WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans are making changes to a $9.4 billion package of spending cuts proposed by President Donald Trump as they race to pass the measure by a Friday deadline.
After a lunch meeting Tuesday with White House budget director Russell Vought, they agreed on one significant change: removing about $400 million in cuts to PEPFAR, the Bush-era foreign aid program to combat HIV/AIDS, which has been credited with saving millions of lives.
It was done with the aim of securing the simple majority needed to pass the rescissions package through the Senate, after several Republicans expressed opposition to those cuts.
“There’s a substitute amendment that I think has a good chance of passing,” Vought told reporters. “PEPFAR will not be impacted by the rescissions.”
Senate Republican leaders hope to hold a key vote to proceed on the measure on Tuesday evening, before triggering a period of debate and an open amendment process.
It remains unclear if the bill has the 51 votes needed in the Senate, where the GOP controls 53 seats. Republicans plan on passing it on party lines through a rarely used filibuster-proof process that gives Congress 45 days from the time of the White House request to get it to the president’s desk. That deadline is Friday.
The Senate’s plan to amend the bill means it will have to pass the GOP-controlled House again before Trump can sign it into law.
“There was a lot of interest among our members in doing something on the PEPFAR issue, and so that’s reflected in the substitute,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters. “And we hope that if we can get this across the finish line in the Senate, that the House would accept that one small modification that ends up making the package still about a $9 billion rescissions package. A little less than what was sent over the House, but nonetheless a significant down payment on getting rid of waste, fraud, abuse in our government.”
The bulk of the cuts are to foreign aid. The package also slashes $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds PBS and NPR. That has sparked objections from some Republicans, who say constituents in rural areas rely on those stations for essential matters like emergency alerts.
Thune said Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., who had concerns about rural broadcasting, struck an agreement with the White House that “allows them to reprogram some funding that would address the 28 stations around the country that receive funding through CPB that are on our Native American reservations.”
Rounds said he will support the legislation as a result.
“This is a direct agreement with OMB that they would transfer the funds over to the Department of the Interior. The Department of the Interior has agreed to accept it and to issue the grants,” he said. “We’ve told them very clearly what we want is those resources to be made available to these Native American radio stations.”
The White House said it will resume spending the funds if the Senate doesn’t send Trump the package by the 45-day deadline.
“We have to remove our hold on the money,” Vought said. “So we will not implement the cuts if this vote doesn’t go our way.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has slammed the proposed cuts and warned that if Republicans rescind spending programs approved in bipartisan deals, it would make it harder to achieve the 60 votes needed to strike a funding deal this fall.
He said Tuesday that Democrats still hope to keep spending decisions bipartisan.
“We are doing everything we can — everything we can to keep the bipartisan appropriations process going forward,” Schumer said.
Immigration authorities are demanding that landlords turn over leases, rental applications, forwarding addresses, identification cards and other information on their tenants, a sign that the Trump administration is targeting them to assist in its drive for mass deportations.
Eric Teusink, an Atlanta-area real estate attorney, said several clients recently received subpoenas asking for entire files on tenants. A rental application can include work history, marital status and family relationships.
The two-page “information enforcement subpoena,” which Teusink shared exclusively with The Associated Press, also asks for information on other people who lived with the tenant. One, dated May 1, is signed by an officer for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services ‘ anti-fraud unit. However, it is not signed by a judge.
It is unclear how widely the subpoenas were issued, but they could signal a new front in the administration’s efforts to locate people who are in the country illegally, many of whom were required to give authorities their U.S. addresses as a condition for initially entering the country without a visa. President Donald Trump largely ended temporary status for people who were allowed in the country under his predecessor, Joe Biden.
Demands pose legal questions
Some legal experts and property managers say the demands pose serious legal questions because they are not signed by a judge and that, if landlords comply, they might risk violating the Fair Housing Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin.
