Inflation barely budged in April as tariffs President Donald Trump implemented in the early part of the month had yet to show up in consumer prices, the Commerce Department reported Friday.
The personal consumption expenditures price index, the Federal Reserve’s key inflation measure, increased just 0.1% for the month, putting the annual inflation rate at 2.1%, the lowest of 205. The monthly reading was in line with the Dow Jones consensus forecast while the annual level was 0.1 percentage point lower.
Excluding food and energy, the core reading that tends to get even greater focus from Fed policymakers showed readings of 0.1% and 2.5%, against respective estimates of 0.1% and 2.6%. Central bank officials believe core is a better indicator of longer-term trends.
Consumer spending, though, slowed sharply for the month, posting just a 0.2% increase, in line with the consensus but slower than the 0.7% rate in March. A more cautious consumer mood also was reflected in the personal savings rate, which jumped to 4.9%, up from 0.6 percentage point in March to the highest level in nearly a year.
Personal income surged 0.8%, a slight increase from the prior month but well ahead of the forecast for 0.3%.
Food prices fell 0.3% on the month while energy goods and services increased 0.5%. Shelter costs, which has been one of the most stubborn inflation components, increased 0.4%.
Markets showed little reaction to the news, with stock futures continuing to point lower and Treasury yields mixed.
Trump has been pushing the Fed to lower its key interest rate as inflation has continued to gravitate back to the central bank’s 2% target. However, policymakers have been hesitant to move as they await the longer-term impacts of the president’s trade policy.
“Much bigger increases in core goods inflation probably loom as the costs of the new tariffs are eventually passed on,” wrote Oliver Allen, senior economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics “Accordingly, we still think core PCE inflation will peak later this year between 3.0% and 3.5%, if the current mix of tariffs remains in place.”
On Thursday, Trump and Fed Chair Jerome Powell held their first face-to-face meeting since the president started his second term. However, a Fed statement indicated the future path of monetary policy was not discussed and stressed that decisions would be made free of political considerations.
Trump slapped across-the-board 10% duties on all U.S. imports, part of an effort to even out a trading landscape in which the U.S. ran a record $140.5 billion deficit in March. In addition to the general tariffs, Trump launched selective reciprocal tariffs much higher than the 10% general charge.
Since then, though, Trump has backed off the more severe tariffs in favor of a 90-day negotiating period with the affected countries. Earlier this week, an international court struck down the tariffs, saying Trump exceeded his authority and didn’t prove that national security was threatened by the trade issues.
Then in the latest installment of the drama, an appeals court allowed a White House effort for a temporary stay of the order from the U.S. Court of International Trade.
Economists worry that tariffs could spark another round of inflation, though the historical record shows that their impact is often minimal.
At their policy meeting earlier this month, Fed officials also expressed worry about potential tariff inflation, particularly at a time when concerns are rising about the labor market. Higher prices and slower economic growth can yield stagflation, a phenomenon the U.S. hasn’t seen since the early 1980s.
People shop at a grocery store in Brooklyn on May 13, 2025 in New York City.Spencer Platt | Getty Images
The San Diego County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled the death of Silvanna Moreno an accident, according to an updated summary report. The girl died after she underwent anesthesia.
The medical examiner listed her cause of death as “methemoglobinemia in the setting of recent nitrous oxide administration.” Contributing conditions included the administration of multiple anesthetic medications.
Dreamtime Dentistry in Vista, Calif. via Google
Methemoglobinemia is a very rare blood disorder that affects how red blood cells deliver oxygen, according to the Cleveland Clinic. Not everyone experiences symptoms, but nearly all people with the disorder have skin, lips or nails that are blue or purple. In some cases, it can be life-threatening.
People can inherit the disorder, but it usually happens “when people use certain medications or recreational drugs or exposure to certain chemicals,” according to the Cleveland Clinic.
The dental procedure took place on March 18 at Dreamtime Dentistry in Vista.
Dr. Ryan Watkins, the office’s trained anesthesiologist, said methemoglobinemia can occur with the administration of nitrous oxide. He said Silvanna never exhibited signs that something was wrong during the procedure.
