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The Associated Press filed a lawsuit against three White House officials on Friday after the news agency was barred from some of US President Donald Trump’s events.The AP, in the suit filed in a federal court in Washington, said the denial of access violates the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech and of the press.The White House began blocking AP journalists from the Oval Office 10 days ago over the news agency’s refusal to follow Trump’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.”The ban on AP reporters was later extended to Air Force One.The news group said it was bringing the suit against three Trump administration officials to “vindicate its rights to the editorial independence guaranteed by the United States Constitution.””The White House has ordered The Associated Press to use certain words in its coverage or else face an indefinite denial of access,” the AP said.”The press and all people in the United States have the right to choose their own words and not be retaliated against by the government,” it said.”The Constitution does not allow the government to control speech. Allowing such government control and retaliation to stand is a threat to every American’s freedom.”The suit names as defendants White House chief of staff Susan Wiles and deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich, as well as White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.”We’ll see them in court,” Leavitt said during an appearance Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington. “We feel we are in the right. We are going to ensure that truth and accuracy is present at that White House every single day,” she said.In its style guide, the AP noted that the Gulf of Mexico has “carried that name for more than 400 years.””The Associated Press will refer to it by its original name while acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen,” it said.”As a global news agency that disseminates news around the world, the AP must ensure that place names and geography are easily recognizable to all audiences.”Trump called the AP a “radical left organization” on Thursday and said the new Gulf of America name is “something that we feel strongly about.”His leveraging of press access underscores the Republican president’s longstanding animosity toward traditional news outlets, which he accuses of bias against him.The White House Correspondents’ Association has called AP’s exclusion from Trump events “outrageous.”The 180-year-old news agency has long been a pillar of US journalism and provides news to print, TV and radio outlets across the United States and around the world. 

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass sacked the city’s fire chief on Friday, blaming her for leadership failures in the handling of deadly blazes that tore through the California metropolis in January.The axing of Kristin Crowley comes six weeks after America’s second most populous city was ravaged by fires that left at least 29 people dead and vast areas in ruins.It also comes as angry residents continue to look for someone to blame for the fires.”Acting in the best interest of Los Angeles public safety and for the operations of the Los Angeles Fire Department, I just met with Chief Crowley and removed her as fire chief,” Bass told reporters.The mayor said she has called for a full investigation of “everything” leading up to  January 7 when the fires began. “A necessary step to the investigation was the president of the fire commission telling Chief Crowley to do an after-action report on the fires. The fire chief refused,” Bass said.”We all know that 1,000 firefighters that could have been on duty on the morning the fires broke were instead sent home on Chief Crowley’s watch. These actions required her removal.”Tensions had flared between the two officials even as flames raged in the Pacific Palisades and Altadena neighborhoods.There was sharp criticism over the firefight, particularly in the tony Pacific Palisades area, where hydrants ran dry because of huge demands on the system.Just days after the wind-driven fires broke out, Crowley blindsided city bosses by telling a local television interviewer that Los Angeles had failed her department, which she described as understaffed and underfunded.”My message is the fire department needs to be properly funded,” Crowley told the local Fox television channel. “It’s not.”An appearance on national TV compounded the rift when she told CNN that budget cuts had directly affected her ability to fight the mammoth fires.Hours later, Bass hauled Crowley in for a closed-door meeting that ran so late Bass missed a scheduled news briefing.The next time the two stood together at a press conference, tensions were evident, despite pledges that they were on the same page.- Foreign trip -Bass’s move Friday comes after weeks of criticism levelled at her.The former US congresswoman has frequently been the target of residents’ ire in recent weeks after a flat-footed response to the fires, which broke out while she was in Ghana.Ahead of the January 7 outbreaks, the National Weather Service had been warning that fierce winds and exceedingly dry weather would leave the Los Angeles region at very high risk of a fire.State and local officials announced they were pre-positioning resources to pounce and try to keep a handle on any blazes that they expected would spread rapidly in 100-mile (160-kilometer)-per-hour winds.Local and national media extensively carried warnings of the elevated danger.But at a press conference Friday, Bass framed her decision to press ahead with her foreign trip as the result of Crowley’s failure to warn her of the risk.”What has happened in the two-plus years I’ve been here every time there was a weather emergency, or even a hint of a weather emergency, the chief has called me directly,” Bass told reporters.”She has my cell phone. She knows she can call me 24/7, and she briefed me, and then we would talk about what needed to happen next. That did not happen this time.”