Critics also say landlords are likely to feel intimidated into complying with something that a judge hasn’t ordered, all while the person whose information is being requested may never know that their private records are in the hands of immigration authorities.
“The danger here is overcompliance,” said Stacy Seicshnaydre, a Tulane University law professor who studies housing law. “Just because a landlord gets a subpoena, doesn’t mean it’s a legitimate request.”
ICE officers have long used subpoenas signed by an agency supervisor to try to enter homes. Advocacy groups have mounted “Know Your Rights” campaign urging people to refuse entry if they are not signed by a judge.
The subpoena reviewed by the AP is from USCIS’ fraud detection and national security directorate, which, like ICE, is part of The Department of Homeland Security. Although it isn’t signed by a judge, it threatens that a judge may hold a landlord in contempt of court for failure to comply.
Tricia McLaughlin, a Homeland Security spokeswoman, defended the use of subpoenas against landlords without confirming if they are being issued.
“We are not going to comment on law enforcement’s tactics surrounding ongoing investigations,” McLaughlin said. “However, it is false to say that subpoenas from ICE can simply be ignored. ICE is authorized to obtain records or testimony through specific administrative subpoena authorities. Failure to comply with an ICE-issued administrative subpoena may result in serious legal penalties. The media needs to stop spreading these lies.”
Requests are new to many landlords
Teusink said many of his clients oversee multifamily properties and are used to getting subpoenas for other reasons, such as requests to hand over surveillance footage or give local police access to a property as part of an investigation. But, he said, those requests are signed by a judge.
Teusink said his clients were confused by the latest subpoenas. After consulting with immigration attorneys, he concluded that compliance is optional. Unless signed by a judge, the letters are essentially just an officer making a request.
“It seemed like they were on a fishing expedition,” Teusink said.
Boston real estate attorney Jordana Roubicek Greenman said a landlord client of his received a vague voicemail from an ICE official last month requesting information about a tenant. Other local attorneys told her that their clients had received similar messages. She told her client not to call back.
Anthony Luna, the CEO of Coastline Equity, a commercial and multifamily property management company that oversees about 1,000 units in the Los Angeles area, said property managers started contacting him a few weeks ago about concerns from tenants who heard rumors about the ICE subpoenas. Most do not plan to comply if they receive them.
“If they’re going after criminals, why aren’t they going through court documents?” Luna said. “Why do they need housing provider files?”
ICE subpoenas preceded Trump’s first term in office, though they saw a significant uptick under him, according to Lindsay Nash, a law professor at Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law in New York who has spent years tracking them. Landlords rarely got them, though. State and local police were the most common recipients.
ICE can enforce the subpoenas, but it would first have to file a lawsuit in federal court and get a judge to sign off on its enforcement — a step that would allow the subpoena’s recipient to push back, Nash said. She said recipients often comply without telling the person whose records are being divulged.
“Many people see these subpoenas, think that they look official, think that some of the language in them sounds threatening, and therefore respond, even when, from what I can tell, it looks like some of these subpoenas have been overbroad,” she said.
The number of structures at risk of flooding in the United States could be higher than previously thought, according to a study published Monday.
The study, published Monday in the journal Earth’s Future, found that 43% of flooded buildings in North Carolina between 1996 and 2020 were located outside the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Special Flood Hazard Area — areas that FEMA projects have a 1% risk of flooding in a given year.
The findings could help more communities get a better handle on their flood risk and flood insurance needs, experts and authors of the study said. Flood insurance has become increasingly hard to get as some companies increase the price of policies or step back from insuring homes in certain markets due to more frequent and severe weather. That has left property owners more vulnerable.
Experts told NBC News that with access to the right data sources, databases like the one described in the study could be developed nationwide.
FEMA’s maps are the main source nationally to identify flood-prone areas and what structures need to be insured. But experts say the system is outdated and has low resolution. The 100-year flood plain projection doesn’t paint a complete picture of what areas are likely to flood. And climate change has rendered previously authoritative weather and climate projections less reliable, the authors noted.
