Donald Trump said he planned to hit goods from China with a new 10% tariff, the latest salvo in the US president's steadily escalating trade fights. Imports from China already face taxes at the border of at least 10%, after a Trump tariff order that went into effect earlier this month. China's ministry of foreign affairs said it "strongly" expressed its "dissatisfaction and resolute opposition" to the plans. Trump also said on Thursday he intended to move forward with threatened 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico, which are set to come into effect on 4 March. Trump's comments came as officials from Mexico and Canada were in Washington for discussions aimed at heading off that plan. Trump had announced the plans for 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada for 4 February unless the two nations increased border security. He paused the measures for a month at the last minute after the two countries agreed to increase border funding and talk more about how to combat drug trafficking. On social media on Thursday, Trump wrote that he did not think enough action had been taken to address the flow of fentanyl to the US. "Drugs are still pouring into our Country from Mexico and Canada at very high and unacceptable levels," he wrote, adding that "a large percentage" of the drugs were made in China. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, at a press conference from the country's National Palace, said in response: "As we know, [Trump] has his way of communicating." She added: "I hope we can reach an agreement and on 4 March we can announce something else." Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also said his country was working hard to reach a deal, warning tariffs from the US would prompt an "immediate and extremely strong response". Trump's threats against Mexico and Canada have raised widespread alarm, as the North American economy is closely connected after decades of operating under a free trade agreement. Leaders of the two countries have previously said they would impose retaliatory tariffs on the United States if the White House went ahead with its plans. Tariffs are a tax collected by the government and paid for by the business bringing the goods into the country. China, Mexico and Canada are America's top three trade partners, together accounting for more than 40% of imports into the US last year. Economists have warned tariffs on goods from the three countries could lead to higher prices in the US on everything from iPhones to avocados. Trump's call for an additional 10% levy on goods from China - which he said would also go into effect on Tuesday - had not been previously announced, though during his presidential campaign he backed border taxes on Chinese products of as much as 60%. A spokesperson for China's ministry of foreign affairs, Lin Jian, said that Trump was using the issue of the drug fentanyl entering the US from China as an "excuse" to threaten tariffs, adding it had one of the "strictest" drug control policies in the world. "Pressure, coercion, and threats are not the correct way to deal with China," he said. Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy, had earlier said that his country was already working with the US to address the concerns about fentanyl, and had made "visual progress" in areas such as information exchange, case cooperation and online advertisement cleanup. "Reducing domestic drug demand and strengthening law enforcement cooperation are the fundamental solutions," he said in a statement, which warned that Trump's tariff moves were "bound to affect and undermine future counternarcotics cooperation between the two sides". "The unilateral tariffs imposed by the US will not solve its own problems, nor will it benefit the two sides or the world." Trump's comments, which called for drug flow to stop or be "severely limited", seemed to set the stage for Mexico and Canada to negotiate, said trade expert Christine McDaniel, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. On Thursday, as tariff talks intensified, two imprisoned alleged leaders of the violent Zetas cartel long sought by the US - Miguel Angel Trevino Morales and his brother Oscar - were extradited. Mexican media said they were part of a larger group of drug lords sent from Mexico to the US - a major step in terms of US-Mexico security relations. Ms McDaniel said Trump's demands of China were less clear, raising the likelihood that those measures will come into effect. Trump's initial round of tariffs on China was eclipsed by his threats against Canada and Mexico. But the potential for further duties raises questions about how businesses will respond. Ms McDaniel said she expected the hit to be felt more in China. "It's not costless for the US, but so far it seems more costly for China," she said. The impact of tariffs, if they go into effect, is expected to be felt more in the Canadian and Mexican economies, which count on the US as a key export market. But analysts have warned that the threat of the levies, even if they are never imposed, is still likely to have a chilling effect on investment, including in the US. China has already responded to the first round of tariffs from the US with its own tariffs on US products, including coal and agricultural machinery. Trump has dismissed fears about damage to the American economy.
More than half of sleep sessions end with the snooze button, with people sneaking in an extra 11 minutes on average, a new study reveals — but experts say it may not be a good idea. Researchers from Mass General Brigham analyzed data from the Sleep Cycle app, which included sleep habits from more than 21,000 people globally. Among the more than three million sleep sessions tracked, nearly 56% ended with the snooze button. MOST SLEEP-DEPRIVED CITIES IN US REVEALED IN REPORT: WHERE DOES YOURS RANK? The heaviest users of the snooze button — who used it for more than 80% of the mornings included in the study — slept an average of 20 extra minutes. These heaviest snoozers were also shown to have "more erratic sleep schedules" than those who used the snooze button less often, the researchers found."Unfortunately, the snooze alarm disrupts some of the most important stages of sleep," said lead author Rebecca Robbins, PhD, in the Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, in a press release. "The hours just before waking are rich in rapid eye movement sleep. Hitting the snooze alarm will interrupt these critical stages of sleep and typically only offer light sleep in between snooze alarms."
