englander, Standard Chartered bank’s head of North America macro strategy, wrote in a note to clients, referring to the bank’s rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee. Fed Chair Jerome Powell will likely try to make “very little news” during his regular press conference after the rate decision is published, said Bostjancic from Nationwide. Powell will likely face additional questions about the Trump administration’s support for his leadership of the independent central bank, given public criticism leveled at him and the Fed by senior government officials — including the president. “He should lower them,” Trump said of Powell and the interest rates in an interview published over the weekend, repeating his past criticism of the Fed chair while insisting he had no plans to try to fire him before his term ends next year.”By commenting publicly on what the Fed should do, they potentially undermine…the public’s perception of the institution’s commitment to price stability,” former Fed economist Rodney Ramcharan wrote in a note shared with AFP. “If the Fed were to cut rates, markets could perceive that decision as ‘political’ rather than a reaction to actual economic conditions,” he added. 

Sara, a Dubai-based journalist, joined the US-funded Alhurra TV news channel hoping for job security. But after it abruptly stopped broadcasting and fired most staff, she’s wondering how to make ends meet.Alhurra, the only Arabic-language US station in a region where anti-American feeling is common, went off-air last month, hit by widespread cuts under President Donald Trump.The station, which has struggled to compete in a crowded market that includes Qatar’s Al Jazeera, had already sacked 25 percent of its workforce after budget cuts last September.It is also out of kilter with Trump, a frequent critic of traditional media who will visit the United Arab Emirates and other Gulf monarchies this month.But Alhurra’s sudden closure came as a shock. On April 12, all 99 employees in Dubai, its Middle East headquarters, received an email titled “Thank you for your service”, informing them of their immediate dismissal.Sara, who asked to use a pseudonym to speak freely about the situation, said they are now fighting for the end-of-service payments mandated by law in the UAE.”We’re living a horror movie,” she told AFP. “My income was suddenly cut off, and I have family commitments and a bank loan. What will happen if I can’t pay the instalments?”The defunding of Alhurra, along with other outlets under the federal US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) such as Voice of America and Radio Free Asia, is being challenged in US courts.But the Dubai staff hold out little hope of being reinstated. Meanwhile, the stress has “driven us into psychological ruin”, said Sara, who is in her thirties.- ‘Dialogue between leaders’ -Dubai’s authorities are closely monitoring the case and providing assistance, including by relaxing the usual practice of quickly cancelling residence permits for those without a job, Alhurra journalists told AFP.According to Mutlaq al-Mutairi, a media specialist at Saudi Arabia’s King Saud University, the cuts were in line with shifts in messaging under Trump.The United States no longer uses media as “they used to do in the past to communicate their political vision, especially on the question of terrorism”, Mutairi said.Instead, Trump now directly “relies on dialogue between leaders and governments” to get his message across, he told AFP.Washington established Alhurra in 2004, the year after the invasion of Iraq, as a soft power tool to counterbalance the influence of Al Jazeera, which had been broadcasting since 1996.The US news channel claims a weekly audience of more than 30 million people in 22 Arab countries.It is the flagship of Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN), part of USAGM — an independent federal agency that funds media outlets.However, the Trump administration — which placed USAGM under the leadership of Kari Lake, an ultra-conservative former TV news anchor — condemned it as a “corrupt giant and a burden on American taxpayers”.USAGM had 3,384 employees in fiscal year 2023 and had requested $950 million in funding for the current fiscal year. – ‘Kill strategy’ -Jeffrey Gedmin, MBN’s president and CEO for just over a year, said the company had gone from around 500 employees to “about 40″.”The Trump administration, in my view, is not particularly fond of this kind of independent media,” he told AFP, describing the cuts as a “kill strategy”.”I think what the Trump administration is doing is simply unwise. I think it’s going to harm, reputationally, the United States of America.”Given the recent job losses, many of Alhurra’s staff were not surprised it closed. But they were taken aback by the speed of events.”The decision (to close) was expected, but we didn’t imagine it would happen so quickly,” said an employee at MBN’s Virginia headquarters.”They threw us out into the street,” the employee added.Michael Robbins, director of the Arab Barometer research network, pointed to Alhurra’s limited success competing with Al Jazeera, as well as the BBC, which “already provided news in Arabic from a Western perspective and had a much longer reputation”. “Few in the region turn to Alhurra as their primary source of information,” he added.Another Alhurra journalist in Dubai, who also did not want to be named, said he was facing an “uncertain professional future” after eight years at the channel. “We are shunned (by media) in most Arab countries because we worked for the Americans,” said the 56-year-old. Gedmin said he was “in complete solidarity” with the laid-off employees. “We’re fighting to see if we can help them at least somewhat,” he said.