“If we had observed any indication of methemoglobinemia, we would have immediately discontinued the procedure and transported her to the hospital for emergency treatment,” he said in a statement.
The day before the procedure, Silvanna had a fever and was given children’s Tylenol, People magazine reported, citing an autopsy report. The day of, she complained of a headache but did not appear to be distressed, it said. The dental procedure was three hours long.
Watkins said Silvanna was “a healthy nine-year-old with a history of regular medical checkups” and underwent the office’s standard preoperative evaluation. He said he evaluated her as “an appropriate candidate for outpatient general anesthesia” and continuously monitored Silvanna throughout the procedure.
Afterward, she was monitored in a recovery area “until she was awake with stable vital signs,” he said. She was evaluated before she was released into her mother’s care, he said.
Silvanna’s family could not be reached for comment on Friday.
According to the medical examiner’s summary report, Silvanna fell asleep during the car ride home and stayed sleeping upon her arrival. Family members put her in bed and checked on her throughout the day.
Her family later found her unresponsive and called 911, according to the summary report. She was rushed to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
Watkins said the office is conducting an internal review of the case and will consult with experts “to ensure we continue to provide the safest possible care for our patients.”
“We are profoundly saddened by the tragic loss of Silvanna Moreno, and our hearts continue to go out to her family during this incredibly difficult time,” he said.
Watkins was previously investigated by the Dental Board of California after a 54-year-old patient nearly died in 2016, according to NBC San Diego. State investigators said the man was put under anesthesia and was given two drugs, which led to his heart stopping. Investigators had said that one of the drugs should never have been given to the man.
Watkins was put on probation from 2020 to 2023, according to a decision order. The man ended up filing a lawsuit against Watkins, which was later settled, NBC San Diego reported.
There won’t be any simulated roundhouse kicks from Jackie Chan in the new “Karate Kid” movie.
The legendary actor returns to the big screen as he reprises his role as the wise instructor, Mr. Han, in “Karate Kid: Legends,” in theaters Friday. And it draws on Chan’s legacy.
This meant choreographed fight scenes and, most importantly, a lack of CGI.
Chan, 71, emphasized the importance of authentic action sequences in martial arts movies.
“People definitely don’t like to see Jackie Chan with CGI, of course,” Chan told NBC News.
The movie features kung fu prodigy Li Fong entering the ultimate karate competition, guided by Mr. Han and the legendary Karate Kid, Daniel LaRusso. Mr. Han is a counterpart to the beloved Mr. Miyagi from the original 1984 movie.
“Karate Kid: Legends” director Jonathan Entwistle said he had a clear vision for the project and wanted it to feel like an early Jackie Chan movie.
Chan first played Mr. Han, a maintenance worker and kung fu master, in the 2010 remake of the original film.
The veteran actor said he’s happy to be in on the action regarding his stunts and admitted that it has been “easy” for him to adapt as he gets older because it’s all “muscle memory” for him.
Chan also said “Karate Kid: Legends” is somewhat of a full circle moment for Asian culture Mr. Han will be mentoring the first Asian American karate kid, portrayed by “American Born Chinese” star Ben Wang.
From left, Ben Wang, Jackie Chan and Ralph Macchio in “Karate Kid: Legends.” Jonathan Wenk / Sony Pictures Entertainment
Chan expressed how proud and impressed he was by the young actor as he added a new dimension to the franchise.
“Before I met him, I was wondering, ‘What did he do right to get this part?’ There were so many audition tapes!” Chan said. “But when I actually saw him, I knew. His dedication and humbleness and just how much he put into work on this movie, I was definitely impressed.”
Pat Morita, who played the iconic Mr. Miyagi in the original “Karate Kid” movie in 1984, was the only Asian American cast member at the time. The lack of representation and some of the plot points have drawn criticism from fans and community over the years.
Despite an imperfect record on representation, Chan said he thinks the movies have helped make strides for cultural awareness.
The original “Karate Kid” movie became a cultural phenomenon in the 1980s, known for its underdog story and eventually helping popularize martial arts across the United States.
“It gave people a [new] way of looking at Asian culture, not just kung fu or karate, which are typical practices in Asian countries but that’s just [scratching the] surface,” Chan said. “What’s more important is for the audience to know more about Asian culture, or at least part of it.”
