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The death toll from a cargo plane crash in the southern US state of Kentucky rose to 12 on Wednesday, with investigators saying the accident was caused by one of the engines catching fire and detaching during takeoff.The McDonnell Douglas MD-11, operated by package delivery giant UPS and bound for Hawaii, crashed at 5:15 pm (2215 GMT) Tuesday, shortly after departing from Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport.It exploded into flames as it plowed into businesses adjacent to the airport, killing multiple people on the ground. A three-person crew was aboard.”I’m deeply saddened to share that the death toll has risen to 12, with several individuals still unaccounted for,” Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said on X.Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear called the tragedy “heartbreaking” and “unimaginable.”The National Transportation Safety Board sent teams to Louisville to investigate the accident. NTSB member Todd Inman told reporters that investigators had reviewed closed-circuit airport footage “which shows the left engine detaching from the wing during the take-off roll.”While the plane crashed and destroyed or damaged multiple buildings, leaving a fiery debris field nearly half a mile (800 meters) long, its left engine remained “on the airfield,” Inman said.He added that the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder, known as a plane’s black boxes, have been identified and will be sent to Washington for analysis.Tuesday’s crash reportedly was the deadliest in the global package delivery giant’s history. Its main hub, Worldport, is in Louisville, where it employs thousands of people.UPS has halted package sorting operations at its facility. – 38,000 gallons of fuel -Video shared by WLKY showed the left engine ablaze as the aircraft tried to lift off.By early Wednesday, Greenberg said on X that aviation officials had reopened a runway.Airport spokesman Jonathan Bevin said the cargo flight “went down three miles (five kilometers) south of the airfield” after taking off.The plane, filled with some 38,000 gallons of fuel for the long-haul flight to Hawaii, narrowly missed a major Ford vehicle assembly plant that employs some 3,000 people, adjacent to the UPS Worldport facility.”It could have been significantly worse,” Beshear said of the tragedy.Aerial footage of the crash site showed a long trail of debris as firefighters blasted water on the flames, with smoke billowing from the area.Beshear said the aircraft hit a petroleum recycling facility “pretty directly.”According to NTSB, the plane was built in 1991 and was modified into a cargo aircraft. McDonnell Douglas merged with Boeing in 1996. Boeing, the US aviation giant which has experienced multiple fatal crashes and safety incidents in the past decade, said in a statement that “we stand ready to support our customer and have offered technical assistance to the NTSB.”UPS travels to more than 200 countries via nearly 2,000 daily flights, with a fleet of 516 aircraft. It owns 294 of those planes and hires the rest.The crash comes amid the longest government shutdown in US history with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warning of “mass chaos” due to a lack of air traffic control staff.”You’ll see mass cancellations, and you may see us close certain parts of the airspace, because we just cannot manage it because we don’t have the air traffic controllers,” Duffy told reporters Tuesday.NTSB member Inman said the agency was not aware of any staff shortages at Louisville’s airport at the time of the crash, although a full investigation into all aspects of the crash including air traffic control staffing has been launched.In January, an American Eagle airliner hit a military helicopter outside Washington’s Ronald Reagan National airport, killing all 67 people on both aircraft.That crash, which ended the country’s 16-year streak of no fatal commercial air crashes, has added to concerns about the US air traffic control system, which some regard as an understaffed operation beset by aging equipment problems.

