Stocks Slump After Trump Raises Tensions With EU Tariff Threats

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Stocks Slump After Trump Raises Tensions With EU Tariff Threats

(Brett Rowland, The Center Square)  U.S. markets declined Friday after President Donald Trump threatened a fresh wave of tariffs on imports from the European Union and on smartphones.

The Dow fell 256.02 points, down 0.61%, while the S&P 500 dropped 39.19 points, or 0.67%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 188.53 points, or 1% on Friday.

Trump singled out iPhone maker Apple in a social media post Friday morning. Saying that the company’s signature product could face 25% tariffs alongside smartphones from other companies that build the products in other countries.

Apple shares dropped 3% on the news.

Trump also threatened the EU, a bloc of 27 countries, with 50% tariffs. He said negotiations with the bloc had stalled. Trump clarified some of those comments Friday afternoon in the Oval Office. 

Maroš Šefčovič, the EU’s Commissioner for Trade and Economic Security, said he spoke with U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on Friday. 

“The EU’s fully engaged, committed to securing a deal that works for both,” Šefčovič wrote in a social media post. “@EU_Commission remains ready to work in good faith. EU-US trade is unmatched & must be guided by mutual respect, not threats. We stand ready to defend our interests.”

A tariff is a tax on imported goods. The importer pays the tax to the federal government and can either absorb the loss or pass the cost on to consumers through higher prices.

Economists, businesses and some publicly traded companies have warned that tariffs could raise prices on a wide range of consumer products.

Trump has said he wants to use tariffs to restore manufacturing jobs lost to lower-wage countries in decades past, shift the tax burden away from U.S. families, and pay down the national debt.

Biden-Era Kennedy Center Execs Accused of Falsifying Financial Records

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Biden-Era Kennedy Center Execs Accused of Falsifying Financial Records

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) The Kennedy Center under the Biden administration allegedly fabricated financial records to show several million dollars in revenue, the Daily Wire reported Friday. 

Newly installed president Richard Grenell told the board the center was $26 million in debt due to “phantom” and “fake revenue.” 

“It’s criminal. We’re going to refer this to the U.S. attorney’s office,” Grenell said, calling it “fraud on previous donors.” 

CFO Donna Arduin said the prior leadership had built a “broken budget” with a $100 million operating deficit and a $26 million bottom-line shortfall. 

“The former leadership led Board members to believe there was a balanced budget when there was $26 Million in false funds,” Arduin added. “Fiscal Year 25 budget was previously passed with $26M of fictitious funds.” 

She said, “We have now truly balanced the budget.” 

Grenell appeared to blame former president Deborah Rutter, though she denied any wrongdoing in remarks to the leftist Washington Post. 

“I am deeply troubled by the false allegations regarding the management of the Kennedy Center being made by people without the context or expertise to understand the complexities involved in nonprofit and arts management, which has been my professional experience for 47 years.” 

She claimed previous budgets had been approved by a board that she said included several Trump appointees. 

Despite her defense, Grenell told podcast hosts Mark Halperin and Dan Turrentine the matter will be referred to federal investigators.  

“It’s a total fraud, and people need to be prosecuted for it,” he said. 

Grenell’s findings come just months after President Donald Trump overhauled the Kennedy Center following his Jan. 20, 2025, inauguration.  

Trump appointed himself chairman of the board, which promptly dismissed Rutter as president. 

Do As I Say: Dem. Senator Doubles Millions After Attacking Wealthy Opponents

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Do As I Say: Dem. Senator Doubles Millions After Attacking Wealthy Opponents

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Being an elected official can sure be profitable—just ask Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia, whose income has doubled since entering politics. 

Financial disclosures show that Warnock’s income jumped to $2.2 million in 2024—far more than his $1 million net worth in 2020, the New York Post reported Saturday. 

Warnock, once an alleged defender of Marxism, entered politics in 2020 after attacking then-Sen. Kelly Loeffler for her wealth and accusing her, without evidence, of using her office to enrich herself. 

Now, Warnock’s earnings climbed from $242,101 in 2020 to an average of $659,977 a year since taking office. Income sources include gigs, book deals and investments, the Post noted. 

