Amid global tensions involving Venezuela and Iran, there is hope that the scheduled meeting between US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Beijing in April 2026 could arrest America’s aggressive and predatory policies. A possible Trump-Xi détente could also reduce risk-taking in the Taiwan Straits, and push China to take a different position on the Ukraine war. In 2025, Trump accepted an invitation from Xi to visit Beijing in April 2026. The call, as US media reported, was initiated by Xi. This was preceded by a…
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WASHINGTON — The first year of President Donald Trump’s return to the White House was defined by clashes with the judiciary branch, as the president and his administration pushed forward with an aggressive immigration agenda. In the past year, the Trump administration has aimed to drastically change immigration policy in the United States, including by stripping millions of immigrants of their legal status and attempting to redefine the constitutional right of birthright citizenship. The moves have often run directly against the judiciary branch. Federal judges briefly stalled the Trump administration’splans to deploy…
CARACAS, Venezuela. It was 1:58 a.m. on Jan. 3 when a thunderous roar made the windows of my apartment in downtown Caracas shake. Are the New Year’s celebrations still going on? Is a storm coming or is it an earthquake, I wondered. Despite multiple threats from the United States against Venezuela, I couldn’t believe that bombing was possible; not like this, not now. As people say in Venezuela, “It’s one thing to call on the devil, and another to see him actually arrive.” As the missiles began to fall one…
One year after Donald Trump’s second inauguration, a pattern emerges. Across dozens of executive orders, agency memos, funding decisions and enforcement changes, the administration has weakened federal civil rights law and the foundations of the country’s racially inclusive democracy. From the start, the U.S. was not built to include everyone equally. The Constitution protected and promoted slavery. Most states limited voting to white men. Congress restricted naturalized citizenship to “free white persons.” These choices were not accidents. They shaped who could belong and who could exercise political power, and they…
When Donald Trump pulled back on his plan to impose eye-watering tariffs on trading partners across the world, there was one key exception: China. While the rest of the world would be given a 90-day reprieve on additional duties beyond the new 10% tariffs on all U.S. trade partners, China would feel the squeeze even more. On April 9, 2025, Trump raised the tariff on Chinese goods to 125% – bringing the total U.S. tariff on some Chinese imports to 145%. The move, in Trump’s telling, was prompted by Beijing’s…
Several annual international climate reports released Tuesday indicate that relentless human-caused warming continued in 2025, especially in the oceans and at the poles. For the third year in a row, Earth’s average temperature ran close to 1.5 degrees Celsius hotter than the climate that sustained human civilizations as the 20th century began, before fossil-fuel pollution started damaging the atmosphere. Avoiding more than that level of warming is also the key long-term temperature goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement. Research shows that warming by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the…
When the internet goes dark in Iran, the Iranian diaspora knows what often follows: Arrests, violence, massacres and silence. As of this report, Iran has been under a nationwide digital blackout, and protests calling for the end of the Islamic Republic have entered their third week. For many Iranians, the shutdown recalls November 2019, when authorities cut internet access during mass protests, and at least 1,500 people were killed in a government crackdown. CBS reports that over a 48-hour period between Jan. 8 and Jan. 10, at least 12,000 people…
China announced on Friday that it will change export tax rebates for a range of products, including photovoltaic and battery products. The announcement, jointly issued by the Ministry of Finance and the State Taxation Administration, said that export tax rebates for the value added tax of photovoltaic products will be canceled starting from April 1, 2026. Meanwhile, the export tax rebate rate for the value added tax of battery products will be reduced from 9 percent to 6 percent starting from April 1, 2026, and will be eliminated starting from…
“Avatar: Fire and Ash” has continued the franchise’s unbeatable winning streak. James Cameron’s latest “Avatar” film has grossed over $1 billion at the global box office, making the franchise the highest-grossing trilogy in history, and is one of only four films in 2025 to cross the worldwide billion-dollar mark. It will likely not break the records of the first or second film. But even so, you cannot argue that the series is anything short of a colossal success. One of the things few people discuss about the “Avatar” films is…
WASHINGTON, Jan 7 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump said on Wednesday the 2027 U.S. military budget should be $1.5 trillion, significantly higher than the $901 billion approved by Congress for 2026, boosting defense stocks, but sparking skepticism among budget experts. Any such increase in the military budget would require congressional authorization, which could pose a challenge, although Trump’s Republicans, who hold slim majorities in both the Senate and House of Representatives, have shown little appetite for objecting to Trump’s spending plans. rump said in a Truth Social post that he…