In a parallel reality, Donald Trump reigns as king, fighter pilot, and Superman, and his political opponents are cast as criminals and laughingstocks — an unprecedented weaponization of AI imagery by a sitting American president.Trump has ramped up his use of artificial intelligence-generated content on his Truth Social channel since starting his second White House term, making his administration the first to deploy hyper-realistic fake visuals as a core communications strategy.Trump, no stranger to conspiracy theories and unfounded claims, has used the content in his breathless social media commentary to glorify himself and skewer his critics — particularly during moments of national outrage.Last month, he posted a fake video showing himself wearing a crown and flying a fighter jet labeled “King Trump” that dumps what appears to be excrement on crowds of protesters.The clip — accompanied by singer Kenny Loggins’s “Danger Zone” — was posted the same day as nationwide “No Kings” protests against what critics called his authoritarian behavior.In another post, the White House depicted Trump as Superman amid fevered social media speculation about his health.”THE SYMBOL OF HOPE,” the post said.”SUPERMAN TRUMP.”- ‘Distort reality’ -Trump or the White House have similarly posted AI-made images showing the president dressed as the pope, roaring alongside a lion, and conducting an orchestra at the Kennedy Center, a venerable arts complex in the US capital.The fabricated imagery has deceived social media users, some of whom questioned in comments whether they were authentic.It was unclear whether the imagery was generated by Trump himself or his aides. The White House did not respond to AFP’s request for comment.Wired magazine recently labeled Trump “America’s first generative AI president.””Trump peddles disinformation on and offline to boost his own image, attack his adversaries and control public discourse,” Nora Benavidez, senior counsel at the advocacy group Free Press, told AFP.”For someone like him, unregulated generative AI is the perfect tool to capture people’s attention and distort reality.”In September, the president triggered outrage after posting an apparent AI-generated video of himself promising every American access to all-healing “MedBed” hospitals.MedBed, a widely debunked conspiracy theory popular among far-right circles, refers to an imaginary medical device equipped with futuristic technology. Adherents say it can cure any ailment, from asthma to cancer.Trump’s phony clip — later deleted without any explanation — was styled as a Fox News segment and featured his daughter-in-law Lara Trump promoting a fictitious White House launch of the “historic new health care system.”- ‘Campaigning through trolling’ -“How do you bring people back to a shared reality when those in power keep stringing them along?” asked Noelle Cook, a researcher and author of “The Conspiracists: Women, Extremism, and the Lure of Belonging.”Trump has reserved the most provocative AI posts for his rivals and critics, using them to rally his conservative base.In July, he posted an AI video of former president Barack Obama being arrested in the Oval Office and appearing behind bars in an orange jumpsuit.Later, he posted an AI clip of House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries — who is Black — wearing a fake mustache and a sombrero.Jeffries slammed the image as racist.”While it would in many ways be desirable for the president of the United States to stay above the fray and away from sharing AI images, Trump has repeatedly demonstrated that he sees his time in office as a non-stop political campaign,” Joshua Tucker, co-director of the New York University Center for Social Media and Politics, told AFP.”I would see his behavior more as campaigning through trolling than actively trying to propagate the false belief that these images depict reality.”Mirroring Trump’s strategy, California Governor Gavin Newsom on Tuesday posted an apparent AI video on X lampooning Republicans after Democrats swept key US elections.The clip depicted wrestlers inside a ring with superimposed faces of Democratic leaders knocking down their Republican opponents, including Trump. The post read: “Now that’s what we call a takedown.”

Tech firms are floating the idea of building data centers in space and tapping into the sun’s energy to meet out-of-this-world power demands in a fierce artificial intelligence race.US startup Starcloud this week sent a refrigerator-sized satellite containing an Nvidia graphics processing unit (GPU) into orbit in what the AI chip maker touted as a “cosmic debut” for the mini-data center.”The idea is that it will soon make much more sense to build data centers in space than it does to build them on Earth,” Starcloud chief executive Philip Johnston said at a recent tech conference in Riyadh.Along with a constant supply of solar energy, data centers are easier to cool in space, advocates note.Announcements have come thick and fast, the latest being Google this week unveiling plans to launch test satellites by early 2027 as part of its Suncatcher project.That news came just days after tech billionaire Elon Musk claimed his SpaceX startup should be capable of deploying data centers in orbit next year thanks to its Starlink satellite program.Starcloud’s satellite was taken into space by a SpaceX rocket on Sunday.- Junk and radiation -Current projects to put data centers into orbit envision relying on clusters of low Earth orbit satellites positioned close enough together to ensure reliable wireless connectivity.Lasers will connect space computers to terrestrial systems.”From a proof concept, it’s already there,” University of Arizona engineering professor Krishna Muralidharan, who is involved with such work, said of the technology.Muralidharan believes space data centers could be commercially viable in about a decade.Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the tech titan behind private space exploration company Blue Origin, has estimated it might take up to twice that long.Critical technical aspects of such operations need to be resolved, particularly harm done to GPUs by high levels of radiation and extreme temperatures as well as the danger of being hit by space junk.”Engineering work will be necessary,” said University of Michigan assistant professor of engineering Christopher Limbach, contending that it is a matter of cost rather than technical feasibility.- Sun synched -The big draw of space for data centers is power supply, with the option of synchronizing satellites to the sun’s orbit to ensure constant light on solar panels.Tech titans building AI data centers have ever-growing need for electricity, and have even taken to investing in nuclear power plants.Data centers in space also avoid the challenges of acquiring land and meeting local regulations or community resistance to projects.And advocates argue that data centers operating in space are less harmful overall to the environment, aside from the pollution generated by rocket launches.Water needed to cool a space data center would be about the same amount used by a space station, relying on exhaust radiators and re-using a relatively small amount of liquid.”The real question is whether the idea is economically viable,” said Limbach.An obstacle to deploying servers in space has been the cost of getting them into orbit.But a reusable SpaceX mega-rocket called Starship with massive payload potential promises to slash launch expenses by at least 30 times.”Historically, high launch costs have been a primary barrier to large-scale space-based systems,” Suncatcher project head Travis Beals said in a post.But project launch pricing data suggests prices may fall by the mid-2030s to the point at which “operating a space-based data center could become comparable” to having it on Earth, Beals added.”If there ever was a time to chart new economic paths in space — or re-invent old ones — it is now,” Limbach said.