Ben Wang in “Karate Kid: Legends.”Jonathan Wenk / Sony Pictures
Chan’s career spans six decades, including memorable roles in “Rush Hour,” “Shanghai Noon” and “Police Story.” The actor became a household name in the United States in the 1990s and 2000s after he brought kung fu and death-defying stunts to the masses.
However, his journey to stardom wasn’t always smooth, as his 1980 Hollywood debut, “The Big Brawl,” didn’t quite hit.
“To be honest, I was frustrated when I was making ‘The Big Brawl,’ since it wasn’t very much of a success. That’s why I went back to Hong Kong then and continued making my own movies,” Chan said. “But it’s the first time for me to get to know Hollywood filmmaking. I learned a lot and tried to take the stuff I learned back to my crew so we can work better.”
He added: “I didn’t know anything back then, I was just a kid. It was all fresh to me. Although it wasn’t very much of a success, it taught me some lessons which I later on put into my own filmmaking.”
Chan believes that the upcoming movie captures the true essence of what made the original so popular.
“[This movie has] a lot of good and real action in it and you get to feel it only on the big screen. This is also a movie about love, affection, friends and family,” Chan said.
Much of the South and Eastern parts of the country are bracing for severe storms, while the West is expected to see dangerously high temperatures.
Heavy rain will sweep through Kentucky up to southern New York, the National Weather Service said in a post Friday on X. The wet weather is expected to bring flash flooding.
In a Friday morning post on X, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said officials were responding to reports of a possible tornado in Washington County. He said “this level of severe weather” was not expected.
Eastern and southeastern parts of the state are expected to see severe weather throughout the day.
“Please be alert this morning and stay safe,” the governor said.
In Henry County, Georgia, forecasters warned Friday of damaging wind gusts, hail and possible tornadoes.
On Thursday afternoon, a tornado ripped through the Laurel Creek subdivision in Henry County, NBC affiliate WXIA of Atlanta reported. At least 13 structures were damaged, and the 18-year-old son of “The Wire” actor Tray Chaney was severely injured.
Chaney said his son was thrown “300 feet out of his room” by the tornado.
“I was sitting on my bed and I heard the wind, I felt everything,” he said in an Instagram video, panning the camera to show the remains of his flattened house.
Chaney said he had just left the hospital and was going back to see his son in the intensive care unit.
“Thank God I’m still living. I survived the tornado,” he said, crying. “I’m doing a video to let you know, cherish life, cherish life as much as you can. … I wish I could replace the pain with my son, I wish he was the one doing the video and I was the one still in ICU.”
Meanwhile, dangerously hot temperatures are expected in California and southern Nevada, the NWS said.
“Significant warming today with an elevated risk for heat illness. Cooler but more humid over the weekend as tropical moisture moves over the region, also bringing a chance for showers or thunderstorms,” the NWS stated in its forecast discussion Friday morning.
Near-normal temperatures are expected Monday and Tuesday, according to the NWS.
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PARIS — If more tennis players find themselves breathing easier, it might just be thanks to Carlos Alcaraz.
The four-time Grand Slam champion, whose bid for a second consecutive French Open title was scheduled to continue with a third-round match Friday night, has often worn a nasal strip in matches since last season — although not during his first two contests at Roland-Garros this week — and the sport’s other athletes took note.
After all, if Alcaraz finds something useful on the court, their thinking goes, maybe it makes sense to give the adhesive bands a shot.
“I saw Carlos playing in it,” said 18-year-old Mirra Andreeva, a semifinalist in Paris last year and the No. 6 women’s seed this time. “I’d be pretty interested to try and see if there is really a difference. If he plays matches in it, then probably there is.”
At the 2024 season-ending ATP Finals last November, Alcaraz said: “It is something that I’m going to wear more often. I could recover better between points.”
Once associated with Pro Football Hall of Famer Jerry Rice and soccer stars like Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar, the bands, which essentially look like a Band-Aid worn across the bridge of the nose, are popping up on tennis courts — sometimes out of necessity, sometimes out of curiosity.
