A judge on Tuesday ordered President Donald Trump’s administration to restore funding to Voice of America and other US-funded media, saying its abrupt shutdown of the outlets broke the law.The federal judge in Washington agreed to a request led by the outlets’ employees for a preliminary injunction, a temporary order as a court examines the legal challenge in greater depth.Trump, who has long jostled with the press and questioned the editorial rules that prohibit interference in government-funded media, issued an executive order on March 14 to eliminate the outlets. The following day, Kari Lake, his firebrand supporter turned advisor, began issuing notices to terminate all funding, which was appropriated by Congress.Lake and other Trump officials are “likely in direct violation of numerous federal laws,” wrote Royce Lamberth, a judge for the US District Court for the District of Columbia.The US Agency for Global Media, which supervises taxpayer-funded media, is allowed by law to redirect funds among its various outlets by five percent or less, he wrote.”Certainly, no law gives the agency the power to cut funding to the drastic degree that is alleged,” he wrote.Lamberth wrote that Voice of America’s congressionally established charter states that the outlet will “‘serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news (that is) accurate, objective, and comprehensive’ but the defendants have silenced VOA.”The judge called on the Trump administration to return all employees and contractors to their jobs and to provide monthly status reports on compliance.The order affects employees of Voice of America as well as Radio Free Asia — created to report on China, North Korea and other countries without free media — and Arabic-language network Alhurra.Radio Free Asia, which has been operating at limited capacity for the past month, welcomed the ruling.”While we want to resume our operations as they were before, for that to happen we need to receive timely disbursement of our funding on a consistent basis,” RFA President and CEO Bay Fang said in a statement.Clayton Weimers, executive director of Reporters Without Borders USA, said the media rights group was “very pleased” with the decision on VOA and other outlets.”Every day they’re off the air is a gift to authoritarian regimes that forbid the free press, like China and Iran,” he said.It remains to be seen if the order is enough to put the outlets back on air. The Trump administration, in a break with precedent, has shown defiance toward court orders, notably a Supreme Court demand that it facilitate the return of a Maryland resident mistakenly deported to a crowded high-security prison in his native El Salvador.The judge rejected a request for similar action on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty as the Trump administration already rescinded its decision to withdraw funding following a separate court decision, although the network says it has still not received money for April.

A top US science official on Tuesday backed away from a bold promise made by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to reveal the cause of autism by September.Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health, told reporters the timeline referred not to a discovery, but to the launch of a new research initiative — with no firm deadline for results.”We’re hoping that by September, we’ll have the call for proposals out, and we’ll have a competition among scientists across the country using a normal NIH process for selecting the proposals that win and get an award,” he said. Kennedy, a vaccine skeptic, has long promoted a debunked theory linking childhood vaccines to autism, and recently appointed an anti-vaccine activist who holds the same views to be a data analyst — a move critics say guarantees bias.Bhattacharya, however, said the study itself would conform to rigorous standards and would be evaluated through the normal NIH peer review process.He said the timeline for results was “hard to predict” but that his team was “cutting red tape” to remove any bureaucratic obstacles. “I would like to have a timeline within a year, where they start to put out the preliminary results or the results — we’ll see,” Bhattacharya said. Bhattacharya also confirmed a report by CBS News that the NIH was gathering private medical records from a number of federal and commercial databases to give the study statistical power, but insisted all the data would be anonymized. During his own Senate confirmation hearings, Bhattacharya, a physician-scientist and health economist known for opposing lockdowns during the Covid-19 pandemic, stated he does not “generally believe” there’s a link between vaccines and autism.The estimated prevalence of autism in children aged eight rose to one in 31 in 2022, according to a study published last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, compared to one child in 150 in 2000 — a trend the authors attributed to improved diagnosis methods.Autism is a complex neurodevelopmental condition that affects behavior, communication, learning, and social interaction. There is no single known cause, but a combination of genetic and environmental factors is likely involved, according to the World Health Organization.Over the past two decades, milder forms and related conditions have increasingly been grouped under the broader category of autism spectrum disorder, or ASD.