Warnock’s cash flow through the years was as follows: 

  • 2024: $357,058 
  • 2023: $666,767 
  • 2022: $985,118 
  • 2021: $541,965 

He collects $174,000 from his taxpayer-funded salary in the Senate and $32,000 from the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where he serves as senior pastor. The Post noted that federal statutes cap external income but not book royalties or advances. 

He made more than $1.5 million from his 2022 memoir, A Way Out of No Way, including a $243,750 advance from publishing giant Penguin Books. This was followed by $655,000 in royalties in 2022 and $460,417 from sales in 2023. 

He reportedly used that income to purchase a $1.15 million home in Washington, D.C., after owning an Atlanta house worth $745,000. 

In April, Warnock came under scrutiny when the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust called out that he also resides rent-free in a $1 million luxury home owned by the Ebenezer Baptist Church. 

The nonprofit asked the Senate Select Committee on Ethics to probe whether that lodging counts as income. Warnock’s office dismissed the request, claiming the committee approved the arrangement. 

A Federal Judge Orders the Trump Administration to Return a Guatemalan Deported to Mexico to the US

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A Federal Judge Orders the Trump Administration to Return a Guatemalan Deported to Mexico to the US

(Headline USA)  A federal judge ordered the Trump administration late Friday to facilitate the return of a Guatemalan man it deported to Mexico. 

The man was protected from being returned to his home country under a U.S. immigration judge’s order at the time. 

But the U.S. put him on a bus and sent him to Mexico instead, a removal that U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy found likely “lacked any semblance of due process.”

Mexico has since returned him to Guatemala, where he is in hiding, according to court documents. An earlier court proceeding that determined the man, identified by the initials O.C.G., risked persecution or torture if returned to Guatemala, but he also feared returning to Mexico. He presented evidence of being raped and held for ransom there while seeking asylum in the U.S.

“No one has ever suggested that O.C.G. poses any sort of security threat,” Murphy wrote. “In general, this case presents no special facts or legal circumstances, only the banal horror of a man being wrongfully loaded onto a bus and sent back to a country where he was allegedly just raped and kidnapped.”

Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said O.C.G. was in the country illegally, was “granted withholding of removal to Guatemala” and was instead sent to Mexico, which she said was “a safe third option for him, pending his asylum claim.”

McLaughlin called the judge a “federal activist judge” and said the administration expects to be vindicated by a higher court.

In his Friday ruling, Murphy nodded to the dispute over the verb “facilitate” in that case and others, saying that returning O.C.G. to the U.S. is not that complicated.

“The Court notes that ‘facilitate’ in this context should carry less baggage than in several other notable cases,” he wrote. “O.C.G. is not held by any foreign government. 

Defendants have declined to make any argument that facilitating his return would be costly, burdensome, or otherwise impede the government’s objectives.”

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press.

Texas is Closer to Putting the Ten Commandments in Classrooms After a Key Vote

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Texas is Closer to Putting the Ten Commandments in Classrooms After a Key Vote

(Headline USA)  Texas would require all public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments under a Republican proposal that cleared a major vote Saturday and would make the state the nation’s largest to impose such a mandate.

If passed as expected, the measure is likely to draw a legal challenge from critics who consider it a constitutional violation of the separation of church and state.

The Republican-controlled House gave its preliminary approval with a final vote expected in the next few days. That would send the bill to the desk of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who has indicated he will sign it into law.

“The focus of this bill is to look at what is historically important to our nation educationally and judicially,” said Republican state representative Candy Noble, a co-sponsor of the bill.

Two other states, Louisiana and Arkansas, have similar laws, but Louisiana’s is on hold after a federal judge found that it was “ unconstitutional on its face.”

Those measures are among efforts, mainly in conservative-led states, to insert religion into public schools. The vote in Texas came after the U.S. Supreme Court effectively ended a publicly funded Catholic charter school in Oklahoma on Thursday with a 4-4 tie following a string of high court decisions in recent years that have allowed public funds to flow to religious entities.

Texas lawmakers also have passed and sent to Abbott a measure that allows school districts to provide students and staff a daily voluntary period of prayer or time to read a religious text during school hours. Abbott is expected to sign it.

“We should be encouraging our students to read and study their Bible every day,” Republican state Rep. Brent Money said. “Our kids in our public schools need prayer, need Bible reading, more now than they ever have.”

Supporters of requiring the Ten Commandments in classrooms say they are part of the foundation of the United States’ judicial and educational systems and should be displayed.