Boeing reached a last-minute settlement in one of two lawsuits in this week’s trial in Chicago over a 2019 737 MAX crash that killed 157 people, attorneys announced Wednesday.The agreement leaves a single plaintiff remaining in the first civil trial over the March 2019 Ethiopian Airlines crash, which began in earnest Wednesday after jury selection wrapped up a day earlier.The litigation centers on how to calculate monetary damages to plaintiffs from Boeing, which acknowledges the need to compensate victims but disputes the amount.Opening statements were pushed back after the plaintiffs’ attorney, Robert Clifford, announced a settlement involving the relatives of Kenyan-born Mercy Ndivo, who died in the crash aged 28 along with her husband, leaving behind a daughter and her parents.”Our clients are very appreciative of the court allowing them to use its resources to achieve the justice they required,” said Clifford, adding that the settlement amount was confidential.During Wednesday’s proceeding, Ndivo’s father, Frederick Ndivo, approached US District Judge Jorge Alonso and expressed gratitude. Ndivo was joined in the courtroom by his wife and eldest daughter.”We are so grateful,” Ndivo said in court. “We wish the legal system of the United States will continue upholding the rights of the people… the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”The lawsuits stem from the March 10, 2019, flight that crashed six minutes after departing Addis Ababa for Nairobi, killing all 157 people on board.Family members of 155 victims filed lawsuits between April 2019 and March 2021, alleging wrongful death and negligence, among other claims.Alonso has been splitting the cases into groups with five or six plaintiffs at a time. In prior rounds, the judge has canceled proceedings after all the cases in a group settled.In addition to Ndivo, Clifford reached settlements with relatives of two other victims, Abdul Jalil Qaid Ghazi Hussein, 38, the father of seven children and Nasrudin Mohammed, 30, who was pregnant with a fourth child.- Remaining litigants -Litigants in the remaining case are the relatives of Shikha Garg of New Delhi, a consultant for the United Nations Development Program who had been traveling to Nairobi for a UN Environmental Assembly.In opening remarks on the case, Shanin Specter, an attorney for Garg’s survivors, described the victim as “beautiful, inside and out.”He painted a picture of an accomplished young woman who had just married her partner of six years, Soumya Bhattacharya, three months before the crash.A photo showed Bhattacharya and Garg on their wedding day, dressed in traditional Indian clothes of red and glittering gold. The two had met while working at the United Nations and were supposed to fly to Kenya together, but Bhattacharya had a work conflict.”It’s one of the biggest remorse in my life that I had not been able to be with her,” Bhattacharya said. He said they wanted to have children together, adding: “We would have been a happy family.” He explained he is now afraid to fly, especially on Boeing-manufactured planes.”She wrote to him that she would call him when she landed,” Specter said. “A phone call that was never made.”- Damages -The jury must award money in four categories including compensating Garg’s lifetime earnings, the trauma she endured before the crash, fair compensation for Bhattacharya’s loss of companionship and the harms associated with his grief.”Mr. Bhattacharya is not here for your sympathy!” Specter said. “He is here for justice.”In his opening statement defending Boeing, attorney Dan Webb did not dispute Boeing’s full responsibility for the accident. He urged the jury to render a verdict that would compensate Garg and her husband, but disputed Specter’s contention that Garg suffered injuries before the crash. “Boeing agrees with Mr. Specter that Boeing should pay significant compensation,” Webb said. “We disagree on the actual amount.”