Proper handwashing could save a million lives a year, according to an expert — and yet many people are doing it improperly, often due to misconceptions surrounding the practice. Doctors recommend washing with soap and water for at least 20 seconds to reduce the spread of infectious diseases. The NFID 2025 State of Handwashing Report, recently released by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, provides details on Americans' handwashing habits (and mistakes). WHY YOUR LAUNDRY COULD BE MAKING YOU SICK AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT The report is based on a survey of 3,587 U.S. adults, conducted in November and December 2024 and March 2025."We have to recognize that there are a number of important infections that hand sanitizers are not effective at preventing," Hopkins said. One example is norovirus, a highly contagious stomach virus that is common on cruise ships and is also spread seasonally. The virus cannot be killed with hand sanitizer, but is "easily destroyed" with soap and water, according to Hopkins.Certain viruses are "encapsulated" and can be destroyed with either soap and water or hand sanitizer, the expert said. However, there is also an "unencapsulated" type of virus, which has an outer coat that does not break down from the alcohol in hand sanitizer. Using soap and water is a more effective way to kill the germs, the doctor noted. 2. Just coughing into your sleeve When people cough or sneeze into their sleeve, they could still spread germs afterward. "If you cough into your sleeve … go ahead and wash your hands with soap and water as well," Hopkins advised. COMMON MEDICAL TEST LINKED TO 5% OF CANCERS, STUDY SUGGESTS: ‘USE THEM WISELY’ "We also have to recognize that we often bring our hands up close to our face, touch our nose, our glasses, other parts of our face," noted the doctor, who is based in Arkansas. "If we have bacteria or viruses on our hands, we can introduce them into our mucous membranes, where we can get infections."
Note the time delay "The [cortisol] decline is different for everyone but typically occurs one-and-a-half to two hours after you wake," Zumpano said. That's the best time to have coffee, Zumpano said. SLEEP EXPERT REVEALS TOP FOODS AND DRINKS KEEPING YOU UP AT NIGHT That way, "you can rely on your body's natural alert system - cortisol - and when it declines, then you use caffeine to provide the boost.""There is no specific time that's best to drink caffeine," the dietitian added. "[It's] based on when you wake and your natural rise and drop in cortisol." Yet adhering to the body's natural wake-up processes can help sustain energy levels by avoiding one big cortisol, caffeinated crash. COFFEE CREAMER HEALTH RISKS: WHAT TO KNOW, WHAT TO CHOOSE INSTEAD Fox News Digital previously reported on smart ways to consume coffee, with an expert noting that coffee drinking should be tailored to each individual. "For some people, waking up and having a glass of water to rehydrate and then having coffee works well – but for others the morning ritual of having a cup of coffee first thing upon awakening is just too good to give up," said Wendy Troxel, a Utah-based sleep expert and senior behavioral scientist at the RAND Corporation.
The Pandemic Agreement, just adopted by the World Health Organization (WHO), is a landmark for global public health. Had such an agreement been in place before 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic would have looked very different. The agreement now means that when the next pandemic begins brewing, the world will be much better equipped to mitigate or even prevent it. What exactly will the agreement do? In a nutshell, 124 countries have pledged to prevent, prepare for, and respond to future pandemics. The countries that formally ratify the agreement will be bound to uphold a number of commitments including investing in health infrastructures, sharing intellectual property, and engaging in technology transfer. Advertisement One of the biggest benefits promises to be the Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing System. This will require U.N. member states to share information and data about potential pandemic viruses, including sequencing of new viruses or variants, as well as share relevant vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostic technologies. Vaccine manufacturers in participating countries will be expected to provide 20% of pandemic vaccines in real time to the WHO to distribute globally, including to poorer countries and those most in need of them. Of these vaccines, member countries will donate 10% of them for free. Such an arrangement would have saved many lives during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the first few years, the unequal access to vaccines was one of the biggest challenges, with one study finding that up to half the COVID-19 deaths in many lower income countries could have been avoided with a more equitable supply of vaccines. Read More: Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus: Global-Health Architect Conspicuously absent from the agreement is the U.S., which has historically played a key role in global health, from HIV/AIDS to malaria and beyond. Although 11 countries abstained from voting, the U.S.'s omission due to its decision to withdraw from the WHO is notable. COVID-19 taught us that the health of people on the other side of the world is inexorably tied to our own. Isolationism doesn't work when it comes to infectious disease. Even countries that took the most drastic measures to contain COVID-19, like China, eventually succumbed to rapid and extensive spread of the virus when they relaxed international travel or strict lockdowns and social-distancing measures. Preventing the next pandemic will require us to ensure that all countries, including low- and middle-income ones, have the necessary resources to prevent outbreaks from happening and to quash them before they spread. Advertisement The agreement also proves that multilateralism and a desire for global cooperation are still shared goals among most countries. Some critics of the agreement, including U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, have argued that it would be a threat to national sovereignty or freedom, in that it would compromise countries’ ability to make pandemic-related health policy decisions. This is not the case. The agreement states that it “does not prejudice the sovereign right” of countries to consider it in accordance with their own national constitutions. Global agreements or treaties of this nature are rare. But when they do come about, they are far from being tokenistic documents full of legalese. Although the Pandemic Agreement is less formal and legally binding, several U.N. global treaties have already saved millions of lives. The Framework Convention for Tobacco Control, the first WHO treaty, has reduced tobacco use by one-third over the past 20 years and has saved lives with policies like indoor smoking bans.