They are designed to open the nostrils slightly, making it easier to breathe through the nose. Originally marketed to reduce snoring, they’re being embraced to enhance air intake during physical exertion.
The idea is simple: Better breathing could mean better oxygen intake.
In practice, the science is less convincing.
In 2021, Brazilian academic Ricardo Dinardi reviewed more than 600 studies on nasal strips and found they didn’t make a real difference in how much air athletes took in, their heart rate or how strenuous exercise felt.
“The effect on athletic performance is mostly placebo,” Dinardi said. “But in elite sports, even perceived benefits can count.”
Three-time major finalist Casper Ruud, who wore the strips in matches earlier this year, knows the evidence is shaky. But he still liked using them — both on the court and while sleeping. Like Alcaraz, Ruud did not wear one in Paris before his second-round exit.
But he has been testing a prototype of a different version.
“I tried out a device that’s very early in development. It will be a bit more comfortable to wear, because it’s inside the nose and it looks like I have this bullring under,” said Ruud, who was the runner-up at Roland-Garros to Rafael Nadal in 2022 and Novak Djokovic in 2023. “It will return, don’t worry.”
For other players, like Nicolás Jarry, the strips are more than a trend — they’re a necessity. After nasal surgery in 2020, the Chilean still needed help to draw air into his nose, so he puts them on for every practice and every match he plays.
“Without it, I cannot breathe. My nostrils shut when I try,” he said, inhaling to demonstrate for a reporter. “Others don’t have that issue and still use them.”
Jarry definitely has noticed a recent spike in interest among players. He said that even though he’s worn the strips for years, including at this French Open, other competitors on tour never asked about them — until Alcaraz started wearing one last year, sometimes in black, sometimes in pink.
“Others have asked me, and many are trying it,” said Jarry, who sported a beige-colored strip in Paris. “But before him? Nothing.”
There are those, like 2024 US Open runner-up Jessica Pegula, who are tempted to try.
“I have a horrible deviated septum. I can’t really breathe out of one side of my nose,” said Pegula, who will play 2023 Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova in the third round Saturday. “Maybe I should start wearing one.”
She admits, though, that the aesthetic aspect might be a deal-breaker.
“I don’t know,” Pegula said with a smile, “if I have the confidence to rock one.”
There’s been a break in 30-year-old cold case mystery at the Jersey Shore after experts confirmed skeletal remains found on three beaches belonged to a 19th-century boat captain.
The bones from a leg, arm and fragments of a cranium discovered on the beaches of Ocean City, Margate and Longport between 1995 and 2013 had yielded no answers until now.
Authorities said the remains belong to 29-year-old Captain Henry Goodsell, who died at sea 181 years ago.
“Our job was to figure out who that individual was that the bones belonged to,” Cairenn Binder of the college’s IGG Center said.
Initially, experts weren’t even sure how old the bones were.
“We kind of kept going back and forth between, are they historic? Are they not historic?” New Jersey State Police Forensic Anthropologist Dr. Anna Delaney said. “This is absolutely amazing because after all of this time, Henry has his name.”
Students at the school launched a search for genetic relatives and built out family trees that revealed ancestral ties to Connecticut. They also started looking into records of shipwrecks. It was that creative step that really helped them narrow in on the person’s identity.
“Delving into those they identified this ship, which then led to the ship captain,” Ramapo’s IGG Center Director David Gurney explained.
Goodsell was the captain of the Oriental which was a schooner that was transporting marble from Connecticut to Philadelphia for Girard College in 1844. But, on that voyage, the Oriental went down just off of the coast of Brigantine and the entire crew was killed.
Investigators were able to track down Goodsell’s great-great-granddaughter in Maryland. She provided a DNA sample that did confirm the captain’s identity.
“To our knowledge, this is the oldest case that’s ever been solved with investigative genetic genealogy,” Binder said.
As of this writing, Goodsell’s family does not want his bones so they will stay at a state repository indefinitely.
In the summer of 2021, Paris Saint-Germain had seemingly everything it needed to get the one thing it didn’t have: a reputation as one of global soccer’s big winners.