Donald Trump emerged battered by an election night that was disastrous for his party, after failing to deliver on the promise that secured his second White House term: lowering the cost of living for Americans.Tuesday’s vote was “not expected to be a victory,” Trump told Republican senators a day after elections in Virginia, New Jersey and New York handily won by the Democratic opposition.”I don’t think it was good for Republicans,” he added.Steve Bannon, one of the leading architects of Trump’s Make America Great Again movement, had foreshadowed the Democratic success: “The warning signs are flashing.””It was a very, very bad night for Donald Trump,” said Robert Rowland, a professor of communication at the University of Kansas.Democratic wins on Tuesday night shared “a common theme: the cost of living,” said Thomas Kahn, a professor of political science at American University in Washington.- Life of a baron -Billionaire Trump, 79, proclaimed Wednesday that the US has “the hottest economy we’ve ever had.”But that sentiment clashes with “the reality that people experience when they go to the grocery store,” Rowland said.Trump has also repeatedly claimed that gas prices are at $2 per gallon ($0.52 per liter), including in a Fox News interview Wednesday, while a tracker by AAA showed the national average at $3.08 — around the same price as a year ago.Polls show Americans are increasingly dissatisfied with the cost of living, along with rising concern over the impact of Trump’s global tariff war.Instead of hammering home messages about rising costs and kitchen-table issues, Trump’s gone “completely off script,” Kahn said.Recent gold-and-marble renovations at the White House and an opulent Halloween party at his Mar-a-Lago estate show a US leader out of touch with ordinary citizens, he said.”The American people are suffering…facing these high prices and struggling, they watch Donald Trump live the life of a baron,” Kahn said.Trump also blamed Tuesday’s Republican losses on the federal government shutdown — now the longest ever at 36 days.It has led to hits on social welfare programs, unpaid leave for hundreds of thousands of federal workers, and pared back public services.- ‘Kamikaze’ -Far from signaling a willingness to compromise, Trump slammed “kamikaze” Democratic lawmakers and has urged Senate Republicans to force through a budget bill by abandoning a longstanding 60-vote threshold for most legislation.Without the so-called filibuster, Trump and his party would be able to unilaterally pass reforms, including a voter ID law he believes would favor Republicans ahead of next year’s midterm elections.Republican candidates are wary, after seeing voters who supported Trump in 2024 turn to Democratic candidates on Tuesday.Conservatives “have really tied themselves to Trump, but Trump is now underwater,” said Wendy Schiller, a political scientist at Brown University.Republicans now face the problem of “how do they uncouple from Trump,” she said. “What these elections showed is that they’re on the wrong side of these issues, according to a lot of voters.”However, Republican candidates are reluctant to directly oppose Trump for fear of being sidelined by more radical candidates, Rowland said.Trump’s comeback abilities are also unparalleled, considering his White House reelection after a criminal conviction and the deadly January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol by his supporters.”Anybody in the past who’s ever counted out Donald Trump loses the bet,” Kahn said.His return to power wasn’t solely due to the unwavering support of his base, but because he was able to attract undecided voters concerned about making ends meet.”He can survive anything except bad economic news,” Rowland said.