An American-Lebanese man was found guilty Friday of attempting to kill novelist Salman Rushdie when storming a stage and repeatedly plunging a knife into the “Satanic Verses” author.Hadi Matar faces up to 25 years in prison and will be sentenced in April after being convicted of attempted murder and assault charges over the 2022 attack.Matar’s legal team had sought to prevent witnesses from characterizing Rushdie as a victim of persecution following Iran’s 1989 fatwa calling for his murder over supposed blasphemy in “The Satanic Verses.”Rushdie had told jurors of Matar “stabbing and slashing” him during an event at an upscale cultural center in rural New York.”It was a stab wound in my eye, intensely painful, after that I was screaming because of the pain,” Rushdie said, adding he was left in a “lake of blood.”He said it “occurred to me I was dying” before he was helicoptered to a trauma hospital.Jurors heard closing arguments from both prosecutors and defense lawyers before retiring briefly to consider their verdict Friday. They deliberated for less than two hours.Matar was found guilty of stabbing Rushdie about 10 times with a six-inch blade that had been shown to witnesses and the court.The defendant shouted pro-Palestinian slogans on several occasions during the trial.- Free speech v. blasphemy -Matar, from New Jersey, previously told media he had only read two pages of “The Satanic Verses” but believed the author had “attacked Islam.”After the novel was published in 1988, Rushdie became the center of a fierce tug-of-war between free speech advocates and those who insisted that insulting religion, particularly Islam, was unacceptable in any circumstance.Books and bookshops were torched, his Japanese translator was murdered and his Norwegian publisher was shot several times.Rushdie lived in seclusion in London for a decade after the 1989 fatwa, but for the past 20 years — until the attack — he lived relatively normally in New York.Last year, he published a memoir called “Knife” in which he recounted the near-death experience.The optical nerve of Rushdie’s right eye was severed, and he told the court that “it was decided the eye would be stitched shut to allow it to moisturize. It was quite a painful operation — which I don’t recommend.”Asked to describe the intensity of the pain over the attack, he said it was “a 10″ out of 10.His Adam’s apple was also lacerated, his liver and small bowel penetrated, and severe nerve damage to his arm left him paralyzed in one hand.”The first thing I said on regaining the ability of speech was ‘I can speak’,” he said to stifled laughter from jurors.British-American Rushdie, now 77, was rescued from Matar by bystanders.Venue employee Jordan Steves had told the court how he launched himself “with my right shoulder with as much force as I could manage” to help others subdue the suspect.He pointed to Matar, sitting just feet away in the ornate courtroom, when asked to identify the attacker.Iran-backed Lebanese Shiite militant organization Hezbollah endorsed the fatwa on Rushdie, the FBI has said, and Matar faces a separate prosecution in US federal court on terrorism charges.Iran has denied any link to the attacker and said only Rushdie was to blame for the incident.

A measles outbreak that began in northwest Texas last month has now sickened 90 people, the vast majority of whom were unvaccinated, according to state data released Friday — and the figure is expected to rise further.The outbreak comes as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. begins his tenure as US health secretary, a role that grants him significant authority over immunization policy.Kennedy, a vocal vaccine skeptic, has repeatedly and falsely linked the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine to autism, a claim widely debunked by scientific research.At least 77 of the cases in Texas involve children, while 10 are adults, with data unavailable for the remaining three.Sixteen patients have been hospitalized with the highly contagious disease, which is best known for its rash but can also cause pneumonia, brain swelling and other severe complications.Only five of the cases have been reported among vaccinated individuals. The majority of patients were unvaccinated, or their vaccination status remains unknown.Infants are not eligible for their first dose of the MMR vaccine until 12 to 15 months of age, leaving them vulnerable in early life. People with immune-compromising conditions are also at higher risk of severe illness.Childhood vaccination rates have been declining across the US, a trend that accelerated during the Covid-19 pandemic amid concerns over the rapid deployment of mRNA vaccines and widespread misinformation, further eroding public trust in health institutions.The outbreak epicenter is Gaines County in west-central Texas, which has reported 57 confirmed cases.Texas law allows vaccine exemptions for reasons of conscience, including religious beliefs. The county is home to a significant Mennonite community, a Christian sect that has historically shown vaccine hesitancy.In 2023, the US reported 285 measles cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The worst recent outbreak occurred in 2019, when 1,274 cases — mostly within Orthodox Jewish communities in New York and New Jersey — resulted in the highest national total in decades.Before the measles vaccine was introduced in 1963, the disease infected an estimated three to four million Americans annually, according to the CDC.While measles was declared eliminated in the US in 2000, outbreaks continue to occur each year. Globally, the disease remains a major killer, claiming tens of thousands of lives annually.Meanwhile, the Trump administration has postponed a routine meeting of an independent advisory panel that makes vaccine recommendations to the CDC.The meeting, originally set for February 26-28, was scheduled to discuss vaccines for meningococcal disease, influenza and chikungunya, a viral disease that causes fever and joint pain.The CDC website now states that the meeting was postponed to “accommodate public comment in advance of the meeting,” but no new date has been announced.