The study’s use of address-level data allowed the researchers to pinpoint specific buildings that had flooded more than once. That information could help property owners know whether they should be purchasing flood insurance even outside of FEMA’s flood hazard zones, experts said. In the U.S., 99% of counties have flooded at least once but only 4% of homeowners have flood insurance, according to FEMA.
“More information about where it has flooded in the past could help people make different decisions,” said Helena Margaret Garcia, the lead author of the study and a doctoral student at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
FEMA and the National Flood Insurance Program did not return requests for comment.
FEMA is currently in the process of redeveloping its flood mapping system, through an initiative called the Future of Flood Risk Data, that it says will provide a more comprehensive look at flood hazards and risks in the country using more efficient, accurate and consistent technology.
Water markers on a home in Ocracoke, N.C., indicating by how much flooding increased between hurricanes over the years.Courtesy of Helena Garcia
As the planet warms, heavier rainfall is becoming more common because hotter air can hold more moisture, which later falls as rain. Climate change is also leading to a rise in global sea levels, which has made coastal and even some inland areas more vulnerable to flooding. Hurricane Helene, the third-deadliest hurricane of the modern era, caused severe flooding in mountainous areas in the middle of North Carolina. Damage totaled more than $78 billion, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Severe rainfall has caused flash floods to rip through towns across the U.S. in the last two weeks, most recently on Monday in New Jersey and New York City. Extreme floods resulted in at least six deaths in North Carolina and more than 100 deaths in Texas. Flash floods are the top storm-related killer in the U.S. resulting in an average of 125 deaths per year in the last few decades, according to the National Weather Service
A North Carolina climatologist said warmer ocean waters, which also feed storms, could have been a factor in fueling last week’s Tropical Storm Chantal, which broke rainfall and river-crest records in the state.
With the changing climate, having access to up-to-date maps is crucial, experts say.
For the study, researchers mapped 78 flood eventsbetween 1996 and 2020 using data from the National Flood Insurance Program — the FEMA program through which property owners can purchase insurance for potential flood-related losses. They also used emergency service requests and “volunteered geographic information,” which they acquired through social media posts, to create what they describe as a “first of its kind” database. Data on past floods is often difficult for the general public to access, which can make it challenging for homeowners to know whether their property has previously flooded, experts said.
Garcia said researchers can use the same methods from the study to create similar historical maps for regions across the nation to help officials identify areas in their state they may not have previously thought of as a flood risk.
While the study found that only 20,000 of the 90,000 buildings flooded more than once — more than double the number of buildings that filed NFIP claims — authors of the study are working on research to quantify its human impact. Some are looking at health outcomes, including how a flood might interrupt people’s health care, and others looking into the quantity of displacement due to the repetitive flooding, Garcia said.
The parking lot of the Eastgate Mall in Chapel Hill, N.C., on July 7, following a tropical storm.Antonia Sebastian / Courtesy of Helena Garcia
Antonia Sebastian, an assistant professor in the department of geological sciences at UNC-Chapel Hill, said the study aims to create a “comprehensive record of past flooding” by gathering data on flood events that don’t make the biggest headlines but still have an impact on homeowners.
“Places that have flooded before will flood again. It’s just a matter of time,” Sebastian said. “And those are all risky places.”
Chad Berginnis, the executive director of the Association of Flood Plain Managers who wasn’t involved in the study, said FEMA’s maps are designed to implement the NFIP by determining what areas have to purchase flood insurance, using the 100-year flood plain as a guide. He said the study’s analysis of historical flooding highlights that officials may need to require flood insurance in areas outside of FEMA’s flood hazard zone.
“FEMA flood maps are a starting point and not an end point,” Berginnis said. “They will show you one kind of flood risk, but if you want a total perception of flood risk, one of the things you got to do is find historical flood information.”