In a victory speech capping his meteoric rise, New York’s mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani quoted at length from the famous “Tryst with Destiny” address by independent India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru. As he left the stage to a cheering cross-section of the metropolis, the song on the speaker was not one of the many well-worn tunes about New York but the beats from a Bollywood blockbuster, “Dhoom.”Mamdani, winning a mandate with a left-wing agenda focused on making New York more affordable, has made history in many ways — as the first Muslim and first South Asian to lead America’s largest city, and, at 34, its youngest mayor in a century.But Mamdani’s victory is a watershed not just for his identity but how he embraces it — fully.”I am young, despite my best efforts to grow older, I am Muslim, I am a democratic socialist and — most damning of all — I refuse to apologize for any of this,” Mamdani told supporters inside a Brooklyn music venue.South Asians constitute one of the fastest-growing communities in the United States, totalling more than five million people, and have made major inroads into politics — notably former vice president Kamala Harris, whose mother was from India.But candidates have handled their identity in sharply different ways. Two once-prominent Indian Americans, Nikki Haley and Bobby Jindal, both Republican governors of conservative Southern states, took pains to describe how they had become Christians.”The comfort level expressing and embracing outwardly your identity has varied from candidate to candidate over the years,” said Kishan Putta, an elected commissioner in Washington DC who serves on a Democratic Party advisory committee on Asian Americans.Putta, who has followed South Asian candidates for years, also pointed to the victory in Virginia of Ghazala Hashimi as lieutenant governor, noting that the very first line on her website’s online biography is how she was the first Muslim and first South Asian American to serve in the Virginia Senate.”So it’s not just candidates in cities or places with huge South Asian and immigrant communities,” Putta added. “Candidates are getting much more comfortable in talking about their identity.”- ‘Symbolic moment of acceptance’ -For Mamdani, like many South Asians, that identity is not always concise to explain. He was born in Uganda to two prominent Indian-born parents — the academic Mahmood Mamdani and filmmaker Mira Nair, who is Hindu.Mamdani has spoken passionately about Islamophobia following the September 11, 2001 attacks, counts a kebab counter in diverse Jackson Heights as his favorite restaurant and days before the election campaigned car to car at LaGuardia Airport among taxi drivers, who are often South Asian.Mamdani’s openness on his background “certainly is a break from what we have seen in the past,” said Sara Sadhwani, a political scientist at Pomona College who has studied South Asian Americans.”But that very much goes along with Mamdani’s brand of authenticity and embracing difference — fully accepting the nuance of those differences,” she said.”Even if all Indian Americans don’t completely embrace his politics, it is nonetheless a symbolic moment of acceptance of Indian Americans.”- Trump base attacks -President Donald Trump has furiously attacked Mamdani but has earlier courted Indian Americans, making gains in last year’s election in a community that has historically voted Democratic and by some measures has the highest household income in the United States.Trump’s stance is not shared by all his base, with online far-right campaigners in recent months writing hateful comments against Indian Americans.Trump in September yanked up the fee for a visa used by Indian tech workers as part of a broader crackdown on immigration.Vice President JD Vance is married to an Indian American, Usha Vance, but recently raised eyebrows by saying he would be happy if she converts from Hinduism to Christianity. Vance accused critics of anti-Christian bias.Vivek Ramaswamy, the pro-Trump Indian American tech entrepreneur running for governor of Ohio, said one lesson from Tuesday’s losses was: “Cut out the identity politics. It doesn’t suit Republicans.”Dinesh D’Souza, a longtime Republican militant born in India, wrote on X: “A very loud group on the Right said, ‘Indians go home,’ and so many of them did — to the Democratic Party.”

US President Donald Trump accused “kamikaze” Democrats of being prepared to destroy the country as the government shutdown became the longest in history on Wednesday, eclipsing the 35-day record set during the Republican leader’s first term.Federal agencies have been grinding to a halt since Congress failed to approve funding past September 30, and the pain has been mounting as welfare programs — including aid that helps millions of Americans afford groceries — hang in the balance.Some 1.4 million federal workers, from air traffic controllers to park wardens, remain on enforced leave or are working without pay. Some courts are using emergency funds to stay open, warning that operations could slow if the shutdown drags on.”I just got back from Japan,” the 79-year-old president told a breakfast meeting with Republican senators at the White House as the shutdown entered its sixth week. “I talked about the kamikaze pilots. I think these guys are kamikaze,” he said, referencing Democrats. “They’ll take down the country if they have to.”Before the shutdown record toppled at midnight, the Trump administration sounded the alarm over turmoil at airports nationwide if the crisis drags further into November, with worsening staff shortages snarling flights and closing down sections of airspace.Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told a news conference Wednesday that the scheduled capacity for flights was being cut by 10 percent starting Friday in 40 busy air traffic areas.The American Automobile Association (AAA) says 5.3 million passengers flew domestically over the Thanksgiving weekend in 2023, and gave a projected figure of 5.7 million for last year’s holiday, which it is due to update later this month. More than 60,000 air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers are working without pay, and the White House has warned that increased absenteeism could mean chaos at check-in lines.  Airport workers calling in sick rather than working without pay — leading to significant delays — was a major factor in Trump bringing an end to the 2019 shutdown.Both Democrats and Republicans remain unwavering, however, over the main sticking point in the current stoppage — health care spending.- ‘Defiance’ -Democrats say they will only provide votes to end the funding lapse after a deal has been struck to extend expiring insurance subsidies that make health care affordable for millions of Americans.But Republicans insist they will only address health care once Democrats have voted to switch the lights back on in Washington.While both sides’ leadership have shown little appetite for compromise, there have been signs of life on the back benches, with a handful of moderate Democrats working to find an escape hatch.A separate bipartisan group of four centrist House members unveiled a compromise framework Monday for lowering health insurance costs.Democrats believe that millions of Americans seeing skyrocketing premiums as they enroll in health insurance programs for next year will pressure Republicans into seeking compromise.But Trump has held firm on refusing to negotiate, telling CBS News in an interview broadcast Sunday that he would “not be extorted.” The president has sought to apply his own pressure to force Democrats to cave by threatening mass layoffs of federal workers and using the shutdown to target progressive priorities.Trump on Tuesday repeated his administration’s threat to cut off a vital aid program that helps 42 million Americans pay for groceries for the first time in its more than 60-year history, even though the move was blocked by two courts.The White House later clarified, however, that it was “fully complying” with its legal obligations and was working to get partial SNAP payments “out the door as much as we can and as quickly as we can.”