Its roster appeared built out of a video game. Kylian Mbappé, the 22-year-old World Cup champion from France, alongside Brazilian superstar Neymar and, in a breathtaking signing, Lionel Messi, the Argentine many considered the world’s best player of all time. The collection of three of the world’s best goal-scorers — and a total payroll of nearly $430 million — was made possible by the club’s equally staggering resources.
Since 2011, PSG has been owned by an arm of Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, which spent freely to establish it among the world’s most accomplished clubs. Although PSG routinely won France’s top soccer division, it had never won the Champions League, Europe’s annual and most prestigious club tournament, and only once played for the title.
Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappé and Neymar of Paris Saint-Germain before a friendly match against Riyadh XI at King Fahd International Stadium in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 2023.Aurelien Meunier / PSG via Getty Images file
By some metrics, the two-year run featuring Mbappé, Messi and Neymar was a smashing success. Star-studded PSG raked in more than $1 billion in revenue, according to the club. But by exiting the Champions League in the round of 16 in 2022 and 2023, and with Mbappé, Neymar and Messi playing together in only about a third of their potential games, PSG never came close to conquering Europe on the field.
All three stars eventually departed, replaced by younger, less expensive successors. For most clubs, that would have signaled the start of a rebuild.
Instead, just two years later, a less-heralded, less-expensive version of PSG could win the most coveted title that eluded its starrier predecessors when it plays Internazionale of Milan in the Champions League final Saturday in Munich.
A Champions League trophy would be notable not only for PSG, one of the most prominent clubs never to have won the tournament. Only one team from France has ever won it, and that was 32 years ago.
PSG enters as the favorite because under manager Luis Enrique, it operates no longer as a star system but as a team, said NBC Sports analyst Robbie Mustoe, a former English Premier League player.
“There’s a lot of evidence that having star players in a team doesn’t make a team, and PSG is such a great example with Neymar and Lionel Messi and Mbappé and everybody else they’ve had there,” Mustoe said. “It takes an all-around team, and you can’t really have passengers too much now. And what I mean by that is players that switch on when they have the ball and switch off when they don’t have the ball.
“PSG is such an amazing example of this, where they changed the manager, they obviously got rid of all the star players, they went younger, they went hungrier.”
Even with Mbappé only 22 years old in 2021, the average age on PSG’s roster that season was 27.8, two years older than on its average opponent, thanks to 34-year-old Messi’s joining 29-year-old Neymar and 33-year-old Ángel Di Maria.
This season, the team’s average age is 25, two years younger than that of its average opponent, a reflection of PSG’s decision after the 2023 season to “completely change its strategy” of roster construction, Alice Lefebvre, a reporter for Agence France-Presse who covers PSG, said by email.
“The club’s management have stopped obsessing over the Champions League, as they had done until now, and have officially stated that they are giving themselves time to build a project around the young players and youngsters coming through the Parisian training program,” Lefebvre wrote. “As the season progressed, despite some internal tensions between a few players and Luis Enrique at the start of the season, a new spirit began to permeate the team. Everyone plays for everyone, and everyone presses for the ball, just as the coach wants.”
Enrique and sporting director Luís Campos recruited younger players including French winger Désiré Doué, 20, a breakout star for whom the team paid $54 million to acquire last summer, João Neves and Willian Pacho. The oldest mainstay is 31-year-old Brazilian defender Marquinhos. The majority of the team is either in its prime, such as leading scorer Ousmane Dembélé, or entering it, like 22-year-old Bradley Barcola, whom Enrique has called “the best passer in Ligue 1; he’s one of the best dribblers in Europe.” The arrival in January of Khvicha Kvaratskhelia from Italy strengthened PSG’s ability to attack.
Weaving it all together is Enrique, who was used to high-profile, high-pressure jobs before, after having managed Barcelona to a Champions League title, then coached the Spanish national team. When PSG hired him in 2023 after Messi had left and Neymar was in the process of exiting, Enrique arrived with a specific project, Lefebvre wrote, of getting young players who would defend and attack in unison. In Champions League competition, PSG owns the fourth-highest passing accuracy and the third-highest possession percentage.
“As long as Luis Enrique is here, the strategy will remain one of youth rather than stars,” Lefebvre wrote.
Enrique was also tasked with overhauling a change in attitude. The team would be built no longer on the potential brilliance of three players, but on the doggedness of all 11.