He said replicating similar database models as the one described in the study in other local areas could help flood plain managers increase awareness among their communities about who is at risk of flooding by pinpointing where it has occurred previously.
“Just given the flood history of [the Guadalupe River], and having a daughter of the age that’s going to camps too, I mean, this is really hitting home to me. You know, how is it that we, that societally, we’re not comprehending that these same locations can also be very risky areas and not either demanding or finding out a little bit more about it. So, I think clearly we don’t have enough awareness of flood risks.”
June Choi, a doctoral student in earth system science at Stanford University who was not part of the study, said the finding that many flooded buildings were located outside of at-risk areas designated by FEMA’s flood maps is likely the case across all states. The new database may be limited because it doesn’t factor in how building density changes over time. But its use of historical records and address-specific data still make it a valuable resource for assessing future flood risk, she said.
Television personality Chip Gaines defended the inclusion of a same-sex couple in “Back to the Frontier,” a new show featuring him and his wife, Joanna, about families who give up technology and try to live as homesteaders did in the 1800s.
The show features married couple Jason Hanna and Joe Riggs and their 10-year-old twin sons, sparking backlash from prominent religious conservatives online.
Franklin Graham, the son of evangelical pastor Billy Graham, said in a post on social media that the casting of a gay couple is “very disappointing.”
“While we are to love people, we should love them enough to tell them the truth of God’s Word,” Graham said. “His Word is absolute truth. God loves us, and His design for marriage is between one man and one woman. Promoting something that God defines as sin is in itself sin.”
The Hanna-Riggs family on “Back to the Frontier.”Magnolia Network/MAX/Warner Bros. Discovery
Gaines responded to the criticism in a social media post Sunday, encouraging people to ask questions and “maybe even learn.”
He added, “It’s a sad Sunday when ‘non believers’ have never been confronted with hate or vitriol until they are introduced to a modern American Christian.”
Gaines has responded to dozens of other critics in defense of Hanna and Riggs’ inclusion in the show, quoting Bible verses and saying there are other TV shows critics could watch.
In response to a critic who said “we are extremely sad because of how much we have grown to admire and appreciate you both,” Gaines responded encouraging Christians to “judge not” and “love one another.”
“Representation matters deeply — especially for those who are still finding the courage to live their truth,” Hanna said in a longer post responding to the backlash from some conservatives. “When families like ours are visible, it opens doors for others to feel safe, loved, and validated. Visibility isn’t just about being seen; it’s about making sure no one feels alone.”
The couple has faced backlash before, but more often from those who support LGBTQ rights. They attend the Antioch Community Church, an evangelical church in Waco, Texas, which opposes same-sex marriage. In a 2021 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Joanna Gaines said accusations that the couple is racist and anti-LGBTQ are “so far from who we really are” and that the criticism is “the stuff that keeps me up.”
William “Rick” Singer, the mastermind of a nationwide college admissions cheating scheme, can work as a college consultant again so long as he discloses his criminal record to new clients, a federal judge ruled on Monday.
Singer, 62, pleaded guilty in 2019 to racketeering conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy and other charges in connection with the scandal, dubbed Operation Varsity Blues. He was sentenced to 3½ years in prison in 2023, but released to a halfway house in Los Angeles last year.
Upon his release from prison, Singer launched a new company, ID Future Stars, to advise prospective undergraduates on their college applications. Chief District Judge Denise Casper ruled that Singer can continue his work as a college consultant so long as the following statement is “prominently” on his company’s website:
“In March 2019, Rick Singer pled guilty to federal charges including racketeering conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and obstruction of justice for his role in what was widely-publicized as the ‘Varsity Blues’ college admissions scheme,” the statement reads.
“Specifically, Mr. Singer admitted to, among other things: bribing standardized test proctors and administrators to engage in cheating on college entrance exams (i.e., the SAT and ACT); falsifying students’ academic transcripts by paying third parties to take classes in their names; falsifying students’ college applications with fake awards, athletic activities, and fabricated essays; and bribing college athletic coaches and administrators, through purported donations to their programs and personal bribes, to designate students as athletic recruits based on falsified athletic credentials,” it continues.