Hollywood has always been “an international industry,” that would suffer creatively if cross-border work was curbed, the head of North America’s largest film festival told AFP.Cameron Bailey, chief executive of the Toronto International Film Festival, joined other entertainment industry leaders in criticizing President Donald Trump’s proposed 100 percent tariffs on foreign films, a surprise weekend announcement that plunged the movie industry into uncertainty. “Hollywood itself has always been, since the very early days, an international industry,” Bailey said in an interview at TIFF’s flagship Toronto venue, a complex that includes cinemas, bars and other social spaces. He recalled the US film industry’s “classic era” in the 1940s and 1950s, created by filmmakers who had come from Europe.Bailey said the history of movie-making has proven the value of letting “story-telling brilliance to really flow across borders.””Like any global industry, when you draw on the very best talent from around the world, you’re always going to do better,” Bailey said. Writing on his Truth Social platform on Sunday, Trump said he had authorized his administration to begin “instituting a 100% Tariff on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands.””WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!” he wrote.A survey of studio executives revealed that their top five preferred production locations for 2025 and 2026 were all outside of the United States, due to competitive tax incentive schemes on offer. Toronto was first on the list and Vancouver, in western Canada, ranked third. Trump has imposed tariffs on a range of Canadian goods including autos, steel and aluminum but his plans for the film industry remain unclear. Bailey said if Trump moved forward, any actions to limit film production in Canada would likely lead to less talent feeding into Hollywood. “Our actors become their movie stars sometimes,” Bailey said.”Our producers and screenwriters and directors and crews are all working to support Hollywood’s movies, shows, series, and that’s been going on for a long time.”- ‘No sticky floors’ -As cinemas face fresh challenges to attract customers amid the growth of streaming services, Bailey said future success for theaters will rely on their ability to offer an elevated social experience. TIFF’s downtown Toronto venue, The Lightbox, includes a cocktail lounge and various other areas for social interactions to complement watching a film. “Nothing wrong with watching something at home on the couch, that’s always nice as well, but we believe in the theatrical experience,” Bailey said. “You’ll see more and more movie theaters offer those kind of premium experiences, serving meals, serving wine, offering people places to hang out after the movie to talk,” he added.The “technical experience,” including picture quality and sound, also need to be elite, Bailey said. “No sticky floors, obviously, it has to feel like it’s something special when you go out.”- Talent poaching? -Canadian universities, hospitals and other institutions are making targeted efforts to attract top US talent, trying to recruit disgruntled researchers who are facing political and financial pressure under Trump, including with threats of massive federal funding cuts.Bailey told AFP he does not see the need for Canada’s film industry to be “actively recruiting” US artists, but affirmed Canada should remain “a haven” for those uncomfortable with political circumstances in other countries, including the United States.  “Canada has a not-too-distant history of welcoming people who didn’t want to take part in the Vietnam War as Americans, and they came to Canada, and they were a significant part of building the culture in the 60s and 70s in this country,” he said.The 50th edition of TIFF opens in September. 

Motown legend Smokey Robinson was facing a multimillion dollar lawsuit on Tuesday from four former housekeepers who allege the soul singer repeatedly raped and sexually assaulted them.A lawsuit filed in a Los Angeles court claims the 85-year-old forced himself on the women multiple times over a number of years, often when his wife was not at home.One of the plaintiffs alleges the “Tracks of My Tears” singer would summon her to his bedroom in his Los Angeles area home, and greet her wearing only his underwear.He would then sexually assault her, despite her protestations, with the suit claiming there were seven such attacks between March 2023 and when she felt compelled to resign in February 2024.Another former housekeeper alleges Robinson assaulted her more than 20 times over a four-year period, while a third says in the suit that she was “sexually harassed, sexually assaulted and raped” throughout her 12-year employment to 2024.The fourth woman says the singer began assaulting her in 2007 when she traveled with him to his Las Vegas home.None of the women is named in the suit, which is common in cases involving claims of sexual assault.The suit, which is seeking at least $50 million in damages, says none of the women reported the assaults at the time because they were intimidated by Robinson’s celebrity, and feared attacks on their character.Robinson’s wife, Frances, who is also named in the lawsuit for allegedly creating a hostile work environment and ignoring her husband’s behavior, told AFP the suit had come as a surprise.”I’m as shocked as you are,” she said when reached by telephone, but declined to go into details.Robinson was one of the founding members of The Miracles, a Detroit-based outfit that came together in the 1950s.The group had dozens of chart hits, including the smash “The Tears of a Clown” in 1967.