The Israeli military fired warning shots at a large delegation of European and Arab diplomats on an official visit near the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, drawing swift international condemnation. Delegations from more than 20 countries, including the United Kingdom, France, Canada and others, were on an official mission to see the humanitarian situation around the besieged camp, according to the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which called the incident a “deliberate and unlawful act.” Video from the incident shows Israeli soldiers firing toward the delegation as it backs away from a gate blocking the road. At least seven shots can be heard in the video. One member of the delegation cautions the group, “be close to the wall, be close to the wall,” as they walk away from the scene. “The ministry holds the Israeli occupying government fully and directly responsible for this criminal assault and affirms that such acts will not pass without accountability,” the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the visit to the camp - the site of a major ongoing military operation that has destroyed more than 100 buildings and impacted thousands of families - was coordinated in advance. The military said it launched an initial investigation once it became clear that the group was a diplomatic delegation. “The delegation deviated from the approved route and entered an area where they were not authorized to be,” the military said in a statement Wednesday. “IDF soldiers operating in the area fired warning shots to distance them away.” The IDF said it will reach out to the delegations about the findings of the initial inquiry and “regrets the inconvenience caused.” The Palestinian Authority said the visit was announced 10 days in advance and that the group had been at the gate for more than 15 minutes before Israeli soldiers started shooting. Roland Friedrich, the director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in the West Bank, refuted the Israeli military’s version of events, saying that its explanations “do not fully capture the severity of today’s event.” “This incident is a stark reminder of the lax use of excessive force routinely deployed by Israeli security forces in the West Bank, often with lethal consequences,” Friedrich said. “This raises serious concerns over the way rules of engagement are applied to unarmed civilians.” Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, said after the incident that “any threats on diplomats’ lives are unacceptable.” “We definitely call on Israel to investigate this incident and also hold those accountable who are responsible for this,” Kallas said at a press conference Wednesday. Italy’s foreign ministry summoned Israel’s ambassador in Rome for an official clarification. “The threats against diplomats are unacceptable,” the country’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani added in a social media post on X. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said that Israel’s ambassador to France would also be summoned following the incident, calling it “unacceptable,” while Spain’s Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said that his government summoned the head of the Israeli embassy in Madrid. Canada’s Foreign Minister Anita Anand confirmed on social media that four Canadian personnel were part of the delegation that was shot at, adding that she has asked officials to summon Israel’s Ambassador to convey “Canada’s serious concerns.” Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told a news conference in Ottawa that Canada expected a full and immediate explanation of what happened. “It’s totally unacceptable,” he said. “It’s some of many things that are totally unacceptable that’s going on in the region.” On Wednesday evening, Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen told CNN’s Isa Soares that her country will be summoning the Israeli ambassador to Finland in response to the military’s actions. “Any deviation of any route – it is not an excuse,” Valtonen said. “It is prohibited to open fire against civilians, even under the laws of war. And, of course, these people were also under diplomatic protection.” A host of officials from other European nations condemned the shooting, including representatives from Ireland, Belgium, Slovenia, Portugal, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark and the United Kingdom. Foreign ministries from countries including Jordan, Egypt, Turkey and Qatar also strongly condemned the incident. “This attack, which endangered the lives of diplomats, is yet another demonstration of Israel’s systematic disregard for international law and human rights,” Turkey’s foreign ministry said. “The targeting of diplomats constitutes a grave threat not only to individual safety but also to the mutual respect and trust that form the foundation of inter-state relations. This attack must be investigated without delay, and those responsible must be held accountable,” it added. Clarification: This story has been updated to reflect the shooting incident occurred near the Jenin refugee camp, not within the camp.
Britain’s government has been temporarily blocked from concluding its deal to transfer the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, PA Media reported, after an 11th-hour injunction by a High Court judge. Prime Minister Keir Starmer intends to return the islands to the African country, while maintaining control of the US-UK Diego Garcia military base, and it had been expected that the deal would be signed off on Thursday.