The Ten Commandments bill requires public schools to post in classrooms a 16-by-20-inch (41-by-51-centimeter) poster or framed copy of a specific English version of the commandments, even though translations and interpretations vary across denominations, faiths and languages and may differ in homes and houses of worship..

In 2005, Abbott, who was state attorney general at the time, successfully argued before the Supreme Court that Texas could keep a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of its Capitol.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press.

NYC Criminal Sucker-Punches Girl After Release—All Caught on Video

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NYC Criminal Sucker-Punches Girl After Release—All Caught on Video

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Local prosecutors in New York City arrested a man allegedly caught on video sucker-punching a 9-year-old girl. 

Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said on May 13 that Feliz Enrique approached the child as she played in the street on May 10 and struck her forcefully in the face. 

Enrique then reportedly attacked an off-duty police sergeant who intervened, going as far as biting off the “top segment” of the officer’s right index finger. 

The suspect had been out on parole after spending seven years for attempted murder, ABC7 reported. 

The assault unfolded between 4:10 p.m. and 4:30 p.m., as the girl’s mother looked on. 

Security footage captured Enrique approaching the girl and asking her name.  

When the child responded, Enrique “forcefully struck her in the face with his hand causing her to fall to the ground,” according to the Queens District Attorney’s Office. 

The girl was rushed to a nearby hospital, where she was treated for bruising, a bleeding lip, loose teeth and substantial physical pain. 

Katz called the attack unprovoked. 

“I thank the off-duty sergeant and the good Samaritans who helped detain this defendant before cops arrived,” she added. 

Enrique was arraigned Wednesday on assault charges in the first, second and third degrees, in addition to endangering the welfare of a child and second-degree harassment. 

If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison. 

Judge Halts Order to Terminate Harvard Foreign Student Visas

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Judge Halts Order to Terminate Harvard Foreign Student Visas

(Sarah Roderick-Fitch, The Center Square) A day after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced the Trump administration was terminating Harvard University‘s foreign student visa “privileges,” a federal judge has temporarily blocked the administration from halting the program.

Judge Allison Burroughs of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts issued a temporary restraining order Friday morning after Harvard filed a complaint claiming the Trump administration’s actions were a “blatant violation of the First Amendment.”

Friday morning, Harvard President Alan Garber issued a message, accusing the Trump administration of retaliating against the school for their “refusal to surrender our academic independence and to submit to the federal government’s illegal assertion of control over our curriculum, our faculty, and our student body.”

He added that the program’s termination “imperils the futures of thousands of students and scholars across Harvard and serves as a warning to countless others at colleges and universities throughout the country who have come to America to pursue their education and fulfill their dreams.”

Garber said that the university “did respond to the Department’s requests as required by law.”

The move to terminate the program could impact over 27% of Harvard’s student population.

Noem accused Harvard of creating an “unsafe campus environment by permitting anti-American, pro-terrorist agitators to harass and physically assault individuals,” citing several Jewish students. The secretary added that many of the “agitators are foreign students.”

The secretary further accused the university leadership of facilitating and engaging in “coordinated activity with the CCP, including hosting and training members of a CCP paramilitary group complicit in the Uyghur genocide.”

“This administration is holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus,” said Noem. “It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enroll foreign students and benefit from their higher tuition payments to help pad their multibillion-dollar endowments.

“Harvard had plenty of opportunity to do the right thing. It refused. They have lost their Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification as a result of their failure to adhere to the law. Let this serve as a warning to all universities and academic institutions across the country.”

In April, Noem demanded that the university submit information regarding the “criminality and misconduct of foreign students” on campus. She warned the school that if they didn’t comply with her order, the agency would terminate the university’s foreign student program.

Noem defended the action from DHS, saying the university “brazenly” ignored the request, adding that she is “following through on her promise to protect students and prohibit terrorist sympathizers from receiving benefits from the U.S. government.”

Also in April, the Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper, reported that three students and two recent graduates had their student visas revoked. The Harvard International Office said it was unaware of the “details of the revocations or the reasons for them.”

Noem cited several examples of alleged antisemitism as reasons for terminating the foreign student program. She also cited increased crime, DEI practices and close ties to the CCP. The secretary noted that the university has received $151 million from foreign governments since January 2020.

