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Investors are holding their collective breaths over President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs that experts and consumers alike fear could plunge the economy into a recession. CNN reporter Matt Egan declared Thursday, "Clearly the president's trade war is freaking out Wall Street. It's sending shockwaves across global markets." Egan pointed out huge drops in future Thursday morning, with the Dow down 3%, with a nearly 4% drop in the S&P 500, and a nearly 5% drop for the NASDAQ. After the markets closed on Wednesday, Trump held a Rose Garden "celebration" as he prepared to sign his executive order. "While specifics about enforcement and duration of the new tariffs remain unclear, a document distributed to reporters included a list of 65 countries with calculated reciprocal rates," Newsweek reported. ALSO READ: 'The Hard Reset': Here's how the U.S. is exporting terrorism around the world "I guess this answers one question: why the White House waited until after the closing bell for the president to actually roll out his trade plan," Egan said. Egan added that investors "were bracing for some rough news on tariffs yesterday, but I think this reaction shows that the result was even worse than they had anticipated." "Look at this!" Egan exclaimed in front of a chart showing the U.S. tariff rate going back 200 years. "And what you can see here is one, it's going straight higher. Fitch ratings says that it's going to be at at least 22% because of these new Trump tariffs — that is the highest level since around 1910, even surpassing Smoot-Hawley, which infamously made the Great Depression even worse." Egan said JP Morgan financial services issued a note to their clients Wednesday night, "and they say look, if these policies are sustained and they're implemented, it's likely going to push the U.S. and the global economy into recession this year." Egan also quoted Moody's Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi, saying, "If they follow through, i would buckle up and brace for impact. He said a recession seems more likely than not." Watch the clip below via CNN or click the link.

Sara Campanella and Ilaria Sula were found within 48 hours of each other, bringing the number of femicides in 2025 to 11There have been calls in Italy for a “cultural rebellion” amid outrage and protests over the murders of two female students found within 48 hours of each other, bringing the number of femicides in the country since the start of the year to 11.Sara Campanella, a 22-year-old biomedical student, was stabbed at a bus stop in the Sicilian city of Messina on Monday afternoon and died while being taken to hospital. Continue reading...

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Trump administration's new envoy to NATO are seeking to reassure wary members of the U.S. commitment to the alliance.

President Donald Trump tempted fate with a social media post celebrating his controversial tariffs that called to mind George W. Bush's infamous "mission accomplished" speech during the Iraq war. The president announced sweeping tariffs Wednesday on U.S. imports that shook up world markets and will increase prices for American consumers, but he fired off an all-caps post on Truth Social preemptively celebrating his policy's impact on the economy. "The operation is over!" Trump posted at 8:33 a.m. EST. "The patient lived, and is healing. The prognosis is that the patient will be far stronger, bigger, better, and more resilient than ever before. Make America great again!!!" ALSO READ: 'Came as a surprise to me': Senators 'troubled' by one aspect of government funding bill Trump argues that the tariffs will boost domestic manufacturing, although economists generally disagree about their beneficial impact, and the post has the potential to haunt the president like Bush's premature speech weeks after the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. Global markets tumbled on Thursday morning after Trump's announcement, with S&P 500 futures slumping more than 3 percent and the value of the U.S. dollar dropping more than 1 percent.

Temporary ceasefires announced by warring groups in Myanmar in the wake of last week’s devastating 7.7 magnitude earthquake represent a rare de-escalation of a conflict that since 2021 has taken thousands of lives and uprooted more than 3 million people

Donald Trump has an ulterior motive for enacting his controversial tariff policy, but there is a way that opponents can fight back, according to Democratic Senator Chris Murphy. Murphy, who represents Connecticut, said in the wake of Trump's major trade war escalation that "those trying to understand the tariffs as economic policy are dangerously naive." "No, the tariffs are a tool to collapse our democracy. A means to compel loyalty from every business that will need to petition Trump for relief," the lawmaker wrote late Wednesday night on his social media. ALSO READ: 'Came as a surprise to me': Senators 'troubled' by one aspect of government funding bill He noted, "This week you will read many confused economists and political pundits who won’t understand how the tariffs make economic sense. That’s because they don’t. They aren’t designed as economic policy. The tariffs are simply a new, super dangerous political tool." The Senator added that "our founders created a President with limited and checked powers." "They specifically put the power of spending and taxation in the hands of the legislature. Why? Because they watched how kings and despots used spending and taxes to control their subjects," he added. "British kings used taxation to reward loyalty and punish dissent. Our own revolution was spurred by the King’s use of heavy taxation of the colonies to punish our push for self governance. The King’s message was simple: stop protesting and I’ll stop taxing." This, Murphy claims, is Trump's big tariff plan. "Trump knows that he can weaken (and maybe destroy) democracy by using spending and taxation in the same way. He is using access to government funds to bully universities, law firms and state and local governments into loyalty pledges," he wrote. "Healthy democracies rely on an independent legal profession to maintain the rule of law, independent universities to guard objective truth and provide forums for dissent to authority, and independent state/local government to counterbalance a powerful federal government." But, according to the lawmaker, "the private sector also plays a rule to protect democracy. Independent industry has power. The tariffs are Trump’s tool to erode that independence. Now, one by one, every industry or company will need to pledge loyalty to Trump in order to get sanctions relief." As far as what businesses might offer Trump, Murphy cites, "Public shows of support from executives for all his economic policy. Contributions to his political efforts. Promises to police employees’ support for his political opposition." Going even further, Murphy says that "the tariffs are DESIGNED to create economic hardship. Why? So that Trump has a straight face rationale for releasing them, business by business or industry by industry. As he adjusts or grants relief, it’s a win-win: the economy improves and dissent disappears." "And once Trump has the lawyers, colleges and industry under his thumb, it becomes very hard for the opposition to have any viable space to maneuver. Trump didn’t invent this strategy. It’s the playbook for democratically elected leaders who want to stay in power forever," Murphy then concludes. "The tariffs aren’t economic policy. They are political weapons. But as long as we see this clearly, we can stop him. Public mobilization is working. Today, a few Republicans joined Democrats to vote against one set of tariffs. The people still have the power." Those trying to understand the tariffs as economic policy are dangerously naive.No, the tariffs are a tool to collapse our democracy. A means to compel loyalty from every business that will need to petition Trump for relief.1/ A

The Trump administration appears to be leaving no stone unturned with its sweeping tariffs around the globe, from rocky outcrops home to polar bears in the Arctic to tiny tropical islands to a former British penal colony whose leader is befuddled that it was targeted.

Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was once called the most popular politician on Earth by then-U.S. President Barack Obama. Those times are long gone.