“A Paris Saint-Germain player has to get used to starting, coming off the bench or even not being called up,” Enrique told reporters amid the team’s Champions League run. “We make sure that every player who comes on is at 100% and gives his all.”
Perhaps the coach’s best work has been coaxing a career-best season out of Dembélé, whose potential had always been evident. Barcelona signed Dembélé in 2017 with ambitions of his becoming the successor to its outgoing star Neymar. Instead, during six inconsistent seasons combined, he scored 24 goals and assisted on 34 more.
Ousmane Dembélé had 21 goals during the domestic season for PSG. Visionhaus / Getty Images
When PSG needed its own Neymar replacement in 2023, it placed its hopes on Dembélé, too. This season, his second for PSG, Dembélé scored 21 goals during the domestic season and eight more in 14 Champions League matches, and he added 10 assists between the two.
Enrique’s coaching has mimicked Dembélé’s role earlier in his career at clubs in France and Germany, allowing for “more freedom to go everywhere on the pitch,” Dembélé said this week.
“I have my bearings,” he said “I just try to create space and to cause a bit of chaos in midfield. This has been paying off so far.”
Relative to its past, PSG reined in its payroll this season to $220 million, a number that is nonetheless still larger than that of the three next-high-spending teams in France’s top division combined and that would also rank second-highest in England’s Premier League, the world’s richest domestic soccer league.
What is different is that now PSG could have a trophy to show for all that spending. While past PSG teams weren’t prepared to “suffer,” said Mustoe — a buzzword in global soccer with the loose definition of a team’s ability to endure its struggles — this year, “they have a team that suffers with immense ability,” he said.
PSG proved it during the knockout stage of the Champions League, when advancing relies on the aggregate score of a two-game series. PSG lost in the round of 16 to Liverpool at home, then held firm to win on the road on penalties and advance. After it beat Aston Villa in the quarterfinals, it won again on the road to open its semifinal against Arsenal, then advanced to only the club’s second Champions League final with a home win on May 7.
“If we were to analyze everything that has happened in the UEFA Champions League this season, I think it would make a great thriller or horror film or even a very good series, because it has had a bit of everything,” Enrique, who managed Barcelona to a Champions League title a decade ago, said this week.
“I think we should be proud of what we’ve achieved. However, we have to finish the job because what we’re really aiming for is to make history.”
PINGTUNG COUNTY, Taiwan — Below a windy lookout, three U.S.-made mobile rocket launchers lurched forward at a military base in Taiwan, preparing for their first live-fire test on the Beijing-claimed island.
“3, 2, 1… launch,” a Taiwan military officer counted down over a loudspeaker. A total of 33 rockets were then fired toward the Pacific Ocean, in the opposite direction from the Chinese mainland. Making a thunderous sound, each erupted in bursts of flame and trailed white smoke that arced high into the air.
The historic test of the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, took place this month at an undisclosed location in Pingtung County, on the southern tip of Taiwan, as Taipei scrambles to overhaul its military and get President Donald Trump’s backing amid growing military threats from China.
The rocket system could be crucial if Taiwan ever came under attack from Beijing, which has not ruled out the use of force in annexing the self-governing democracy.
Manufactured by U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin, HIMARS mobile launchers are equipped with guided rockets that have a range of about 185 miles — far enough to reach coastal targets in the southern Chinese province of Fujian on the other side of the Taiwan Strait.
It is the same rocket system that Ukrainian forces have been using to target Russian positions — though unlike Ukraine, Taiwan paid the United States more than $1 billion for the weaponry.
The island has received 11 of the 29 HIMARS launchers it has purchased, with the rest expected to arrive ahead of schedule next year.
Though the U.S. has no formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, which rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims, it is the island’s biggest weapons supplier. Billions of dollars in arms deals with the U.S. have helped Taiwan build up asymmetric tools such as drones, missiles and upgraded fighter jets.
As China ramps up military and other pressure, Taiwan has also extended compulsory military service to one year from four months, doubled mandatory annual refresher training for reservists to two weeks, and pledged to increase its defense budget to more than 3% of GDP.