This past academic year, for 2024-2025, the university had 6,793 foreign students enrolled, according to Harvard data. The number of foreign students has nearly doubled in the last 20 years. During the 2006-2007 academic year, the university had 3,941 foreign students enrolled, comprising 19.6% of the student population.

Doctor: DEI is an Infection to Medical Education, Standards Must be Merit-Based

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Doctor: DEI is an Infection to Medical Education, Standards Must be Merit-Based

(Tate Miller, The Center Square) The director of an organization of medical professionals testified before Congress that DEI is infecting medical education and called for standards to be based on merit alone.

Do No Harm Medical director Dr. Kurt Miceli “testified before the House Subcommittee on Education and Workforce Development at a hearing titled ‘Restoring Excellence: The Case Against DEI,’” a Do No Harm Medical news release said.

Do No Harm is an organization of medical professionals focused on “keeping identity politics out of medical education, research, and clinical practice,” according to its website.

The news release stated that in Dr. Miceli’s opening remarks, he “explained how DEI has come to infect medical education and the medical field as a whole, pointing to the main institutional culprits behind the rise of DEI ideology: medical associations, medical schools, accreditors, and certifying bodies.”

“We look at this question of racial concordance – the idea that Black patients do better with Black doctors or white patients do better with white doctors – one of the things we understand is that four out of five systematic reviews that have looked at that question find there is no difference in outcome by racial concordance,” Miceli said at the hearing.

Miceli “debunked the oft-repeated notion that racial concordance – in which patients are treated by physicians of the same race – improves health outcomes,” by this statement, the release said.

“Dr. Miceli continued by examining the role of medical education accreditors in propagating DEI, while also noting some good news: the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) recently announced that it would be suspending enforcement of two key ‘diversity’ requirements, following an executive order by President Trump targeting accreditors for injecting DEI into medical education,” the release said.

Miceli said at the hearing that “it’s essential that the standards are based on merit, and only merit, so that we make sure we have exceptional physicians that are out there, and nothing else.”

In a document of Miceli’s full testimony, he wrote that DEI ideology “has been and continues to be imposed onto the medical field top-down through its ostensibly prestigious institutions.”

Medical schools; accrediting bodies for medical education; and medical associations, speciality societies and medical boards are the three institutions Miceli named as those imposing DEI ideology upon medicine.

“Collectively, these institutions are most responsible for driving the spread of DEI in medicine and medical education,” Miceli wrote.

Miceli wrote that, although much progress has been made in rooting out DEI from medicine, “there is still much to do.”

For instance, “Do No Harm has found that nearly half of medical schools in the United States … still noticeably maintain a DEI office on their website, thereby perpetuating the bureaucracy supporting this ideology,” Miceli wrote.

Miceli wrote that “the principles that have long made America exceptional are being undermined by the way diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is practiced today.”

“Reform is not a matter of politics; it is a moral imperative,” Miceli wrote.

“The health of our nation depends on restoring integrity to medicine, beginning with education that values skill over ideological zeal, and care that prioritizes science over radical political agendas,” Miceli wrote.

UPenn Prof. Suggests Using ‘Second Amendment’ to Stop Trump

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UPenn Prof. Suggests Using ‘Second Amendment’ to Stop Trump

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) A climate scientist and professor at the University of Pennsylvania is under fire after seemingly threatening to invoke the Second Amendment against President Donald Trump. 

UPenn professor Michael Mann made the controversial call to action in a now-deleted Bluesky post responding to an NPR article about a judge blocking the Trump administration’s attempt to shut down the Education Department. 

“If Trump doesn’t comply, we’re in a second amendment territory,” Mann wrote, without elaborating on what he meant. 

Headline USA reached out to Mann via email but received only an automatic reply: “Due to the high volume of emails received, however, I cannot promise that it will be read or replied to.” 

Neither UPenn executive assistant Vanessa Barrett-Pearsall nor Hachette Book Group spokesperson Brooke Parsons responded by the deadline.  

On X, critics took Mann’s comments as threats against Trump, who survived two assassination attempts before winning the 2024 presidential election.

The account LibsOfTikTok tagged the FBI, accusing Mann of “calling to Kill Trump and Trump officials.” 

Meanwhile, Journalist Paul D. Thacker suggested Mann “appears to be calling for armed resistance,” adding: “So much craziness on Bluesky.” 