At Lakenheath High School, a school for children of U.S. military members in Britain, a club for gay students and their allies can no longer meet. A Women in STEM group has also been placed on hold. At Ramstein High School in Germany, groups for students of Hispanic and Asian heritage as well as the Pride and Ally club were among those put on pause. And worldwide, in schools attended by military families, books are under review in response to Trump administration orders cracking down on gender identity and diversity, equity and inclusion. So far, few U.S. school districts have made sweeping changes in response to Trump administration orders. Most K-12 schools operate largely under local and state control, with limited interference from the federal government. But a school system run by the Defense Department, which serves about 67,000 students in preschool through high school on military bases around the world, is an exception. As part of the federal government, Defense Department schools have hurried to respond. In addition to pauses on some affinity clubs related to gender and race and reviews of certain books, Pride decorations have been taken down and Black History Month assemblies and performances have been canceled, according to interviews with students and parents and a copy of a Defense Department memo.It is a striking change for a school system that has historically been insulated from political fights in education, and whose math and reading scores are routinely among the nation’s best. Defense schools are global, with locations on some military bases in the United States but also in countries like Belgium and Japan. The student body, like the military itself, is racially and socioeconomically diverse, a history that dates back to the school system’s creation, in part, to serve students of military families in the American South when local schools remained segregated. “Diversity is, like, the core principle of our schools,” said Kadyn, 16, a junior at Lakenheath High School, northeast of Cambridge, who asked to use only his first name because he is the child of a federal employee. At his school, he said, “All Are Welcome” signs, which included a rainbow flag and a Black Lives Matter symbol, had been taken down from classrooms. He added that some flags of foreign countries had also been removed. “I feel like we are losing the essence of what makes our schools thrive,” he said. Will Griffin, a spokesman for Defense Department schools, said that the school system was reviewing its policies to comply with orders from President Trump and his secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, who called for an end to cultural awareness months, such as those for Black history or women’s history, in his first weeks on the job.Students have the right to participate in student-led groups, Mr. Griffin said. But student clubs also need a teacher to supervise meetings, and teachers in Defense schools are federal employees subject to the new orders. It is possible that student affinity groups will be able to start again with employees supervising in an unpaid capacity. “We will continue to remain focused on providing a rigorous, high-quality educational experience for military-connected students to prepare them for success in college, careers and life,” he said. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT In a Feb. 5 memo, Defense officials instructed schools not to use certain materials, including the book “Becoming Nicole,” about the journey of a transgender girl and her family, which was listed as an independent reading novel in sixth through 12th grade. Also listed was a biography of Albert Cashier, a Union Army soldier in the Civil War who was born female but fought and lived as a man, which had been included in some elementary school material. Material in Advanced Placement Psychology courses concerning gender identity and sexuality was also off limits. But the orders have also resulted in confusion and uncertainty, as principals and teachers try to interpret guidance and librarians review books in more than 100 schools around the world.The actress Julianne Moore made headlines when she said that her book “Freckleface Strawberry,” about a 7-year-old girl who dislikes her freckles but learns to embrace her differences, had been pulled for review. “I can’t help but wonder what is so controversial about this picture book,” Ms. Moore, who attended a Defense high school in Frankfurt, wrote on Instagram. But as of this week, “Freckleface Strawberry” is available for checkout, Mr. Griffin said. He said most books under review were not part of the official curriculum but were extra books available in classrooms or libraries. “Our principal was saying she was not going to request that the library remove books about Rosa Parks or Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,” said Allie Allen, the mother of three children who attend Defense schools in Stuttgart, Germany. But a book mentioning Black History Month might be removed, she said. “There is not a lot of exact guidance,” she said. Students are also waiting in limbo, said Sophia Carey, 16, a junior at a Defense high school in Germany. She had wanted to create a girls club at her high school, which would have held an assembly for Women’s History Month, brought in female speakers who work in the military and science and included a community project to offer feminine products in women’s bathrooms at school and in the community. An obstacle for her club and others, she said, had been finding a teacher who could supervise. “Everything is so uncertain,” she said.