Taiwanese soldiers during an exercise at a military base in Kaohsiung on May 16.Daniel Ceng / Anadolu via Getty Images
While the U.S. remains a “very important” strategic partner, Taipei “fully recognizes” the need to strengthen its own defense capabilities, said Sun Li-fang, a spokesperson for Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense.
“Ensuring Taiwan’s security is our responsibility and our top priority,” he said. “We take this matter very seriously.”
But it is difficult for Taiwan to build a modern fighting force, Sun said, in the face of “inherently disproportionate” threats from China, whose 2.8-million-strong military is more than 18 times larger than Taiwan’s number of active-duty personnel.
In the year since Taiwan President Lai Ching-te took office, China has held several rounds of large-scale military exercises that Adm. Samuel J. Paparo, the head of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, warned this month are not drills but “rehearsals.”
The Chinese military also sends warplanes and ships toward Taiwan on near-daily sorties and in recent days held an amphibious landing drill in the Taiwan Strait.
To deal with such “tangible and real” threats, it is “crucial” that the U.S. and Taiwan continue their military cooperation, Sun said.
In addition to HIMARS, the U.S. and Taiwan have advanced their cooperation with an intelligence sharing deal that Sun called a “game-changer.”
“We typically don’t go into detail because intelligence and information sharing are sensitive,” Sun said in his government’s first public comments on the subject.
“That said, this kind of intelligence exchange is extremely helpful for us in understanding threats from the enemy and making appropriate defensive deployments.”
In congressional testimony this month, a retired U.S. Navy admiral also publicly acknowledged for the first time that there are about 500 U.S. military personnel stationed in Taiwan, more than 10 times the number previously disclosed.
Taiwan President Lai Ching-te visiting a military base in Kaohsiung on May 16.Daniel Ceng / Anadolu via Getty Images
Even as it works with the U.S., Taiwan is unsure about the extent of the security commitment from Washington, which has long maintained a policy of “strategic ambiguity” when it comes to whether U.S. forces would defend the island against a Chinese attack.
Further muddling the picture are comments Trump has made about Taiwan, the global leader in advanced semiconductor manufacturing, “stealing” chip business from the U.S. and not paying enough for its own defense.
Officials in Taipei have also been rattled by the collapse of U.S. support for Ukraine as well as the threat of steep tariffs on Taiwan’s exports, which Trump has set at 32% in addition to a 10% baseline.
“You have different voices emerging from the United States, so that creates more uncertainties for Taiwanese,” said Andrew Yang, Taiwan’s former minister of national defense. “Which voices or narratives should we listen to?”
Reservist Jason Chu, 30, said that among those around him, there was a “growing” sense of responsibility to defend Taiwan.
“The biggest difference lies in our mindset,” said Chu, an engineer. He said that while many people in Taiwan most likely think of their training as a duty at first, often they later begin to think of it as protecting their country.
People in Taiwan have watched with concern as war drags on Ukraine, another democracy targeted by a larger, autocratic neighbor — and some have even gone to join the fight against Russia.
Tony Lu went to Ukraine in 2022 first as a volunteer, then as a fighter. He said he thinks people in Taiwan need to be ready.
“No one wants war — I don’t want it either,” he said. “But we don’t have a choice.”
The FBI’s top two leaders said in interviews on Fox News that the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide, and they promised to release a surveillance video from the federal jail in New York City where Epstein was found dead.
Officials in the first Trump administration ruled that Epstein’s death in 2019 was a suicide. But it has remained the subject of conspiracy theories suggesting he was murdered because of his connections to high-profile celebrities and politicians.
Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino, a former pro-Trump podcaster, said Thursday morning on Fox News that the video showed that no one entered or approached Epstein’s cell at the time of his suicide. Bongino also said no forensic evidence had been found suggesting that another person was present.
“There’s no DNA, there’s no audio, there’s no fingerprints, there’s no suspects, there’s no accomplices, there’s no tips, there is nothing,” said Bongino, who asked members of the public to share any evidence of wrongdoing in the case. “If you have it, I’m happy to see it.”
“There’s video clear as day,” he added. “He’s the only person in there and the only person coming out. You can see it.”