“As part of the scheme, Mr. Singer took in more than $25 million from his clients, from which he made payments to co-conspirators totaling more than $7 million, and transferred, spent, or otherwise used more than $15 million for his own benefit. On January 4, 2023, a federal court in Boston sentenced Mr. Singer to 42 months in prison and three years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay more than $10 million in restitution and to forfeit assets totaling more than $8.7 million.” it concludes.
Casper added that written copies of the statement must be provided to parents, students or other entities seeking to retain Singer.
As of Tuesday morning, the statement appeared to be absent from the site.
ID Future Stars did not immediately return a request for comment.
The company’s website says that ID Future Stars caters to thousands of applicants across the United States and abroad and promises “a 80-96% acceptance rate for first-choice schools and over 90% within the list of their top 3 choices.”
“Impressively, 100% of our clients come from direct referrals, reflecting our reputation and the trust families place in us,” the company’s website reads. “Our expertise lies in navigating the complexities of the college admissions process.”
More than 50 people, including parents and university coaches, were convicted in the case. The scandal drew particular attention for ensnaring Hollywood actors Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman, who hired Singer to help secure their daughters into elite universities.
Both actors served short stints in prison for their involvement in the case.
DENVER — The murder trial of a Colorado dentist accused of killing his wife by poisoning her protein shakes and later trying to pay someone to kill the lead investigator on the case will begin with opening arguments Tuesday.
James Craig, 47, allegedly used cyanide and tetrahydrozoline, an ingredient in over-the-counter eye drops, to kill his wife of 23 years, Angela Craig, two years ago in suburban Denver.
Craig has pleaded not guilty to several charges, including first-degree murder.
Prosecutors say that Craig allegedly purchased arsenic around the time of his wife’s symptoms — dizziness and headaches that perplexed doctors — and that after his initial attempts to poison her failed, he ordered potassium cyanide.
They also said Craig searched Google for “how to make a murder look like a heart attack” and “is arsenic detectable in an autopsy,” and that he tried to make it appear his wife had killed herself.
Angela Craig, 43, who had six children with James Craig, was hospitalized several times. After the first time, she can be seen on home surveillance video accusing her husband of implying to medical staff that she was suicidal.
“It’s your fault they treated me like I was a suicide risk, like I did it to myself, and like nothing I said could be believed,” she said to her husband on the video.
After Craig’s arrest in 2023, prosecutors alleged that he offered a fellow jail inmate $20,000 to kill the case’s lead investigator and offered someone else $20,000 to find people to falsely testify that Angela Craig planned to die by suicide.
In addition to first-degree murder, Craig has pleaded not guilty to the other charges, including solicitation to commit murder and solicitation to commit perjury.
Craig’s attorneys have questioned the reliability of the inmate’s claims, said the police were biased against the dentist and that tests of the protein shake containers didn’t reveal signs of poison.
Around the time of his arrest, prosecutors said Craig was experiencing financial difficulties and appeared to be having an affair with a fellow dentist, though they have not yet described a motive in his wife’s death.
Craig remains in custody, according to jail records.
Several of the people killed were identified Monday, including Rui Albernaz, 64; Ronald Codega, 61; Margaret Duddy, 69; Robert King, 78; Kim Mackin, 71; Richard Rochon, 78; and Eleanor Willett, 86.
The identities of a 70-year-old woman and a 77-year-old man were being withheld until their families could be notified, the Bristol County District Attorney’s Office said in a news release.
Holly Mallowes, Willett’s granddaughter, told NBC Boston that her grandmother “was the rock of the family.”
“We’re praying she went peacefully from the smoke,” she said. “That’s weighing on us. Was there any suffering?”
Rochon’s family said he was a sharpshooter in the Army and a Vietnam veteran.