The Associated Press news agency will continue to credit one of its most distinctive photos, “Napalm Girl” taken during the Vietnam War, to photographer Nick Ut despite questions about who took it, the wire said Tuesday.The black and white photo of a severely burned Vietnamese girl, running naked down a road after a 1972 napalm attack in southern Vietnam helped alter perceptions of the war and remains a potent reminder of its devastation. Vietnamese American AP photographer Huynh Cong Ut, better known as Nick Ut, won a Pulitzer Prize and a World Press Photo award for the image. Ut claims the photo as his own.The photo’s subject, Kim Phuc Phan Thi, who became Canadian, has continued to bear witness to her ordeal as an adult. But in January, “The Stringer” documentary screened at the Sundance Film Festival credited the image to Vietnamese freelance journalist Nguyen Thanh Nghe. After a nearly year-long investigation, the news agency published a 97-page report Tuesday concluding “it is possible Nick Ut took the photo.””However, that cannot be proven definitively due to the passage of time, the death of many of the key players involved and the limitations of technology. New findings uncovered during this investigation do raise unanswered questions and AP remains open to the possibility that Ut did not take this photo,” it said.”The AP has concluded that there is not the definitive evidence required by AP’s standards to change the credit of the 53-year-old photograph.”The agency concluded it is “likely” the photo was taken with a Pentax camera, while Ut stated in interviews he carried two Leica and two Nikon cameras that day.In “The Stringer,” Carl Robinson the AP’s former photo editor in Saigon claimed he lied and altered the caption of the image under orders from Saigon photo chief Horst Faas.”Nick Ut came with me on the assignment. But he didn’t take that photo… That photo was mine,” said Nguyen Thanh Nghe, who stated in the film that he was certain he took the photo.AP insisted in its report “no proof has been found that Nguyen took the picture.”Ut remained with the AP for 45 years, leaving Saigon to later work for the wire in Los Angeles, until his retirement in 2017.

A US jury on Tuesday handed WhatsApp a major victory in its cyberespionage suit against NSO Group, ordering the Israel-based firm to pay some $168 million in damages.Meta-owned WhatsApp sued NSO in late 2019 in federal court in Northern California, accusing it of planting Pegasus spy software on the smartphones of targets using the messaging app.”This trial put spyware executives on the stand and exposed exactly how their surveillance-for-hire system –- shrouded in so much secrecy –- operates,” Meta said in a blog post.”Put simply, NSO’s Pegasus works to covertly compromise people’s phones with spyware capable of hoovering up information from any app installed on the device.”Pegasus software also enables smartphone cameras or microphones to be remotely turned on without letting users know, according to Meta.WhatsApp accused NSO of cyberespionage targeting journalists, lawyers, human rights activists and others on the Facebook-owned messaging service.A jury on Tuesday found that NSO should pay WhatsApp $444,719 in compensatory damages and another $167,254,000 in punitive damages intended to discourage repeating the behavior that landed it in court.”We will carefully examine the verdict’s details and pursue appropriate legal remedies, including further proceedings and an appeal,” NSO vice president for global communication Gil Lainer said in response to an AFP inquiry.”We firmly believe that our technology plays a critical role in preventing serious crime and terrorism and is deployed responsibly by authorized government agencies.”Evidence presented at the trial said NSO had spyware installation methods to exploit the technology of companies other than Meta, spending tens of millions of dollars annually on ways to install malicious code through messaging, browsers and operating systems, according to Meta.In 2016, Apple rushed out a security update after researchers said prominent Emirati rights activist Ahmed Mansoor was targeted by UAE authorities using Pegasus spyware.The software has been pinpointed by independent experts as likely being used in a number of countries with poor human rights records.”Given how much information people access on their devices, including through private end–to-end encrypted apps like WhatsApp, Signal and others, we will continue going after spyware vendors indiscriminately targeting people around the world,” Meta said in the blog post.”These malicious technologies are a threat to the entire ecosystem and it’ll take all of us to defend against it.”The legal complaint said the attackers “reverse-engineered the WhatsApp app and developed a program to enable them to emulate legitimate WhatsApp network traffic in order to transmit malicious code” to take over the devices.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 for recipients.Founded in 2010 by Israelis Shalev Hulio and Omri Lavie, NSO Group is based in the Israeli seaside hi-tech hub of Herzliya, near Tel Aviv.

