MicroWave

joined 2 years ago
 

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Tuesday he told Donald Trump that he meant what he said in his speech at Davos, and told him Canada plans to diversify away from the United States with a dozen new trade deals.

Carney rolled his eyes and rejected U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s contention to Fox News that he aggressively walked back his comments at the World Economic Forum during a phone call with Trump on Monday.

“To be absolutely clear, and I said this to the president, I meant what I said in Davos,” Carney said to reporters as he arrived for a Cabinet meeting in the capital, Ottawa.

 

Donald Trump has made it clear he doesn't want to support Europe like previous administrations. Europe is now grappling with how best to maintain its own defenses.

The European Union's foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said on Wednesday Europe needs to play a bigger role in NATO after increasing tensions with the US since the return of Donald Trump to the White House.

Trump has "shaken the transatlantic relationship to its foundation," Kallas told the European Defense Agency's annual conference.

While Europe had sought to stay on Trump's good side in the hope of maintaining US support for Ukraine, Trump's threats to take Greenland from NATO ally Denmark sparked a change in tone from European leaders.

 

Outrage followed ‘would-be assassin’ lie but experts say architect of ICE drive too dominant a figure to be shunned

Pressure is growing on key White House senior adviser Stephen Miller over the killing of intensive care nurse Alex Pretti by border patrol agents in Minneapolis and its politically divisive aftermath.

Miller, the architect of Donald Trump’s hardline immigration policy, finds himself in the rare position of being contradicted and excluded from crucial decisions by the US president.

About three and a half hours after the tragedy on Saturday, Miller used social media to describe Pretti, 37, as a “would-be assassin” who “tried to murder federal agents”. On Tuesday, when asked if he believes Pretti was an assassin, Trump said: “No.”

 

US technology giant Amazon has confirmed it will cut 16,000 jobs - hours after it told staff about a new round of global redundancies in an email apparently sent in error.

The email, which has been seen by the BBC, was sent late on Tuesday and refers to a swathe of employees in the US, Canada and Costa Rica having been laid off as part of an effort to "strengthen the company."

The message was apparently shared by mistake, as it was quickly cancelled.

Early on Wednesday, Amazon announced job reductions as part of a plan to "remove bureaucracy" at the firm.

 

Dollar drops against basket of currencies after Donald Trump brushed off concerns over slide

The US dollar has fallen to its lowest level in four years after Donald Trump brushed off concerns over the currency’s fall, sending investors fleeing to traditional havens including gold and the Swiss franc.

The dollar dropped by 1.3% against a basket of currencies after the president’s comments on Tuesday, marking its fourth day of declines, then slipped by a further 0.2% on Wednesday morning.

“No, I think it’s great,” Trump said of the weaker dollar, during a visit to Iowa to promote his record on the economy. Asked whether he was concerned about the currency’s slide, he told reporters: “I think the value of the dollar – look at the business we’re doing. The dollar’s doing great.”

The greenback has tumbled by 10% over the past year, while Tuesday’s fall was the largest one-day drop since last April, when Trump announced his sweeping tariff plans, marking a global market sell-off.

 

A year into Trump’s second term, critics say the EPA is rolling back dozens of protections and giving a leg up to polluters

After a tumultuous year under the Trump administration, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has adopted a new, almost unrecognizable guise – one that tears up environmental rules and cheerleads for coal, gas-guzzling cars and artificial intelligence.

When Donald Trump took power, it was widely anticipated the EPA would loosen pollution rules from sources such as cars, trucks and power plants, as part of a longstanding back and forth between administrations over how strict such standards should be.

But in recent weeks, critics say the EPA has gone far further by in effect seeking to jettison its raison d’etre, forged since its foundation in 1970, as an environmental regulator. The EPA is poised to remove its own ability to act on the climate crisis and has, separately, unveiled a new monetary worth assigned to human lives when setting air pollution regulations. The current new value? Zero.