“He loved getting visits from his niece and nephew,” his niece, Breonna Cestodio, said.
Mackin’s nephew, Austin Mackin, told The Associated Press in an emailed statement that his aunt was a “gift beyond words.”
“We will all miss Kimmy,” the statement read. “Beyond being exceptionally kind, few knew that she was a brilliant musician.”
The fire broke out around 9:30 p.m. Sunday at the Gabriel House Assisted Living Residence, which houses nearly 70 people. More than 30 people had been taken to local hospitals, officials said. One person was in critical condition.
The fire damage was contained to one wing, but there was heavy smoke damage throughout the facility. Dozens of people had to be rescued by a ladder.
Lorraine Ferrara told The Associated Press that she woke up to a neighbor pounding on her door. She said she tried to escape through the smoke-filled hallway, but she had to go back to her room because the sprinkler system was shooting hot water onto her back.
Ferrara said she opened her window and yelled for help. A firefighter broke the window and carried her down the ladder.
“I really thought I was going to die,” she said. “I thought there was no way out.”
The owner of Gabriel House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey called the fire a “tragedy” and said a full investigation is underway.
“We are all praying for those who lost loved ones and for the full recovery of those who were injured,” she said in a statement.
Consumer prices rose in June as President Donald Trump’s tariffs began to slowly work their way through the U.S. economy.
The consumer price index, a broad-based measure of goods and services costs, increased 0.3% on the month, putting the 12-month inflation rate at 2.7%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday. The numbers were right in line with the Dow Jones consensus.
Excluding volatile food and energy prices, core inflation picked up 0.2% on the month, with the annual rate moving to 2.9%, also matching the respective estimates.
President Donald Trump may have expected a Russian shudder of fear to greet his threat of “very severe tariffs” on the country if it didn’t agree a ceasefire in Ukraine. Instead, his comments appear to have prompted a collective public shrug.
Calling Trump’s statements “very serious,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that Russia needs “time to analyze” them.
But investors in the Russian capital who had been gearing up for tougher measures instead embraced a 50-day grace period on tariffs set by Trump on Monday and the Moscow Stock Exchange was up by 2.7% after it opened Tuesday morning.
Oil prices also fell by more than $1 after the announcement, hinting that investors don’t think Trump will follow through on his threat to impose the tariffs.
Trump “did not announce any immediate anti-Russian measures or the confiscation of illegally blocked Russian assets,” Leonid Slutsky, a prominent nationalist politician, said on Telegram Tuesday, adding that the president was trying to balance Western support for Kyiv while avoiding a confrontation with the Kremlin.
His comments came as a bipartisan bill co-sponsored by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) made its way through Congress. If passed, it would seek to impose 500% tariffs on countries that buy Russian oil and gas.
Praising Trump’s announcement, Graham and his bill’s co-sponsor, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn) said in a statement that “the ultimate hammer to bring about the end of this war will be tariffs against countries, like China, India and Brazil, that prop up Putin’s war machine by purchasing cheap Russian oil and gas.”
However, Konstantin Kosachev, the Deputy Chairman of the Russian Federation Council, the upper house of the country’s parliament, said Graham’s bill made “no sense.” In 50 days, “how much can change both on the battlefield and in the mood of those in power both in the U.S. and in NATO?” he added.
The aftermath of a Russian airstrike on Kyiv, Ukraine on July 4.Kostiantyn Liberov / Libkos via Getty Images
And former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, a hardliner who frequently issues over-the-top threats, called Trump’s threat a “theatrical ultimatum” in a post on X.
“We’re going to be doing very severe tariffs if we don’t have a deal in 50 days, tariffs at about 100%,” Trump said, without providing further details.
After the announcement, a White House official said Trump’s threat of 100% tariffs was referring to Russian goods, as well as secondary sanctions on other countries that buy its exports.
