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Tornadoes kill more than 20 in south-central US

Severe storms swept through the US states of Missouri and Kentucky, leaving at least 21 people dead, laying waste to local communities and cutting off electricity to nearly 200,000 people, authorities said Saturday.Kentucky governor Andy Beshear said on X that at least 14 people had died in the storms Friday night, while local officials in Missouri said another seven were dead there.Jamie Burns, 38, who lives with her husband and son in a trailer home in the town of London, Kentucky, had to seek shelter in the basement of her sister’s brick house while the storm destroyed some 100 to 200 houses in the area.”Things that have been here longer than I have, things that have been here for 30-plus years are just flat,” Burns told AFP in a phone interview, her voice quavering.”It’s wild, because you’ll look at one area and it’s just smashed… totally flattened, like, not there anymore.”Drone footage published by local media showed scenes of devastation in London, with houses leveled and reduced to splinters and tree trunks standing bare, completely shorn of branches.Beshear added that more than 100,000 people have been left without power in the state, and five counties have declared a state of emergency.Eastern Kentucky, an area historically known for its coal mines, is one of the poorest regions in the country. “A lot of us live in manufactured homes that aren’t safe for tornado weather,” said Burns.Tornadoes are spinning columns of air that touch the ground from massive cumulonimbus thunderstorm clouds.- ‘One of the worst storms’ – In Missouri, five people were killed in the large city of St. Louis, in what authorities said was one of the worst storms in its history, and two in Scott County, the State Highway Patrol said in a statement to AFP. More than 80,000 people were left without power and three shelters were opened in the area, the statement added. More severe weather was forecast for Sunday night and Monday.Asked Saturday by a reporter whether it was the worst storm ever to hit St. Louis, Mayor Cara Spencer replied: “I would describe this as one of the worst storms — absolutely. The devastation is truly heartbreaking.”She said 38 people in the city were injured and some 5,000 buildings damaged.Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe said during the same press briefing that his office was keeping the White House informed of the situation.In one St. Louis neighborhood, a church was heavily damaged, according to CBS footage, and rescue workers continued to treat victims near the building Saturday morning.”It’s horrific for a tornado to come through here and cause this much damage to the residents and also to the church,” Derrick Perkins, a pastor at the Centennial Christian Church, told CBS. “Our hearts are broken.”Bruce Madison, who also works at the church, said the community was coming together in the face of the tragedy.”Right now, we’re just praying for… everybody that they’re trying to find right now.”While there were warnings ahead of the severe weather — Beshear had protectively declared a state of emergency Friday — the latest outburst may raise questions about whether sharp cuts by the Trump administration have left National Weather Service forecasting teams dangerously understaffed, forcing some offices to curtail operations.An estimated 500 of the 4,200 NWS employees have been fired or taken early retirements this year, according to the Washington Post.The United States saw the second-highest number of tornadoes on record last year with nearly 1,800, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), trailing only 2004.