 

Ecuador’s minister of foreign affairs has filed a protest with the U.S. Embassy after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents tried to enter the Ecuadorian consulate in Minneapolis without permission Tuesday.

A video of the attempt on social media shows a consulate staffer running to the door to turn the ICE agents away, telling them, “This is the Ecuadorian consulate. You’re not allowed to enter.”

One ICE officer can be heard responding by threatening to “grab” the staffer if he touched the agent before agreeing to leave.

International law generally prohibits law enforcement authorities from entering foreign consulates or embassies without permission, though sometimes permission may be assumed granted for life-threatening emergencies, like fires.

 

Two federal officers fired shots during the encounter that killed ICU nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, a Customs and Border Protection official told Congress in a notice sent Tuesday.

Officers tried to take Pretti into custody and he resisted, leading to a struggle, according to a notification to Congress obtained by The Associated Press. During the struggle, a Border Patrol agent yelled, “He’s got a gun!” multiple times, the official said.

A Border Patrol officer and a CBP officer each fired Glock pistols, the notice said.

 

Suit against Debra Lynch is latest from Texas’s Republican attorney general amid ongoing attacks on abortion pills

As part of its ongoing crusade against abortion pills, Texas sued a nurse practitioner on Tuesday, accusing her of shipping pills into Texas in defiance of the state’s abortion ban.

The nurse practitioner, Debra Lynch, operates a Delaware-based group called Her Safe Harbor, which mails abortion pills to women living in states with abortion bans. Now, Texas wants a court to block Lynch from “performing, inducing or attempting abortions” in Texas, on the grounds that Texas law only permits physicians to facilitate abortions in cases of medical emergencies.

Groups like Her Safe Harbor have proliferated in the four years since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, as Delaware and a handful of other blue states have enacted so-called “shield laws”. These laws typically aim to protect abortion providers from out-of-state prosecutions, lending legal cover to providers who ship pills across state lines.

 

U.S. consumer confidence declined sharply in January, hitting the lowest level since 2014 as Americans grow increasingly concerned about their financial prospects.

The Conference Board said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index cratered 9.7 points to 84.5 in January, falling below even the lowest readings during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A measure of Americans’ short-term expectations for their income, business conditions and the job market tumbled 9.5 points to 65.1, well below 80, the marker that can signal a recession ahead. It’s the 12th consecutive month that reading has come in under 80.

 

The chief judge, a George W. Bush appointee, said the administration had repeatedly violated or slow-walked court orders in Minnesota.

Minnesota’s chief federal judge has ordered the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Todd Lyons, to appear in his courtroom Friday and threatened to hold him in contempt for what he says has been repeated defiance of judges’ orders in the state.

“The court’s patience is at an end,” U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz said in a three-page order issued Monday night, demanding the acting director explain himself “personally.”

Schiltz’s frustration has been boiling for weeks amid Operation Metro Surge, the Trump administration’s massive immigration enforcement action in the Twin Cities. The operation has flooded the courts with emergency lawsuits brought by immigrants who say they have been illegally arrested or detained. The judges in the district have agreed nearly every time, ordering their immediate release from custody and warning, in increasingly alarming terms, about rampant violations of the law.

 

Paris fumes after NATO secretary-general tells the European Parliament that the continent could not defend itself without America.

The French government responded curtly to Mark Rutte after the NATO secretary-general said Europe could not defend itself without the U.S.

"No, dear Mark Rutte. Europeans can and must take charge of their own security. Even the United States agrees. This is the European pillar of NATO," said French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot.

On Monday, answering a question from French far-right MEP Pierre-Romain Thionnet, Rutte told the European Parliament that the continent cannot defend itself without American support. He also pushed back against the idea of a European army — a concept revived recently by EU Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius — and said a “European pillar [of NATO] is a bit of an empty word.”

[–] MicroWave@lemmy.world 13 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Thanks officer

[–] MicroWave@lemmy.world 11 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Thanks, that’s nice to hear from a fellow longtimer.

[–] MicroWave@lemmy.world 27 points 5 months ago (4 children)
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