US President Donald Trump said Tuesday that all fans from across the globe would be welcome at the 2026 World Cup despite concerns over his border crackdown impacting the tournament.Trump, who has appointed himself chairman of the White House task force for the tournament, said visitors to the United States could expect a “seamless” experience.The United States is co-hosting the 2026 World Cup with neighboring Canada and Mexico.”We can’t wait to welcome soccer fans from all over the globe,” Trump said at a White House briefing alongside FIFA president Gianni Infantino.”Every part of the US government will be working to ensure that these events are safe and successful, and those traveling to America to watch the competition have a seamless experience during every part of their visit.”Foreign traveler arrivals in the United States are expected to decline by 5.1 percent in 2025, according to one recent study by Tourism Economics.  The World Tourism Forum Institute has said a mix of stringent US immigration policies and global political tensions could “significantly affect” international arrivals.Vice President JD Vance, the vice-chair of the World Cup task force, said while foreign visitors would be welcome they would have to leave at the end of the tournament.”I know we’ll have visitors, probably from close to 100 countries. We want them to come. We want them to celebrate. We want them to watch the game,” Vance told Tuesday’s briefing. “But when the time is up, they’ll have to go home.”Infantino, the president of football’s world governing body, said his organization had “full and entire” confidence in the Trump administration to help deliver a successful tournament.”The entire world will focus on the United States of America, and America welcomes the world,” Infantino told the meeting. “Everyone who wants to come here to enjoy, to have fun, to celebrate the game will be able to do that.Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said US officials were using next month’s FIFA Club World Cup as a testing ground for the World Cup, stating that the US expected two million overseas visitors.”We’re processing those travel documents and visa applications already … that is obviously going to be a precursor to what we can do next year for the World Cup as well,” Noem said. “It is all being facilitated.”Trump meanwhile said he was confident of working closely with Canada and Mexico despite his broiling trade disputes with the two World Cup co-hosts.”I don’t see any tension either,” Trump said, shortly after meeting Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney. “We get along very well with both.” 

US President Donald Trump said Tuesday he hoped clashes between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan end “very quickly,” after New Delhi’s forces launched strikes and Islamabad vowed retaliation.”It’s a shame, we just heard about it,” Trump said at the White House, after the Indian government said it had hit “terrorist camps” on its western neighbor’s territory following a deadly attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir.”I guess people knew something was going to happen based on the past. They’ve been fighting for many, many decades and centuries, actually, if you really think about it,” he added.India and Pakistan have fought three full-scale wars since gaining independence from the British in 1947. Both claim Kashmir in full but administer separate portions of the disputed region. “I just hope it ends very quickly,” said Trump.India had been widely expected to respond militarily since gunmen shot dead 26 people in Indian-administered Kashmir, mostly Hindus. New Delhi has blamed militants that it has said were from Pakistan-based group Lashkar-e-Taiba, a UN-designated terrorist organization.Pakistan’s army said the Indian strikes targeted three sites in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and two in Punjab province, the country’s most populous. Islamabad said that three civilians, including a child, had been killed in Indian strikes.The Indian strikes came just hours after the US State Department issued a fresh call for calm.”We continue to urge Pakistan and India to work towards a responsible resolution that maintains long-term peace and regional stability in South Asia,” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters.Her statement came after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi warned of stopping water from flowing across borders following the Kashmir attack.