In the three years since Ron DeSantis set out to rid Florida’s universities of woke ideology, my campus changed significantly. Professors suddenly worried about what they could say and teach. Some started avoiding terms like “racism.” One student recently told me that when someone used “intersectional” in class, the instructor told her not to use that word. Soon this could be the case in schools across the country. We’ve all heard stories of elite institutions cowering before President Trump’s assault on higher education. Take it from someone who knows: It could get worse — far worse. Mr. Trump has been watching what’s transpired in Florida. The architect of Project 2025’s education policies has said that Florida is “leading the way” on university overhauls. Already, Mr. Trump has threatened to pull funding from colleges that don’t purge language he considers woke. He’s demanded new oversight of certain regional studies departments. Next he could try to ban, as Florida has, “political or social activism.” He could weaken the protections provided by tenure and faculty unions. I saw this happen on my campus, and I know the toll it took. If the Trump administration has its way, my experience could offer a preview of what’s coming for other universities. Before Mr. DeSantis began targeting higher education, Florida faculty members could be confident that the administrators supported our professional judgments about how to teach our students. We had open, complex discussions without fearing for our careers. In a conversation in one of my classes, female students expressed the fear that catcalling provoked, and their male peers responded thoughtfully, reflecting on their own behavior — a learning experience for everyone. Today that conversation would, I fear, violate a Florida law that prohibits teaching male students that they must feel guilt for the actions of other men. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Since Mr. DeSantis’s crackdown, I’ve seen my colleagues harassed and investigated for addressing topical issues, even outside the classroom. The climate of fear gives the government precisely the result it wants. Administrators and faculty members alike practice anticipatory obedience to avoid even the appearance of wokeness, stifling the sort of open and civil discussions that lead students to develop their own views.One colleague told me that he stopped assigning an article about lynching and white evangelicalism for fear that those terms could raise red flags. Another said she was censoring her language not just in class and on campus but also on personal social media. Several professors have been subjected to efforts at entrapment. Last year a man posing as a student tried to encourage Muslim faculty members to criticize Mr. DeSantis and Israel. A similar incident happened to me. In October 2024 my department chair called me into his office to tell me that someone claiming to be a student in my Religion and Science class had complained that I spent 20 minutes talking about specific candidates, including who I was voting for and why. I was stunned. That never happened in that class or any other; it is antithetical to the way I teach. Fortunately, the dean’s office assured me that a single, unsubstantiated accusation was not grounds for disciplinary action. Far worse than the fear of investigation was the way the accusation shook the trust I thought I had with my students. Did one of them hate me so much that one would lie to get me in trouble? In the end, I am convinced that the person making the complaint was not a student in my class but a provocateur. (It was probably not a coincidence that the allegation was lodged shortly after my name appeared in a Politico article about changes to our campus.) That incident shattered my conviction that if I did my job well and followed the rules, I would be safe. In over 30 years at the University of Florida, I have taught thousands of students, written hundreds of recommendation letters and advised countless research projects. I have published a dozen books and scores of articles, won research and teaching awards and served on numerous college and university committees. But the state doesn’t trust me to do my job.How can I challenge my students to ask hard questions, to follow the research wherever it goes, when I am worried about what might happen to me if I do that? And how can I follow the rules when even university administrators are not always sure of how to interpret them? Teaching is, above all, the creation of a community in the classroom, a web of trust and curiosity that binds students and instructors in a shared intellectual project. Mistrust, fear and self-censorship make that project impossible. With Mr. Trump’s recent actions, the campus atmosphere has grown more tense. His orders threaten not only the humanities and social sciences but also research funding for STEM. And as immigration agents detain and deport international students, noncitizen students on campus (and even some students who are naturalized citizens) are keeping their heads down even more. Like Mr. DeSantis and Richard Nixon before him, Mr. Trump and Vice President JD Vance believe that the professors are the enemy. They want ordinary Americans to mistrust college instructors, to think of us as intolerant militants driven only by political ideology. Teaching college students has been the greatest gift of my professional life. I love my university and my students, and I do good work. I have no desire to indoctrinate anyone. The same is true of my colleagues. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT For those who think that professors are the enemy, I invite you to spend some time in our classrooms. You might discover that we are, in the end, all on the same side.
