President Donald Trump says Wednesday will be “Liberation Day” — when he plans to roll out a set of tariffs he promises will free the United States from foreign goods.
The details of Trump’s next round of import taxes are still sketchy. Most economic analyses say average U.S. families would have to absorb the cost of his tariffs in the form of higher prices and lower incomes. But an undeterred Trump is inviting CEOs to the White House to say they’re investing hundreds of billions of dollars in new projects to avoid the import taxes.
Here’s the latest:
A DOGE employee is put in charge of the US Institute of Peace, a federal court filing alleges
The U.S. Institute of Peace is a congressionally created and funded think tank targeted by President Trump for closure.
Two board members of the institute have authorized replacing its temporary president with Nate Cavanaugh, the filing says. They ordered him, it says, to transfer the institute’s property to the General Services Administration, the federal government’s real estate manager, which is terminating hundreds of leases at the behest of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
The court filing asks U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in Washington to stop the action or schedule a status conference to address the issues as soon as “practicable.”
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The action follows a Friday night mass firing of nearly all of the institute’s 300 employees.
▶ Read more about DOGE and the U.S. Institute of Peace
Wisconsin Supreme Court candidates make final push amid high spending and voting
President Trump’s preferred candidate for Wisconsin Supreme Court and his Democratic-backed challenger made a final blitz across the state Monday, the day before voting concludes in a race where early turnout has surged and spending is nearing $100 million.
Billionaire Elon Musk, a top Trump adviser, held a rally in Green Bay on Sunday night to push for the election of Brad Schimel, a Waukesha County judge and former Republican attorney general. He faces Susan Crawford, a Dane County judge and former attorney who fought for abortion rights and to protect union power.
Liberals currently hold a 4-3 advantage on the court, but the retirement of a liberal justice this year put the ideological balance in play. The court in battleground Wisconsin is expected to rule on abortion rights, congressional redistricting, union power and voting regulations in the coming years.
▶ Read more about the Wisconsin Supreme Court race
Comic Amber Ruffin cut from White House correspondents’ event after angering Trump team
The White House Correspondents Association canceled her from performing at its annual dinner because it wants to refocus the event on journalistic excellence.
The association’s announcement over the weekend made no mention of Ruffin’s appearance on a podcast by the Daily Beast last week in which she referred to the Trump administration as “kind of a bunch of murderers.”
Ruffin, a writer for NBC’s Seth Meyers and formerly a host of a Peacock talk show, also said she wouldn’t try to make sure her jokes would target politicians of different stripes, as she was told by the correspondents’ association.
Her comments drew angry responses from the Trump administration. The president isn’t expected to attend the April event, which in past years has featured comics such as Stephen Colbert and Colin Jost. The last time a comedian did not perform at the dinner was in 2019, when historian Ron Chernow spoke.
▶ Read more about Amber Ruffin and the White House correspondents’ dinner
From a lavish prison, Tren de Aragua ran a transnational gang. Now, it’s a favorite Trump target
Tocorón once had it all. A nightclub, swimming pools, tigers, a lavish suite and plenty of food. This wasn’t a Las Vegas-style resort, but it felt like it for some of the thousands who until recently lived in luxury in this sprawling prison in northern Venezuela.
Here, between parties, concerts and weeks-long visits from wives and children, is the birthplace of the Tren de Aragua, a dangerous gang that has gained global notoriety after Trump put it at the center of his anti-immigrant narrative.
But kidnappings, extorsion and other crimes were planned, ordered or committed from this prison long before Trump’s rhetoric.
The tiny, impoverished town where the Aragua Penitentiary Center is used to bustle with residents selling food, renting phone chargers and storing bags for prison visitors. Now, the prison is back under government control, and streets in the town, also called Tocorón, are mostly deserted.
▶ Read more about the Tren de Aragua gang
Justice Department instructed to dismiss legal challenge to Georgia election law
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi on Monday instructed the Justice Department to dismiss the lawsuit. Georgia Republican lawmakers passed the sweeping election overhaul in the wake of Trump’s 2020 election loss in the state.
The lawsuit, filed in June 2021 under former President Joe Biden, alleged the Georgia law was intended to deny Black voters equal access to the ballot. Bondi said the Biden administration was pushing “false claims of suppression.”