A divided US Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender military personnel to take effect while litigation plays out, putting thousands of troops at risk of dismissal.The ruling — which the court’s three liberal justices opposed — is a significant victory for Trump, who has made rolling back transgender rights a major part of his second term in office, and has railed against judges who blocked parts of his agenda.Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation — which filed the lawsuit that had resulted in a lower court temporarily blocking the implementation of the ban — slammed the Supreme Court’s decision.The ruling “is a devastating blow to transgender servicemembers who have demonstrated their capabilities and commitment to our nation’s defense,” the organizations said in a statement .”Transgender individuals meet the same standards and demonstrate the same values as all who serve. We remain steadfast in our belief that this ban violates constitutional guarantees of equal protection and will ultimately be struck down,” they said.White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt hailed the ruling as “another MASSIVE victory in the Supreme Court,” saying in a post on X that Trump and Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth “are restoring a military that is focused on readiness and lethality — not DEI or woke gender ideology.”Hegseth meanwhile responded to the news with a post on his personal X account that said: “No More Trans @ DoD.”In a January 27 executive order, Trump stated that “expressing a false ‘gender identity’ divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service.”- Shifting policies -The Pentagon followed that up with a memo issued in late February stating that it would remove transgender troops from the military unless they obtain a waiver on a case-by-case basis, as well as prevent transgender people from joining.The Supreme Court’s decision to allow the ban to take effect means thousands of currently serving troops could be removed from the ranks.The restrictions in the Pentagon memo are aimed at those who have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria — of whom there were 4,240 serving in the military as of late last year, according to a senior defense official — as well as those who have a history of the condition or exhibit symptoms of it.Transgender Americans have faced a roller coaster of changing policies on military service in recent years, with Democratic administrations seeking to permit them to serve openly, while Trump has sought to keep them out of the ranks.The US military lifted a ban on transgender troops in 2016, during Democrat Barack Obama’s second term as president.Under that policy, trans troops already serving were permitted to do so openly, and transgender recruits were set to start being accepted by July 1, 2017.But the first Trump administration postponed that date to 2018 before deciding to reverse the policy entirely.Trump’s restrictions on transgender military service — which underwent changes in response to various legal challenges — eventually came into force in April 2019 following a protracted legal battle that went all the way to the nation’s top court.His Democratic successor Joe Biden moved to reverse the restrictions just days after he took office in 2021, but Trump was reelected last year after making clear he would again seek to target transgender rights.Transgender issues have roiled US politics in recent years, as states controlled by Democrats and Republicans have moved in opposite directions on policies ranging from medical treatment to what books on the topic are allowed in public or school libraries.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told US President Donald Trump on Tuesday that his country would be “never for sale” as they met at the White House amid tensions on tariffs and sovereignty.In their first Oval Office meeting, Trump insisted to the recently elected Carney that it would be a “wonderful marriage” if Canada agreed to his repeated calls to become the 51st US state.But afterward both leaders hailed the talks as having made progress — even if Carney said he had asked Trump in private to stop calling for Canada to join the United States.”As you know from real estate, there are some places that are never for sale,” Carney told property tycoon Trump, comparing Canada to the Oval Office itself and to Britain’s Buckingham Palace.”Having met with the owners of Canada over the course of the campaign in the last several months, it’s not for sale. It won’t be for sale, ever.”Trump then replied: “Never say never.”Liberal leader Carney, 60, won Canada’s April 28 election on a pledge to stand up to Republican Trump, 78, warning that ties between the North American neighbors could never be the same.Trump has sparked a major trade war with Canada with his tariffs while repeatedly making extraordinary calls for the key NATO ally and major trading partner to become part of the United States.- ‘Very constructive’ -Carney at points gripped his hands tightly together and his knee jiggled up and down while Trump spoke.Trump, when asked if there was anything Carney could say in the meeting that would persuade him to drop tariffs, replied bluntly: “No. It’s just the way it is.”The US president even referenced his blazing Oval Office row with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky in February — if only to insist that there would be no repeat.”We had another little blow-up with somebody else, that was much different — this is a very friendly conversation,” Trump said. Yet after the two-hour meeting both leaders struck a positive tone.Carney told a press conference that the trade talks were “complex” but that his two-hour discussions with Trump were “very constructive.””He’s willing to have that negotiation,” Carney said when asked if Trump would be ready to drop tariffs as part of a deal.But he added that he had called on Trump to stop urging Canada to become its 51st state.”I told him that it wasn’t useful to repeat this idea, but the president will say what he wants,” said Carney, speaking in French.For his part, Trump said there was “no tension” during the “very great” meeting with Carney.”We want to do what’s right for our respective peoples,” he said at an event on the 2026 World Cup, which the United States will co-host with Canada and Mexico.- ‘Cherished’ -The meeting was highly anticipated after a Canadian election during which Carney vowed that the United States — Canada’s biggest trading partner — would never “own us.”Carney has since vowed to remake NATO member Canada’s ties with the United States in perhaps its biggest political and economic shift since World War II.Trump has slapped general tariffs of 25 percent on Canada and Mexico and sector-specific levies on autos, some of which have been suspended pending negotiations. He has imposed similar duties on steel and aluminum.He has also more broadly accused Canada of “ripping off” the United States and treating it unfairly on trade, while also calling on both Canada and Mexico to stop the cross-border flow of the deadly drug fentanyl.The US president inserted himself into Canada’s election early on by calling on Canada to avoid tariffs by becoming the “cherished 51st state.”Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative Party had been on track to win the vote but Trump’s attacks, combined with the departure of unpopular premier Justin Trudeau, transformed the race.Carney, who replaced Trudeau as prime minister in March, convinced voters that his experience managing economic crises made him the ideal candidate to defy Trump.The political newcomer previously served as governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England.