President Donald Trump, yes. But what about King Trump or even Donald Caesar?The thoroughly un-American idea has been aired repeatedly in Washington since the Republican began his second term a month ago.And it’s not just radiating from the wild fringes of Trump’s nationalist-populist Make America Great Again movement known as MAGA.It’s coming from the 78-year-old billionaire himself.”LONG LIVE THE KING!” Trump crowed Wednesday on his Truth Social platform to celebrate his government’s nixing of the New York City congestion pricing plan.The White House then posted a fake magazine cover on its official X account, repeating the slogan and showing Trump wearing a golden crown.Trump has a long history of suggesting he might serve more than the two terms allowed by the US Constitution.What was often dismissed as joking during his first term looked darker after Trump refused to concede his 2020 loss to Joe Biden, then stoked his millions of followers to believe the election was rigged — culminating with the January 6, 2021 assault on the US Capitol.As Trump launches his second presidency with an unprecedented demonstration of executive power — using the world’s richest man Elon Musk to dismantle swaths of the government — giddy supporters want even more.Much more.- Donald Caesar? Napoleon? -“We love the idea of Trump as our Julius Caesar-type figure,” Shane Trejo, from a group called Republicans for National Renewal, told reporters at the conservative CPAC conference in Washington.Trejo stood alongside a poster showing the elderly Trump as a rather more youthful Roman emperor with a chiseled face, laurel wreath and a toga.Mixing his imperial metaphors, Trejo also described Trump as a “Napoleonic figure” capable of leading “our country out of perdition and into greatness.”Republicans for National Renewal is lobbying Congress to approve a constitutional amendment to the two-terms limit.According to the House Republican who introduced the resolution, Andy Ogles of Tennessee, Trump is “the only figure in modern history capable of reversing our nation’s decay and restoring America to greatness” and therefore should be given more time in power.Amending the constitution would require a two-thirds majority in both the House and Senate. That’s all but impossible to achieve.But Republicans for National Renewal’s website proposes emulating a trick used by Russia’s Vladimir Putin and working around the term limits by getting a placeholder elected instead.In the US version, Trump’s son Don Jr. “could run on a Trump/Trump ticket before gracefully resigning on Jan. 21, 2028 after securing victory,” the website says.”This plan while unorthodox would show that MAGA cannot be stopped by any procedural rule.”Another supporter calling to extend the Trump era is former advisor and highly influential right-wing strategist Steve Bannon.”We want Trump in ’28,” Bannon said at CPAC. “A man like Trump comes along only once or twice in a country’s history.”Bannon, who emulated a viral Musk moment from January in making what looked like a Nazi salute from the stage, led the crowd in chants of, “We want Trump!”Trump has done nothing to tamp down the talk, even if it goes against the grain of the founding US principles.Just this Thursday, Trump asked guests at a White House event: “Should I run again?”The response was shouts of “Four more years!”No chance, say the constitutionalists.But Trump clearly is thrilled by the controversy — and sure that the crown fits.”He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” Trump wrote on Truth Social last week.The origin of the phrase, according to some historians? Napoleon Bonaparte — the French general who crowned himself emperor in 1804.