“Georgians deserve secure elections, not fabricated claims of false voter suppression meant to divide us,” she said.
The law was part of a trend of Republican-backed measures that tightened rules around voting, passed in the months after Trump lost his reelection bid to Biden, claiming without evidence that voter fraud cost him victory.
▶ Read more about Georgia’s election law
More than 1,900 US scientists sign open letter warning how Trump administration is damaging research
The letter — released Monday — was penned by a group from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, which was created in 1863 to provide expert guidance to the government.
Up to 19 Nobel laureates signed Monday’s letter, which described how the administration is slashing funding for scientific agencies, terminating grants to scientists, defunding their laboratories and hampering international scientific collaboration. Those moves will increasingly put the United States at a disadvantage against other countries, the letter predicted.
The signees said they’re speaking up for colleagues who “have kept silent to avoid antagonizing the administration and jeopardizing their funding.”
Under the Trump administration, this year’s Transgender Day of Visibility has a different tenor
On the campaign trail, Trump used contentiousness around transgender people’s access to sports and bathrooms to fire up conservative voters and sway undecideds. And in his first months back in office, Trump has pushed the issue further, erasing mention of transgender people on government websites and passports and trying to remove them from the military.
For transgender people and their allies — along with several judges who’ve ruled against Trump in response to legal challenges — it’s a matter of civil rights for a small group. But many Americans believe those rights had grown too expansive.
Trump’s spotlight is giving Monday’s Transgender Day of Visibility a different tenor this year.
“What he wants is to scare us into being invisible again,” said Rachel Crandall Crocker, the executive director of Transgender Michigan who organized the first Day of Visibility 16 years ago. “We have to show him we won’t go back.”
▶ Read more about Transgender Day of Visibility
Stock markets around the world tumble as Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ approaches
On Wall Street, the S&P 500 was down 1.3% following one of its worst losses of the past couple of years Friday. It’s on track to finish the first three months of the year with a loss of 6.4%, which would make this its worst quarter in nearly three years.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 295 points, or 0.7%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 2.3% lower.
The U.S. stock market’s drops followed a sell-off that spanned the world earlier Monday as worries build that tariffs coming Wednesday from Trump will worsen inflation and grind down growth for economies. Trump has said he’s plowing ahead in part because he wants more manufacturing jobs back in the United States.
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 index dropped 4%. South Korea’s Kospi sank 3%, and France’s CAC 40 fell 1.5%.
▶ Read more about the financial markets
Trump tariff tumult has ripples for sporting goods, puts costly hockey gear in price-hike crosshair
Calls from the U.S. to Roustan Hockey headquarters in Canada in recent weeks have been anything but routine, as bulk orders of name-brand sticks have suddenly become complicated conversations.
“These customers want to know: When their orders ship, will they have to pay an additional 25% tariff? And we respond by saying, ’Well, right now we don’t know, so they postpone their order or cancel their order because they want to know before they order what the cost is going to be,” said Graeme Roustan, who owns the company that makes and sells more than 100,000 hockey sticks annually to the U.S. market.
The prospect of 25% tariffs by Trump on Canadian imports, currently paused for some goods but facing full implementation Wednesday, has caused headaches if not havoc throughout the commercial ecosystem. The sports equipment industry is certainly no exception, with so many of the products manufactured for sports -loving Americans outside the U.S.
▶ Read more about the effects of possible tariffs on the price of sporting goods
US immigration officials look to expand social media data collection
U.S. immigration officials are asking the public and federal agencies to comment on a proposal to collect social media handles from people applying for benefits such as green cards or citizenship, to comply with an executive order from Trump.
The March 5 notice raised alarms from immigration and free speech advocates because it appears to expand the government’s reach in social media surveillance to people already vetted and in the U.S. legally, such as asylum seekers, green card and citizenship applicants – and not just those applying to enter the country. That said, social media monitoring by immigration officials has been a practice for over a decade, since at least the second Obama administration and ramping up under Trump’s first term.