In the last two months, Elon Musk has inserted himself into a range of government functions on the grounds that he and his team, the Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE), have an urgent mandate to root out “government waste.” In the early rollout, Musk’s team claimed to see fraud everywhere: he reported that FEMA was sending migrants to “luxury hotels” and reposted a claim that USAID is “basically a form of money laundering.” And in a recent interview with the Fox Business Network, he announced, “The waste and fraud in entitlement spending — most of the federal spending is entitlements — that’s the big one to eliminate.” Entitlement spending includes Medicaid, Medicare, and, of course, Social Security. Musk has called Social Security “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time,” a direct accusation that support for the benefit is for chumps. He seems to be laying the groundwork for a full-scale assault on the most popular redistributive program in America with a line of thinking that society is, well, for suckers. Sharing, cooperating, promise-keeping, and helping—that kind of earnestness is for losers, not leaders. Musk purports to believe that many federal functions, especially within agencies like the EPA, the Department of Education, and even the FBI, harbor freeloaders at every turn. In February, he demanded that federal employees email DOGE with an accounting of what they had accomplished in the previous week, posting on X, “The reason this matters is that a significant number of people who are supposed to be working for the government are doing so little work that they are not checking their email at all! In some cases, we believe non-existent people or the identities of dead people are being used to collect paychecks. In other words, there is outright fraud.” He has made the same claim about deceased Social Security beneficiaries, apparently based on a misunderstanding of the underlying coding, according to reporting by WIRED. On the one hand, many of the boldest claims appear so easily refutable that the whole campaign may be destined to implode. But I have been thinking about and studying the social science of feeling scammed for almost two decades, and I know that the emotional efficacy of sucker rhetoric distorts our moral and political reasoning. Even when the accusations are unfounded, even when the risks are small, the mere possibility of being a sucker can be psychologically potent enough to undermine a rational preference for cooperation. It is all too easy to convince people that compassion and integrity are illusory—that, as historian Anne Applebaum wrote in 2018, in Trump’s America “morality is for losers.” Understanding the rhetorical power of warning Americans that they are being played for suckers, at a personal and visceral level, was part of the winning strategy of the 2016 Trump candidacy. He held himself out as the voice of reason who could see humane asylum policies and international cooperation for what they really were: traps for the unwary. Now the appeal of that rhetoric is being put to a new test. Psychologically, the fear of being a sucker is a distinctly aversive feeling. Most people are so acutely attuned to the threat of feeling duped that even minor scam risks can contaminate their decision-making, both in terms of everyday financial and social decision-making, and also at the level of their core values and deeper goals. Trust is risky, and there is ample evidence from social science that the risk of being conned sparks a special risk aversion. People will go way out of their way to avoid even the suggestion that they are about to play the fool. In a famous study from 2011, research participants shown a promising startup company were willing to gamble a lot when the 5% downside risk was due to overestimating market demand, but willing to invest much less if that same 5% downside risk was the small chance that the founders were “fraudsters.” Same risk, different psychological resonance, and perhaps why Trump and Musk’s deployment of that sort of language is so effective. Most of us recoil, or retaliate, at the first suggestion that we might be taken advantage of; as threats go, the warning that you’re a sucker works. Since he came into office last month, Trump has gone after a range of vulnerable targets. Whatever you think about the rightness or competence of the underlying missions, the human harm has been real and widespread. Patients have been turned away from lifesaving medical intervention abroad; American government and university workers are losing their jobs; visas are being revoked. Real people, with lives and obligations, are suffering. We might think, or hope, that Musk and Trump are overplaying their hands. Billionaires targeting workers, refugees, and SSI recipients—the optics ought to be terrible. But the relentless search for scammers coming from marginalized groups has a reliable psychological appeal. One of the core insights of Trump’s populism is that he seems to see how the sucker rhetoric is tied to status anxiety. There is an extra humiliation, and thus an extra threat, to being suckered by someone you think should be below you on the social ladder, behind you in the line for promotion or priority seating. (“If they can put one over on me, what does that make me?” the thinking goes.) Trump’s obsessive policing of who’s the sucker has given him political clout with a populace trained to be vigilant to the prospect of being scammed—even by the least plausible fraudsters. In the meantime, scammy behavior by rich men is routinely coded as “savvy” instead of grotesque. So it invites the question: who’s conning who right now? The line between the helper and the pawn is easily manipulated. All it takes is some vague warnings about government waste and suddenly paying your taxes means you’re a dupe; after a few headlines about 150-year-olds on Social Security, a modest retirement benefit looks like a reward for cheating the system. But that whole framework is wrong. It is tempting to respond to Musk’s numbers with direct refutation (no, DOGE has not saved taxpayers 115 billion dollars), but it’s better to refuse the premise altogether. We can support government efficiency and nonetheless insist that it is destructive to approach our most important cooperative ventures with rank suspicion. Living in a society requires trust, and with that trust comes some vulnerability. Alleviating human suffering is the right goal for a government to have. And Social Security, a self-funded program that keeps millions of American retirees out of poverty every year, achieves widespread good with remarkable efficiency. The fear of playing the sucker is often weaponized for political ends, but it can only cover so much real harm, and right now, real harm abounds. One laid-off IRS worker—a Trump supporter himself—described the juxtaposition to NBC10, the sucker’s stakes versus the human stakes. “You know, when he talks about government waste and all that, yes, I’m behind it. I believe there is a lot of stuff in the government that needs fixing.” So far, though, all he sees is a billionaire “coming in with a wrecking ball and destroying people’s lives for no reason.”