Donald Trump emerged battered by an election night that was disastrous for his party, after failing to deliver on the promise that secured his second White House term: lowering the cost of living for Americans.Tuesday’s vote was “not expected to be a victory,” Trump told Republican senators a day after elections in Virginia, New Jersey and New York handily won by the Democratic opposition.”I don’t think it was good for Republicans,” he added.Steve Bannon, one of the leading architects of Trump’s Make American Great Again movement, had foreshadowed the Democratic wave: “The warning signs are flashing.””It was a very, very bad night for Donald Trump,” said Robert Rowland, a professor of communication at the University of Kansas.Democratic wins on Tuesday night shared “a common theme: the cost of living,” said Thomas Kahn, a professor of political science at American University in Washington.- Life of a baron -Billionaire Trump, 79, proclaimed Wednesday that the US has “the hottest economy we’ve ever had.”But that sentiment clashes with “the reality that people experience when they go to the grocery store,” Rowland said.Polls show Americans are increasingly dissatisfied with the cost of living, along with rising concern over the impact of Trump’s global tariff war.Instead of hammering home messages about rising costs and kitchen-table issues, Trump’s gone “completely off script,” Kahn said.Recent gold-and-marble renovations at the White House and an opulent Halloween party at his Mar-a-Lago estate show a US leader out of touch with ordinary citizens, he said.”The American people are suffering… facing these high prices and struggling, they watch Donald Trump live the life of a baron,” Kahn said.Trump blamed Tuesday’s Democratic sweep on the federal government shutdown — now the longest ever, at 36 days — over a budget standoff in Congress.It has led to hits on social welfare programs, unpaid leave for hundreds of thousands of civil servants, and pared back public services.- ‘Kamikaze’ -Far from signaling a willingness to compromise, Trump slammed “kamikaze” Democratic lawmakers and urged Republicans to force through a budget bill.This would mean abandoning a key 60-vote threshold required for the Senate to advance legislation, a longstanding check on power that forces lawmakers to find bipartisan solutions.Republicans hold only a simple majority in the chamber but senators are reluctant to scrap the so-called filibuster.Without it, Trump and his party would be able to pass reforms including a voter ID law that would favor Republicans ahead of next year’s midterm elections, in which one-third of Senate seats and entire House of Representatives will be contested.Republican candidates are wary, after seeing voters who supported Trump in 2024 turn to Democratic candidates on Tuesday.- Uncoupling -Conservatives “have really tied themselves to Trump, but Trump is now underwater,” said Wendy Schiller, a political scientist at Brown University.Republicans now face the problem of “how do they uncouple from Trump,” she said. “What these elections showed is that they’re on the wrong side of these issues, according to a lot of voters.”However, Republican candidates are reluctant to directly oppose Trump for fear of being sidelined by more radical candidates, Rowland said.Trump’s comeback abilities are also unparalleled, considering his White House reelection after a criminal conviction and the deadly January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol by his supporters.”Anybody in the past who’s ever counted out Donald Trump loses the bet,” Kahn said.His return to power wasn’t solely due to the unwavering support of his base, but because he was able to attract undecided voters concerned about making ends meet.”He can survive anything except bad economic news,” Rowland said.