▶ Read more about what the new proposal means and how it might expand social media surveillance
Elon Musk hands out $1 million payments after Wisconsin Supreme Court declines request to stop him
Elon Musk gave out $1 million checks on Sunday to two Wisconsin voters, declaring them spokespeople for his political group, ahead of a Wisconsin Supreme Court election that the tech billionaire cast as critical to President Donald Trump’s agenda and “the future of civilization.”
Musk and groups he supports have spent more than $20 million to help conservative favorite Brad Schimel in Tuesday’s race, which will determine the ideological makeup of a court likely to decide key issues in a perennial battleground state.
A unanimous state Supreme Court on Sunday refused to hear a last-minute attempt by the state’s Democratic attorney general to stop Musk from handing over the checks to two voters, a ruling that came just minutes before the planned start of the rally.
Two lower courts had already rejected the legal challenge by Democrat Josh Kaul, who argues that Musk’s offer violates a state law.
▶ Read more about Musk in Wisconsin
Democratic election officials raise concerns about proof of citizenship proposal
The group of Democrats, most of whom serve as their state’s top election official, is telling Congress the legislative proposal to add a proof of citizenship requirement when registering to vote could disenfranchise voters and upend election administration.
On Monday, the House Rules Committee is expected to consider the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, known as the SAVE Act, which would require proof of citizenship to register to vote. The letter signed by 15 secretaries of state was sent Friday.
Voting by noncitizens is rare, but Republicans say any instances undermine public confidence. Last week, President Trump directed, among other things, an update to the federal voter registration form to require proof of citizenship. Legal challenges are expected.
In the letter, Democrats say it’s the “job of election officials to verify the eligibility of citizens to cast a ballot, not the job of citizens to convince the government that they are eligible to exercise their right to vote.”
Trump’s promised ‘Liberation Day’ of tariffs is coming. Here’s what it could mean for you
Trump says Wednesday will be “Liberation Day” — a moment when he plans to roll out a set of tariffs that he promises will free the United States from foreign goods.
The details of Trump’s next round of import taxes are still sketchy. Most economic analyses say average U.S. families would have to absorb the cost of his tariffs in the form of higher prices and lower incomes. But an undeterred Trump is inviting CEOs to the White House to say they are investing hundreds of billions of dollars in new projects to avoid the import taxes.
It is also possible that the tariffs are short-lived if Trump feels he can cut a deal after imposing them.
“I’m certainly open to it, if we can do something,” Trump told reporters. “We’ll get something for it.”
At stake are family budgets, America’s prominence as the world’s leading financial power and the structure of the global economy.
▶ Read more about what you should know regarding the impending trade penalties
Trump’s schedule for Monday
Trump will sign executive orders twice today, first at 1 p.m. ET and again at 5:30 p.m. ET, according to the White House.
Trump is stronger on immigration and weaker on trade, an AP-NORC poll finds
Immigration remains a strength for Trump, but his handling of tariffs is getting more negative feedback, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
About half of U.S. adults approve of Trump’s approach to immigration, the survey shows, but only about 4 in 10 have a positive view of the way he’s handling the economy and trade negotiations.
The poll indicates that many Americans are still on board with Trump’s efforts to ramp up deportations and restrict immigration. But it also suggests that his threats to impose tariffs might be erasing his advantage on another issue that he made central to his winning 2024 campaign.
Views of Trump’s job performance overall are more negative than positive, the survey found. About 4 in 10 U.S. adults approve of the way Trump is handling his job as president, and more than half disapprove.
▶ Read more about the findings from the poll
Trump says he’s considering ways to serve a third term as president
Trump said Sunday that “I’m not joking” about trying to serve a third term, the clearest indication he is considering ways to breach a constitutional barrier against continuing to lead the country after his second term ends at the beginning of 2029.
“There are methods which you could do it,” Trump said in a telephone interview with NBC News from Mar-a-Lago, his private club.
He elaborated later to reporters on Air Force One from Florida to Washington that “I have had more people ask me to have a third term, which in a way is a fourth term because the other election, the 2020 election was totally rigged.” Trump lost that election to Democrat Joe Biden.
Still, Trump added: “I don’t want to talk about a third term now because no matter how you look at it, we’ve got a long time to go.”
▶ Read more about Trump’s comments on a third term
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