HONG KONG — The Chinese military conducted large-scale drills around Taiwan on Tuesday in what it said was a “stern warning” to pro-independence forces on the Beijing-claimed island, as it called Taiwan’s president a “parasite.” The Taiwanese government condemned the exercises, in which Chinese army, navy, air and rocket forces closed in on waters to the north, south and east of Taiwan, according to China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA). No live fire has been reported. Tensions have been heightened since last month, when Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te described China as a “foreign hostile force” and proposed 17 measures to counter threats from Beijing, which has not ruled out the use of force to achieve its unification goal. Beijing has rebuffed offers of talks from Lai, who says only the island democracy’s 23 million people can decide their future. The Chinese drills were accompanied by the release of multiple propaganda images and videos. One cartoon video titled “Shell” depicts Lai, whom Beijing calls a “separatist” and “troublemaker,” as a “parasite” held by a pair of chopsticks over a Taiwan on fire. “Parasite poisoning Taiwan Island. Parasite hollowing island out. Parasite courting ultimate destruction,” text in the video reads. A poster titled “Closing In” shows Chinese ships and aircraft surrounding Taiwan, while a video called “Subdue Demons and Vanquish Evils” features the monkey king from the Chinese epic “Journey to the West.” China’s Taiwan Affairs Office called the military drills a “resolute punishment for the reckless provocations” of the Lai administration. “Pursuing ‘Taiwan independence’ means pushing the people of Taiwan into a dangerous situation of war,” spokesperson Zhu Fenglian said at a briefing in Beijing on Tuesday. “We will not allow any person or force to separate Taiwan from China.” A spokesperson for the PLA’s Eastern Theater Command called the exercises a “legitimate and necessary” action to safeguard China’s sovereignty. “These drills mainly focus on sea-air combat-readiness patrols, joint seizure of comprehensive superiority, assault on maritime and ground targets, and blockade on key areas and sea lanes,” the spokesperson, Shi Yi, said in a statement Tuesday. Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said that as of 3:30 p.m. Tuesday local time (3:30 a.m. Tuesday ET), it had detected 71 Chinese military aircraft, 13 warships and four coast guard vessels around the island. Thirty-six of the aircraft crossed the median line that until recent years had served as an unofficial buffer in the Taiwan Strait. “We strongly condemn the PRC’s irrational provocations,” the ministry said in an earlier statement Tuesday, referring to China’s official name, the People’s Republic of China. “We firmly oppose PLA’s actions that undermine regional peace.” Taiwan has activated aircraft, navy ships and land-based missile systems in response to the Chinese drills, the ministry said, adding that it has been tracking China’s first domestically built Shandong aircraft carrier since Saturday. The United States, which has no official relations with Taiwan but is the island’s most important international backer, said later Tuesday that China’s military activities and rhetoric “only serve to exacerbate tensions and put the region’s security and the world’s prosperity at risk.” “In the face of China’s intimidation tactics and destabilizing behavior, the United States’ enduring commitment to our allies and partners, including Taiwan, continues,” the State Department said in a statement. The drills on Tuesday were higher-profile than the three China has held around Taiwan since President Donald Trump was elected in November. They also did not carry the same “Joint Sword” code name as exercises of similar scale last October and May, which Zhang Chi, a professor at the PLA’s National Defense University in Beijing, told state-run broadcaster CCTV indicates that these exercises have become a “new normal” for the Chinese military. Beijing “very obviously” deployed more troops than in earlier joint air and maritime combat-readiness patrols, said Ying-Yu Lin, assistant professor at the Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies at Tamkang University in New Taipei City. The exercises were intended to “test the U.S. bottom line” on Taiwan before a potential meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, Lin told NBC News in a phone interview Tuesday. The drills took place two days after Pete Hegseth concluded his first trip to Asia as defense secretary. During his visit to U.S. allies the Philippines and Japan, Hegseth criticized China’s growing aggression in the region and called Japan an “indispensable partner” in deterring it. Taiwanese Defense Minister Wellington Koo said Tuesday that Beijing was an “obvious troublemaker” disrupting peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, and that the “parasite” rhetoric fully demonstrated Beijing’s provocation. He told reporters the Chinese military should focus on tackling internal corruption rather than holding drills in the region. Last year, Beijing fired two former defense ministers amid an anti-corruption campaign in its military. Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council condemned the Chinese drills, urging Beijing to “immediately cease irrational provocative actions.” China’s “militaristic provocations not only escalate tensions in the Taiwan Strait but also severely undermine regional peace and stability and threaten global security,” it said in a statement Tuesday. Though Taiwanese authorities view Beijing as a serious threat, most people on the island believe China is “unlikely or very unlikely” to invade in the next five years, according to a poll released last year by Taiwan’s top military think tank.
A light, 4.7-magnitude earthquake struck in Northern California on Wednesday, according to the United States Geological Survey. The temblor happened at 6:34 p.m. Pacific time about 2 miles northwest of Cobb, Calif., or about 70 miles north of San Francisco, data from the agency shows. As seismologists review available data, they may revise the earthquake's reported magnitude. Additional information collected about the earthquake may also prompt U.S.G.S. scientists to update the shake-severity map.Aftershocks can occur days, weeks or even years after the first earthquake. These events can be of equal or larger magnitude to the initial earthquake, and they can continue to affect already damaged locations.