In a separate interview Wednesday night on Fox News, FBI Director Kash Patel also said Epstein had died by suicide, and he promised to release additional information about the case.
“We are diligently working on that,” Patel said. “It takes time to go through years of investigations.”
In a Jan. 4, 2024, podcast, Bongino played a clip in which a journalist said she was “100%” convinced that Epstein was killed “because he made his whole living blackmailing people.” Bongino told his listeners that he’d heard the same claims from another reporter and that they were “super important.”
“This is where I get really upset at the media,” Bongino said later in the podcast, contending that reporters had “done almost like no — maybe because I was an investigator before, it’s like, I’m amazed at how few people are putting two and two together.”
Roughly two weeks before Trump named Bongino FBI deputy director, Bongino spoke again about Epstein. He said again that a reporter had told him about the existence of tapes that Epstein used to blackmail powerful people and then mentioned an allegation he’d heard involving Bill Clinton.
“I’m not ever gonna let this story go,” Bongino promised on Feb. 10. “I’m not letting it go ever.”
FBI Director Kash Patel at a Senate committee hearing on May 8.Andrew Harnik / Getty Images file
For years before they took office, Patel and Bongino also claimed that the Biden administration and corrupt “deep state” actors had “weaponized” the FBI against Donald Trump.
They accused the bureau of covering up what it knew about pipe bombs placed outside the offices of the Republican and Democratic national committees in Washington before the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S Capitol. They suggested that FBI operatives helped ignite the Capitol riot. And they said FBI agents committed crimes and tried to “overthrow” Trump.
But large numbers of Trump supporters who believe those claims are publicly asking: Why aren’t Patel and Bongino arresting and prosecuting the people Patel labeled “government gangsters”?
An FBI spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In his interview on “Fox & Friends,” Bongino also said the job was taking a toll on his family. “The biggest lifestyle change is family-wise,” he said.
“It was a lot, and it’s been tough on the family. People ask all the time, do you like it? No. I don’t,” Bongino said. “But the president didn’t ask me to do this to like it — nobody likes going into an organization like that and having to make big changes.”
Last weekend, Bongino announced on X that the FBI is re-examining multiple cases from the Biden era, including the 2021 pipe bombs at the DNC and the RNC, the 2022 leak of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade and a small bag of cocaine that was found in the White House in 2023.
On Thursday, Bongino said the FBI is close to solving one of the three cases, without saying which one.
“We got a fascinating tip on one of these cases, one of the three,” he said. “We’re going to run it out. We’re not going to be able to make that public, obviously, right away, because we have to make sure.”
Host Dan Bongino on “Fox & Friends” on June 18, 2019.Roy Rochlin / Getty Images file
Focus on pipe bomb case
Three weeks before the Trump administration took office, the FBI released what it said was new video of the masked person planting bombs outside the Republican and Democratic headquarters in Washington. But FBI officials said they hadn’t identified a suspect or even determined for certain whether the figure was a man or a woman.
Before he was named deputy FBI director, Bongino accused the FBI of lying about that person on one of his podcasts. “I believe the FBI knows the identity of this pipe bomber on Jan. 6th, four years ago, and just doesn’t want to tell us because it was an inside job,” he said.
In an interview with conspiracy theorist and political commentator Julie Kelly, Bongino said, “I’m convinced the person who planted that pipe bomb at the DNC on Jan. 6th was there to create a fake assassination attempt because they needed to stop Republicans from questioning in front of a national TV audience what happened in the 2020 election.”
Patel also said in his Fox News interview Wednesday that the FBI has new leads in the pipe bomb case. He accused the Biden administration of having “slow-rolled” the investigation but offered no specific examples.
Bongino defended reopening the investigation into who left a small bag of cocaine in the White House during the Biden administration. Bongino, a former Secret Service agent, argued that the probe was relaunched for safety reasons, not to score political points.
“I was a Secret Service agent. A potentially hazardous material made its way into the White House,” he said on Fox News. “Nobody seems to know how it got there, and nobody seemed to get to investigate it fully. … What planet do we live on where that’s not of public interest?”
If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988, or go to 988lifeline.org, to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. You can also call the network, previously known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, at 800-273-8255, or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources.