A US judge on Friday indefinitely delayed the corruption trial of New York Mayor Eric Adams but declined to immediately grant the Trump Justice Department’s extraordinary request to dismiss the charges.District Judge Dale Ho also said he had selected an outside attorney to make the case for why the charges against Adams should not be dropped.Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove asked federal prosecutors in New York last week to drop the bribery and fraud charges against Adams, an unusual move that triggered a wave of protest resignations in the Manhattan district attorney’s office and in Washington.Bove said the prosecution was restricting the Democratic mayor’s “ability to devote full attention and resources to illegal immigration and violent crime,” an argument that he repeated during a court hearing held by Ho on Wednesday.Bove’s bid to drop the charges prompted allegations that it was a quid pro quo in exchange for Adams agreeing to enforce Republican President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown — a claim denied by the mayor.Adams had been scheduled to go on trial on April 21 but Ho vacated the court date.The judge appointed Paul Clement, who served as solicitor general under former president George W. Bush, to present arguments for why the Adams indictment should not be quashed.”Normally, courts are aided in their decision-making through our system of adversarial testing, which can be particularly helpful in cases presenting unusual fact patterns or in cases of great public importance,” Ho said.In this case, “there has been no adversarial testing of the government’s position,” the judge said.Ho ordered Clement and the Justice Department to submit briefs in the case by March 7 and scheduled oral arguments for March 14.Adams has been under growing pressure to resign but has resisted calls to step aside and announced plans to run again for mayor of the largest US city in November’s election.New York Governor Kathy Hochul has said she is “deeply troubled” by the corruption charges against Adams but has so far declined to use her powers to remove him from office.The acting US attorney in Manhattan, Danielle Sassoon, and Hagan Scotten, the lead prosecutor on the Adams case, both dramatically resigned last week after being asked by the Trump Justice Department in Washington to drop the charges against the mayor.Scotten told Bove in a blistering letter that only a “fool” or a “coward” would comply with the department’s demand.Bove’s stunning incursion into an ongoing anti-corruption case involving a public official has rattled the legal community and a Justice Department that has seen a number of top officials fired, demoted or reassigned since Trump took office.

US President Donald Trump accused Ukraine Friday of talking “tough” but of having few cards to play in negotiations to end Russia’s invasion, as he continued his feud with President Volodymyr Zelensky.Trump also said it was not “very important” for Zelensky to be involved in the talks, which Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to start after an ice-breaking phone call last week.”I’ve had very good talks with Putin, and I’ve had not such good talks with Ukraine. They don’t have any cards, but they play it tough,” Trump told a gathering of US governors at the White House.”But we’re not going to let this continue,” Trump added. “We have people who’ve got to get to the table — we’ve got to get that ended.”Trump had already said earlier this week that Russia has “the cards” because it has seized large chunks of Ukraine’s territory — further spooking Kyiv and European allies who fear he will give Putin concessions for a deal.The US president is also pushing Zelensky to hand Washington preferential access to Ukraine’s mineral deposits, insisting on a return for billions of dollars in US aid to Kyiv.Zelensky refused and complained that Kyiv was being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia between Russian and US officials. Trump then erupted, calling Zelensky a “dictator without elections” and blaming Ukraine for the war.The US president continued his attacks on Friday, saying in a radio interview with Fox News ahead of his White House remarks that Zelensky’s presence in the talks was not essential.”I don’t think he’s very important to be in meetings,” Trump said. “He’s been there for three years. He makes it very hard to make deals.”- ‘Sign that deal’ -Trump again declined to blame Russia for the February 2022 invasion, saying that “Russia attacked but they shouldn’t have let him attack.”He said of Zelensky that “I’ve been watching this man for years now, as his cities get demolished… and I’ve been watching him negotiate with no cards, he has no cards, and you get sick of it.”Trump said Putin faced no pressure to make a deal.”He doesn’t have to make a deal, because if he wanted, he’d get the whole country,” Trump said.Trump separately accused French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer — who are due at the White House next week — of doing nothing to end the war. “The war’s going on, they had no meetings with Russia, no nothing — they haven’t done anything,” Trump said.”Macron’s a friend of mine, I’ve met with the prime minister and, you know, he’s a very nice guy. But nobody’s done anything.”Washington meanwhile upped the pressure on Ukraine to sign a deal giving it access to Kyiv’s rich reserves of raw earth metals and other minerals.The White House insisted Friday that Ukraine will sign the deal “in the very short term,” despite Zelensky previously rejecting it over its lack of security guarantees.”Here’s the bottom line, President Zelensky is going to sign that deal, and you will see that in the very short term,” Trump’s National Security Advisor Michael Waltz told the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) near Washington.Waltz decried critics “clutching their pearls” over the US shift on Ukraine, which has seen Trump and his top officials echo Kremlin narratives against Kyiv and Zelensky. 