US President Donald Trump said Tuesday he had no plans to fire the Federal Reserve chief, in apparently conciliatory remarks after berating him and triggering market turmoil.Wall Street investors dumped US assets on Monday, with all three main indexes down after Trump took a series of swipes at Jerome Powell, head of the US central bank.The president had criticized Powell for warning that the White House’s sweeping tariffs policy would likely reignite inflation.”I have no intention of firing him,” Trump said Tuesday.”I would like to see him be a little more active in terms of his idea to lower interest rates — it’s a perfect time to lower interest rates.”If he doesn’t, is it the end? No.”Trump’s recent outbursts against Powell had fanned concern that he would oust him, and White House economic advisor Kevin Hassett said last week the president was looking at whether he could do so.Trump has repeatedly said he wants rate cuts now to help stimulate economic growth as he rolls out his tariff plans, and had threatened to fire Powell if he does not comply.”If I want him out, he’ll be out of there real fast, believe me,” Trump said Thursday.- Inflation fears -Powell has said he has no plans to step down early, adding that he considers the bank’s independence over monetary policy to be a “matter of law.”Many economists agree that the administration’s tariff plans — which include a 10 percent “baseline” rate on imports from most countries — will put upward pressure on prices and cool economic growth.Asked about the possibility that the US executive branch tries to fire Powell before the end of his term, European Central Bank chief Christine Lagarde told CNBC on Tuesday she hoped this was “not on the table.The president does not have direct authority to fire Federal Reserve governors, but Trump could initiate a lengthy process to attempt to unseat Powell by proving there was cause to do so.Powell had earlier warned that Trump’s sweeping tariffs could put the Fed in an unenviable position of having to choose between tackling inflation and unemployment.Closing before Trump’s remarks, Wall Street stocks rebounded Tuesday after US officials were upbeat about trade talks with China.All three major US indexes rose following White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s comments that Trump was “setting the stage for a deal with China.”Briefing.com analyst Patrick O’Hare put part of the rebound down to sentiment that Trump would not fire Powell, and instead was “simply setting him up now to take the blame in the event of an economic downturn.”

The trade standoff between Washington and Beijing is not sustainable, the US Treasury chief said Tuesday, as President Donald Trump predicted sky-high tariffs on many Chinese imports would come down “substantially.”Speaking at a closed-door event hosted by JPMorgan Chase, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the enormous tariffs the world’s two biggest economies placed on each other’s imports this year amounted to a reciprocal trade embargo, but that he expects de-escalation.Since Donald Trump’s White House return in January, the United States has slapped additional tariffs of 145 percent on many products from China.These include duties initially imposed over China’s alleged role in the fentanyl supply chain and later over practices Washington deemed unfair.On Tuesday, Trump acknowledged that 145 percent is a “very high” level, and that this will “come down substantially.””They will not be anywhere near that number,” he said, adding however that “it won’t be zero.” Beijing has responded to Washington’s latest salvo with sweeping counter-tariffs of 125 percent on US goods.Bessent told the JPMorgan event Tuesday that he expects a de-escalation in the near future, according to a person who was in the room.Such a development should bring markets some relief, he added at the event, which was not open to media.Wall Street’s major indexes jumped after a news report on Bessent’s comments at the event, which took place on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank’s Spring Meetings.- ‘Doing very well’ -Bessent said there is much to be done at the end of the day with Beijing. But he noted the need for fair trade and said that China needs to rebalance its economy.The Treasury chief stressed that the goal is not to decouple with China, noting that container bookings between both countries have slumped recently as trade tensions heated up.On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Washington is “doing very well in respect to a potential trade deal with China.””The president and the administration are setting the stage for a deal,” she added, noting that “the ball is moving in the right direction.”She said the feeling is that parties involved want to see a trade deal happen.As global finance ministers and central bankers converge in Washington this week, all eyes are on the progress of trade talks on the sidelines of the spring meetings as countries grapple with Trump’s new and wide-ranging tariffs.