Nearly 300 international students were abruptly stripped of their ability to stay in the United States in recent days, according to universities and media reports, sowing fear among students and confusion at schools scrambling to help students facing detention and possible deportation. The moves targeted students at a wide range of universities, from private institutions like Harvard and Stanford to public ones like the University of Texas at Austin and Minnesota State University-Mankato. The University of California had dozens of cases reported across its campuses. Several immigration lawyers told The New York Times that they began receiving frantic emails and calls late last week from students who had been notified by the State Department or their universities that their visas or statuses had been terminated without clear justifications. Criminal convictions have always put students at risk of losing their status, but participation in political actions and committing traffic infractions have rarely been cited as justifications. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT In some cases, immigration officers have arrested international students related to their involvement in pro-Palestinian causes. In other cases, students had committed legal infractions, such as driving over the speed limit or while intoxicated, often years ago, several immigration lawyers said in interviews. But lawyers said the Trump administration had often given no reason at all, leaving them to guess why students were targeted.“This upends all usual practice by the government,” said Miriam Feldblum, chief executive of the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, which represents more than 570 public and private colleges and universities across the country. “They are terminating students’ statuses in a way they have never done before and with virtually no explanation and little recourse to correct or appeal by either the institution or the students.” Late last month, Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, ordered diplomats to scour the social media postings of some visa applicants to keep away from the country those suspected of criticizing the United States and Israel. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT The State Department and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment. The recent moves add more anxiety to an already precarious environment for international students and scholars in the United States. Advocates for international education worry that such moves will chill the ability of U.S. schools to attract foreign students. Last month, Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia University graduate student who was involved in pro-Palestinian activism during campus protests last year, was arrested at his apartment and sent to Louisiana for possible deportation, despite being a permanent resident. Shortly after, Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University student from Turkey, was detained by masked agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, while she was on the way to meet friends. Ms. Ozturk, who had written a pro-Palestinian opinion essay, was also taken to Louisiana.The moves aimed at international students fit with the Trump administration’s broader policy agenda of reducing the number of immigrants, both legal and undocumented, and of forcing universities to crack down on what the president says is rampant antisemitism on campuses. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT The United States issued more than 400,000 visas to students in 2024. Some of the students targeted recently had committed offenses like speeding or driving while intoxicated, the lawyers said. They said that such offenses did not ordinarily rise to deportation. Without a visa an international student becomes undocumented, and must leave the United States or risk being detained and placed in deportation proceedings. Several attorneys said that they had clients who had opted to leave the country out of fear that they could be arrested by agents from ICE, the Homeland Security agency charged with carrying out Mr. Trump’s pledge of mass deportations. Some of the affected students are graduate students who have doctoral dissertations that they are supposed to defend next month. Others are undergraduates. Still others have completed their studies and have been working in the United States, under a special program that allows recent international graduates to remain in the country for up to three years if employed. “This is totally unprecedented,” said Fuji Whittenburg, an immigration lawyer in Calabasas, Calif., who has been practicing law for 20 years. “I have never seen anything close to this.” She added, “A brush with law enforcement that didn’t necessarily result in an arrest or a conviction is all it took.” Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Ms. Whittenburg said that one of her clients was an Indian national who got a DUI when he was studying in the United States more than a decade ago. When he applied for a second student visa more recently, he disclosed the charge to U.S. consular authorities in his home country. They ultimately granted him the visa to pursue further studies in the United States. Harvard advised international students last week during a webinar to think carefully about traveling abroad, according to The Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper. The staff also warned students that pro-Palestinian speech could be risky. During the webinar, Jason Corral, an attorney, said there seemed to be a change from President Trump’s first term, according to The Crimson. “The difference is we have seen situations where it seems as though people’s visas are being revoked simply based on their speech or protests,” he said. In an alert, a coalition of national student media organizations urged student media last week to “minimize harm,” citing threats to student speech. On Monday a letter sent to Michael Drake, the president of the University of California, and others by the Council of University of California Faculty Association said the university should help students who had been targeted, arguing it had a “moral obligation” to protect students and scholars’ legal rights. The letter, which was co-signed by the University Council AFT, a teaching faculty and librarians union, called on the university to allow deported or detained students to continue their programs remotely, to continue providing stipends, salaries and fellowships and to help students in the courts. Several students have sued the government to challenge their terminations, and lawsuits are expected to pile up. Stacy Tolchin, an immigration lawyer in Pasadena, Calif., filed two suits in federal court in Los Angeles on Saturday, and said that she would be filing more this week. In one case, the American Civil Liberties Union is representing a Chinese doctoral student at Dartmouth College who has been studying computer science. According to a complaint filed on April 4, the student, Xiaotian Liu, had not committed any crimes or participated in any protests. The college told the student in an email that this was “not standard or normal procedure,” according to the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in New Hampshire. “Xiaotian’s dream of finishing his doctoral program and obtaining a Ph.D. at Dartmouth College is now in severe jeopardy,” the lawsuit said.