The president’s comments signal a marked shift in tone over his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, for whom he has long shown admiration. “I’ve known him for a long time. We’ve always gotten along well,” Trump said back in March.
President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki in 2018.Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images
Many Western countries have have cut most of their own financial ties to Moscow during since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of its smaller neighbor, triggering the first major land war in Europe since World War II.
Still, buyers of Russia’s crude oil like China and India have continued financing Moscow’s war chest with hundreds of billions of dollars through business with the world’s third-largest oil producer.
“It’s about tariffs on countries like India and China that are buying their oil,” Matt Whitaker, the U.S. ambassador to NATO told reporters Monday after Trump’s announcement. “And it really is going to, I think, dramatically impact the Russian economy.”
Trump’s threats of secondary tariffs are “never going to go anywhere” as long as he is unwilling to impose costs on Moscow directly, Keir Giles, a senior fellow at the London-based Chatham House think tank, told NBC News Monday.
The tariffs also risk upending delicate China-U.S. trade talks, according to Liu Baocheng at Beijing’s University of International Business and Economics.
The “unilateral imposition of punitive trade measures…risks creating new and unnecessary complications,” Baocheng said, adding that the 100% secondary tariffs intended to pressure Moscow could instead “severely backfire by undermining global economic stability and fragmenting international cooperation.”
Most concerning, Baocheng added, was that the threat comes at a delicate juncture in U.S.-China trade relations, where secondary tariffs on Chinese companies or sectors that import Russian goods “would seriously damage the fragile momentum of dialogue.”
Trump’s tariff agenda has also raised the stakes for India, which has been negotiating a trade deal with Washington to see tariffs on goods from India drop below 20%.
India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar told reporters Tuesday that his country had “been in touch” with Graham over its concerns and interests on energy and security.
Elsewhere, Europe’s chief negotiator Maroš Šefčovič told reporters in Brussels on Monday that a 30% tariff on European goods would have a “huge impact on trade.”
“It will be almost impossible to continue trading as we are used to in a transatlantic relationship,” Šefčovič said.
STARKE, Fla. — A man who fatally shot a man and woman outside a Florida bar as part of an attempted revenge killing is scheduled to be executed on Tuesday.
Michael Bernard Bell, 54, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke, barring a last-day reprieve. He was convicted in 1995 and sentenced to death for the murders of Jimmy West and Tamecka Smith.
Michael Bernard Bell.Florida Department of Corrections / AP
Bell would be the eighth person put to death in Florida this year, with a ninth scheduled for later this month. The state executed six people in 2023, but carried out only one execution last year.
Twenty-five men have already been executed in the U.S. this year, tying last year’s total.
Florida has executed more people than any other state this year, while Texas and South Carolina are tied for second place with four each. Alabama has executed three people, Oklahoma has killed two, and Arizona, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee each have killed one.
In December 1993, Bell spotted what he thought was the car of the man who fatally shot his brother earlier that year, according to court records. Bell was apparently unaware that the man had sold the car to West.
Bell called on two friends and armed himself with an AK-47 rifle, authorities said. They found the car parked outside a liquor lounge and waited. When West, Smith and another woman eventually exited the club, Bell approached the car and opened fire, officials said.
West died at the scene, and Smith died on the way to the hospital. The other woman escaped injury. Witnesses said Bell also fired at a crowd of onlookers before fleeing the area. He was eventually arrested the next year.
Bell was later convicted of three additional murders. He fatally shot a woman and her toddler son in 1989, and he killed his mother’s boyfriend about four months before the attack on West and Smith, officials said.
Attorneys for Bell have filed appeals with the Florida Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.
The lawyers argued in their state filing that Bell’s execution should be halted because of newly discovered evidence about witness testimony. But justices unanimously rejected the argument last week and pointed to overwhelming evidence of Bell’s guilt in a 54-page opinion.
Bell’s attorneys filed a similar petition with the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday, but the panel has not yet issued a ruling.