Mann deleted the post amid the backlash and “out of fear that it might be misconstrued by someone.” 

Quoting the Constitution, Mann said, “The second amendment refers to the right of the people to rise up and defend democracy… To argue this is a threat against Trump is very dishonest.” 

In a follow-up post, he said his comment was “meant as a rhetorical statement about the need to rise up and defend ‘the security of a free State’, not any sort of incitement to violence (something of which I couldn’t more strongly disapprove).” 

An FBI spokesperson could not be reached immediately for comment. However, Mann has faced legal trouble before.  

In 2025, D.C. Superior Court Judge Alfred S. Irving Jr. sanctioned him and his legal team after finding they provided misleading information during a defamation suit against bloggers Rand Simberg and Mark Steyn. 

Mann had accused Simberg, a former adjunct fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and Steyn, a National Review contributor, of attempting to discredit his climate change research in 2012. 

The judge later ordered Mann to pay nearly $530,820.21 in attorneys’ fees and costs to National Review. 

White House Slashing Staff in Major Overhaul of National Security Council, Officials Say

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White House Slashing Staff in Major Overhaul of National Security Council, Officials Say

(Headline USA) President Donald Trump is ordering a major overhaul of the National Security Council that will shrink its size, lead to the ouster of some political appointees and return many career government employees back to their home agencies, according to two U.S. officials and one person familiar with the reorganization.

The number of staff at the NSC is expected to be significantly reduced, according to the officials, who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive personnel matter.

The shake-up is just the latest shoe to drop at the NSC, which is being dramatically made over after the ouster early this month of Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz, who in many ways had hewed to traditional Republican foreign policy.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been serving as national security adviser since the ouster of Waltz, who was nominated to serve as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations.

The move is expected to elevate the importance of the State Department and Pentagon in advising Trump on important foreign policy moves. But, ultimately, Trump relies on his own instincts above all else when making decisions.

The NSC, created during the Truman administration, is an arm of the White House tasked with advising and assisting the president on national security and foreign policy and coordinating among various government agencies.

Trump was frustrated in his first term by political appointees and advisers who he felt gummed up his “America First” agenda.

There were roughly 395 people working at the NSC, including about 180 support staff, according to one official. About 90 to 95 of those being ousted are policy or subject-matter experts seconded from other government agencies. They will be given an opportunity to return to their home agencies if they want.

Many of the political appointees will also be given positions elsewhere in the administration, the official said.

The NSC has been in a continual state of tumult during the early going of Trump’s second go-around in the White House.

Waltz was ousted weeks after Trump fired several NSC officials, just a day after the influential conservative activist Laura Loomer raised concerns directly to him about staff loyalty. 

And the White House, days into the administration, sidelined about 160 NSC aides, sending them home while the administration reviewed staffing and tried to align it with Trump’s agenda. The aides were career government employees, commonly referred to as detailees.

This latest shake-up amounts to a “liquidation” of NSC staffing, with both career government detailees on assignment to the NSC being sent back to their home agencies and several political appointees being pushed out of their positions, according to the person familiar with the decision.

A White House official who spoke on the condition of anonymity confirmed that the overhaul, first reported by Axios, was underway. Andy Baker, the national security adviser to Vice President JD Vance, and Robert Gabriel, an assistant to the president for policy, will serve as deputy national security advisers, according to the White House official.

Waltz, during his short tenure heading the NSC, came under searing criticism in March after revelations that he added journalist Jeffrey Goldberg to a private text chain on an encrypted messaging app that was used to discuss planning for a sensitive military operation against Houthi militants in Yemen.

Waltz has taken responsibility for building the text chain but has said he does not know how Goldberg ended up being included.

On Russia, Waltz shared Trump’s concerns about the high price tag of extensive U.S. military aid to Ukraine. But Waltz also advocated for further diplomatically isolating President Vladimir Putin — a position that was out of step with Trump, who has viewed the Russian leader, at moments, with admiration for his cunning in dealings with Trump’s predecessors.

His more hawkish rhetoric on Iran and China, including U.S. policy toward Taiwan, seemed increasingly out of step with Trump, who — setting aside belligerent rhetoric about taking over Greenland from Denmark — has tilted more toward military restraint and diplomacy in facing some of the United States’ most challenging issues with adversaries.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press.

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