New York mayoral election winner Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani said Wednesday that he was ready to engage with his arch-critic President Donald Trump on the issue of cost of living.The Muslim-American lawmaker, whose rapid ascent from rank outsider to mayor-elect has stunned observers, joked at a briefing that the “White House hasn’t reached out to congratulate me.””I continue to be interested in having a conversation with President Trump on the ways in which we can work together to serve New Yorkers,” he said suggesting “delivering on his campaign promises around cost of living” as one.Mamdani, like Trump, put the high cost of living, impact of inflation and elevated grocery expenses at the heart of his campaign which triumphed over former governor Andrew Cuomo’s platform.”I think the lesson for the president is that it’s not enough to diagnose the crisis in working class Americans lives. You have to deliver on addressing that crisis.”Mamdani called out Trump for his own campaign promises to address the soaring cost of groceries, but seeking to suspend food assistance while in office under the government shutdown.After winning on promises to make city bus travel free, control rents and offer free childcare, Mamdani said “what scares Republicans across the country is the fact that we will actually deliver on this agenda.”Mamdani on Wednesday introduced the five women who will co-chair his transition.Among them is Lina Khan, chair of the Federal Trade Commission under Joe Biden, and Maria Torres-Springer, who resigned her post as deputy mayor under outgoing mayor Eric Adams due to his engagement with Trump.

A majority of US Supreme Court justices appeared deeply skeptical of the legality behind a swath of Donald Trump’s tariffs as they heard a landmark case Wednesday that could uphold — or upend — the president’s economic agenda.Billions of dollars in customs revenue and a key lever in Trump’s trade wars are at stake as the conservative-dominated panel again grappled with the Republican’s attempts to expand presidential powers.The high court’s nine justices are considering Trump’s use of emergency powers to impose “reciprocal” tariffs on nearly every US trade partner, as well as levies targeting Mexico, Canada and China over their alleged roles in illicit drug flows.In a hearing lasting more than two-and-a-half hours, several conservative justices, along with the three liberals, questioned whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) that Trump invoked confers the authority to impose tariffs.”The statute doesn’t use the word tariffs,” said Chief Justice John Roberts, and imposing tariffs is equivalent to taxation, which has always been a “core power of Congress.”The justices sought to clarify whether Congress has to give clear authorization for policies with significant economic or political consequences.Solicitor General John Sauer, arguing on behalf of the Trump administration, said this did not apply given the president’s inherent, broad range of authorities.”President Trump determined that our exploding trade deficits have brought us to the brink of an economic and national security catastrophe,” Sauer said.Sauer sought to frame the issue as one involving the power to regulate foreign commerce — including the ability to impose tariffs — rather than the power to tax.Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a liberal, noted that the power to impose taxes is a “congressional power, not a presidential power.””You want to say tariffs are not taxes, but that’s exactly what they are,” Sotomayor said.- ‘Simply implausible’ -Justice Neil Gorsuch, a Trump appointee, questioned if Congress could reclaim powers once it delegates them to the presidency, suggesting that “as a practical matter in the real world, it can never get that power back.”Neal Katyal, representing small businesses challenging Trump’s tariffs, charged that it was “simply implausible” that in enacting IEEPA, Congress “handed the president the power to overhaul the entire tariff system and the American economy in the process.”He contended that the word “regulate” has also not been used to impose taxes.But there were questions too surrounding refunds if Trump’s tariffs were overturned, with Justice Amy Coney Barrett saying it could be “a mess.”The court’s decision, which could take months to arrive, does not concern sector-specific tariffs Trump separately imposed, including on steel, aluminum and automobiles.Trump has brought the average effective tariff rate to its highest since the 1930s, and has repeatedly warned of calamity if his duties are overturned.A lower court ruled in May that he had exceeded his authority, with the case ultimately making its way to the Supreme Court.Trump did not attend Wednesday’s hearing but several top officials did, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.”In recent years, the court has been reluctant to overrule presidential decisions of this magnitude,” ING analysts said.But the outcome is hard to predict, they added, as “upholding Trump’s tariffs would shift the balance of power from Congress to the President.”Josh Lipsky of the Atlantic Council noted that even as justices were skeptical, they appeared concerned about fallout from overruling the tariffs.”How do the refunds work?” Lipsky asked. “What does this mean for the president’s foreign policy ability to negotiate deals?”Although Trump’s tariffs have not sparked widespread inflation, companies say they bear the brunt of higher import costs.Lawyers noted that if the top court finds Trump’s global tariffs illegal, the government can tap other laws to temporarily impose up to 15-percent duties while pursuing pathways for more lasting levies.Countries that have already struck deals with Trump may therefore prefer not to reopen negotiations.