The question of what really happened on February 21, 1965 when Malcolm X, an icon of the civil rights movement, was struck down in a hail of bullets in New York has haunted Americans for decades.Sixty years after the brutal slaying of the fiery civil rights leader, the killing has been thrust into the spotlight once again as his family raises demands for the “truth.”A vigil is being held Friday in memory of the “Black Power” pioneer, 60 years to the day after his death, to mark his social justice legacy. It is being staged at the Shabazz Center, the memorial and educational trust set up in the former Harlem ballroom where Malcolm X was shot at the age of 39.He was gunned down at the height of his influence and within months of the passage of federal legislation that effectively abolished racial segregation.   His heirs and admirers want to know who ordered the murder, how it could have happened in a public meeting, and whether authorities had advance knowledge of threats against the man who had been a galvanizing spokesman for the Black nationalist Nation of Islam.In their pursuit of answers, Malcolm X’s relatives are suing law enforcement and federal agencies, alleging complicity in the killing.  The family, which is demanding $100 million in damages, claims they have new bombshell evidence against the New York police, the CIA and others which they will present when the case gets underway in March.”We are looking for a long-awaited truth after 60 years,” said Ilyasah Shabazz, one of Malcolm X’s daughters.Malcolm X, also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, was killed in front of his wife and daughters when several shooters peppered him with 21 bullets as he addressed a meeting of the Organization of Afro-American Unity, which he had formed as a rival to the Nation of Islam.Malcolm X had fallen out with the Nation of Islam and the three men arrested — one detained on the scene and two others arrested later — were linked to that group.- ‘Get together again’ -Malcolm X’s family members allege that law enforcement and US intelligence deliberately withdrew police protection on the night of the shooting.Plainclothes officers failed to intervene, the lawsuit alleges, claiming intelligence agencies have subsequently worked to cover up their actions.The New York Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.”This cover-up spanned decades, blocking the Shabazz family’s access to the truth and their right to pursue justice,” said a lawyer for the family, Ben Crump.”We are making history by standing here to confront those wrongs and seeking accountability in the courts,” said Crump, who specializes in civil rights cases.The case returned to prominence in 2021 when two of the three men convicted of the murder, who had spent more than 20 years behind bars, were finally exonerated after a lengthy inquiry found that both the New York police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation had withheld key evidence.Muhammad Aziz and Khalil Islam or their families received a total $36 million in compensation from the city and the state of New York. Both are Black, as was the the third man arrested, Mujahid Abdul Halim, who later admitted involvement in the murder and said the other two were innocent.”We know who is ultimately responsible for it. The only thing we don’t know was who gave the order. We know who carried it out, but we don’t know who gave the order,” said Abdur-Rahman Muhammad, an expert on the case whose work helped exonerate the two men.Muhammad said that the family’s case relied on material that was not credible, but that “if we can determine who gave the final order then the lawsuit will have value.”He said the case held even greater resonance, coming during the presidency of a man whose agenda, Muhammad said, is “inimical” to the Black community’s interests.”The Black community needs to get back to his words and get together again to fight,” he said. 

Christie’s has launched its first-ever sale dedicated to artworks created with artificial intelligence, riding the AI revolution wave — a move by the famed auction house that has sparked anger among some artists.The sale, titled “Augmented Intelligence,” features about 20 pieces and runs online until March 5.Christie’s, like its competitor Sotheby’s, has previously offered AI-created items but had never devoted an entire sale to this medium.”AI has become more prolific in everybody’s daily lives,” said Nicole Sales Giles, Christie’s head of digital art sales.”More people understand the process and the technology behind AI and so are more readily able to appreciate AI also in creative fields,” she said.The launch of ChatGPT in November 2022 transformed public perceptions of generative artificial intelligence and opened new possibilities for its widespread use.The market is now crowded with AI models that allow users to generate drawings, animated images or photo-realistic images through simple natural language requests.The use of algorithms in the art world, it turns out, is almost as old as modern computing itself. Christie’s is offering a work by American artist Charles Csuri (1922-2022) dating from 1966.As a pioneer of computer art, he distinguished himself by using software to distort one of his hand-drawn sketches.”All artists in the fine art sense, and particularly the artists that were featured in this auction, use AI to supplement their existing practices,” said Sales Giles.The collection includes paintings, sculptures, photographs and giant screens displaying entirely digital works.Among the sale’s highlights is “Emerging Faces” (estimated to sell for up to $250,000) by American artist Pindar Van Arman, a series of nine paintings resulting from a “conversation” between two AI models.The first model paints a face on canvas while the second stops it when it recognizes a human form.- ‘Controversy and criticism’ -The sale has not been welcomed by all, and an online petition calling for its cancellation has gathered more than 6,300 signatures.Many of the submitted works “were created using AI models that are known to be trained on copyrighted work without a license,” it says.The petition says the sale contributes to the “mass theft of human artists’ work.”Several artists filed lawsuits in 2023 against generative AI startups, including popular platforms Midjourney and Stability AI, accusing them of violating intellectual property laws.Digital art heavyweight Refik Anadol, who is participating in the event with his animated creation “Machine Hallucinations,” defended the sale on X, saying the “majority of the artists in the project (are) specifically pushing and using their own datasets + their own models.”Petition signatory and illustrator Reid Southern said that at a minimum, pieces should be excluded that don’t use the artist’s own software or data — accounting for perhaps one-third of the sale, he said.”If these were oil paintings,” he said, and there “was a strong likelihood that many of them were either counterfeit or forgeries or stolen or unethical in some way, I don’t believe it would be ethical for Christie to continue the auction.”Sales Giles responded: “I’m not a copyright lawyer, so I can’t comment on the legality specifically. But the idea that artists have been looking at prior artists to influence their current work is not new.”Every new artistic movement generates controversy and criticism,” she added.”Midjourney is trained on basically the entirety of the internet,” said noted Turkish artist Sarp Kerem Yavuz, who used this software to create “Hayal,” also being auctioned at Christie’s.”There’s so much information (out there) that you cannot infringe on individual copyright,” he said.Southern, the illustrator, pushed back. “That’s essentially arguing that it’s bad to steal from one or two people, but it’s okay to steal from millions of people, right?” he said.

Pop superstar Madonna has reignited her campaign against President Donald Trump, upbraiding the US leader for calling himself “the King.”Horror author Stephen King also laid into Trump on Friday in his return to the X platform, calling the president “traitorous” over his dealings with Russian President Vladimir Putin.Trump has issued a wave of executive orders and started contacts with Putin since taking office on January 20.He declared “LONG LIVE THE KING” to end a social media message on Wednesday stating that he had killed off a New York plan to impose a peak congestion charge of $9 for cars entering much of Manhattan.The White House reposted the message on its social media with an illustration showing Trump wearing a diamond-studded crown.”I thought this country was built by Europeans, escaping living under the rule of a King, to establish a New World governed by the people,” Madonna, widely known as “The Queen of Pop,” said late Thursday on the X platform.”Currently we have a president who calls Himself Our King. If this is a joke, I’m not laughing,” added the 66-year-old singer.Madonna criticized Trump during his first term as president and took part in a demonstration by Trump opponents after his January 20 inauguration. She has highlighted attacks on LGBTQ rights by the new administration.Opponents frequently criticize Trump for adopting a regal tone. He said in his inaugural address that he was “saved by God to make America great again,” after surviving an assassination attempt in July.The Republican leader campaigned against New York’s congestion charge, the first in the United States, during his presidential campaign.The US Department of Transportation directed New York authorities this week to halt the charge. New York Governor Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said lawyers have initiated court action to halt the federal order.But Trump triumphantly said on his Truth Social platform that “CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!”King, one of the world’s best-selling authors and a prolific social media user, left the X platform of Trump ally Elon Musk three months ago saying it had become “too toxic” following Trump’s election victory.”I’m baaaaack! Did you miss me?” he said in a post Friday. “I did tbh (to be honest),” Musk responded in a post.”Just wanted to say that Trump is a traitorous, Putin-loving dipshit! Goes double for Elon!” added King, a longtime critic of the president and Musk.