India and US at odds on Kashmir truce: analysts

US President Donald Trump’s claim to have helped end fighting between arch-rivals India and Pakistan has driven a wedge between him and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, analysts say.A week since Trump announced a surprise truce between India and Pakistan to end a brief but intense conflict, New Delhi and Washington differ about the way it was achieved.The US administration thought “an intervention at this stage might give them some basic benefit in terms of highlighting Trump’s role,” Indian foreign policy expert Harsh V. Pant told AFP.”That… became the driver and in a sense the hurry which with Trump announced the ceasefire,” said Pant from the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation (ORF) think tank.Fighting began when India launched strikes on May 7 against what it called “terrorist camps” in Pakistan following an April militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir that killed 26 people.New Delhi blamed Islamabad for backing the militants it claimed were behind the attack, which Pakistan denies.Trump announced the truce after four days of missile, drone and artillery attacks from both sides, killing about 70 people, including dozens of civilians, and sent thousands fleeing.He later boasted about bringing India and Pakistan “back from the brink”, telling Fox News on Friday it was “a bigger success than I’ll ever be given credit for”.New Delhi however shrugs off these claims, which go against decades-long Indian policy that opposes foreign mediation in conflicts with Islamabad.India and Pakistan claim the currently divided Kashmir in full. New Delhi considers the Himalayan region an internal matter, with politicians long viewing external mediation as a sign of weakness.Modi’s first speech since the ceasefire did not mention US involvement and his government has since insisted that talks with Pakistan are “strictly bilateral”.India was also quick to dismiss Trump’s suggestion that trade pressures hastened a truce.”The issue of trade did not come up” in discussions with US officials, the Indian foreign ministry said this week.- ‘Upstaged’ -According to ORF fellow Manoj Joshi, Trump’s rhetoric is “irritating” for India — whose strategic location and massive market size have made the country an important ally for the United States.But India is being “very cautious” because it is in negotiations for a trade deal with Washington to avoid steep tarriffs, he said.”We (India) would like the agenda to go in a different direction,” said Joshi.It is also a thorny matter domestically. Main opposition Congress party said Trump’s announcement had “upstaged” the Hindu nationalist leader’s “much-delayed address”.It also demanded an all-party meeting to ask whether India is changing its policy on “third-party mediation” for Kashmir, disputed between Pakistan and India. The two South Asian rivals had in the 1970s agreed to settle “differences by peaceful means through bilateral negotiations”.- ‘Irritating’ -Modi has previously poked fun at former Congress governments for “weak” responses against Pakistan in various skirmishes. “So India would obviously respond to that and deny that… about as politely as they feel they can get away with,” said South Asia researcher Pramit Pal Chaudhuri of political consultancy Eurasia Group.Trump’s claimed mediation was welcomed by Islamabad, which “needed an American intervention to give them the off-ramp they needed to get out of a conflict”, Chaudhuri added.On Thursday, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar reaffirmed that “where Pakistan is concerned, our relations, our dealings with them will be bilateral, and strictly bilateral.”But the same day, speaking from Qatar, Trump repeated claims of brokering a ceasefire and using trade as a tool.”(I said) let’s do trade instead of war. And Pakistan was very happy with that, and India was very happy with that,” Trump said in his speech.It has been a decade since Modi last met a Pakistani leader. Since then, relations have deteriorated, coming to a head when India unilaterally revoked Kashmir’s limited autonomy in 2019.According to Joshi, “the hyphenation of India and Pakistan” is also “irritating” for New Delhi, which has tried to carve out a separate identity on the global stage.”The optics of Trump hammering it day after day… is politically damaging for Modi,” Sushant Singh, a former Indian soldier and South Asian studies lecturer at Yale University, wrote on X.”(Modi) can’t personally counter Trump, and despite attempts by India’s big media to play it down, social media amplifies Trump,” Singh said.

Musk’s xAI blames ‘unauthorized’ tweak for ‘white genocide’ posts

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup has blamed an “unauthorized modification” for causing its chatbot Grok to generate misleading and unsolicited posts referencing “white genocide” in South Africa.The chatbot, developed by Musk’s company xAI, ignited controversy this week by answering multiple user prompts with right-wing propaganda about the purported oppression of white South Africans.”How many times has HBO changed their name?” one X user asked the bot, according to online screen shots.The bot gave a short reply about HBO, but quickly launched into a rant about “white genocide” and cited the anti-apartheid chant “kill the Boer.”In response to one user who asked why Grok was obsessed with the topic, the chatbot replied it was “instructed by my creators at xAI to address the topic of ‘white genocide.'”Musk, the South African-born boss of Tesla and SpaceX, has previously accused South Africa’s leaders of “openly pushing for genocide of white people in South Africa.”In a statement, xAI blamed an “unauthorized modification” to Grok, which the company said directed it to provide a specific response that “violated xAI’s internal policies and core values.”Following a “thorough investigation,” it was implementing measures to make Grok’s system prompts public, change its review processes and put in place a “24/7 monitoring team” to address future incidents, it added.After a backlash on X, Grok began deleting the controversial replies.When one user questioned the deletions, the bot said: “It’s unclear why responses are being deleted without specific details, but X’s moderation policies likely play a role.””The ‘white genocide in South Africa’ topic is sensitive, often involving misinformation or hate speech, which violates platform rules,” it added.- ‘Not reliable’ -The digital faux pas exposes the challenges of moderating the responses of AI chatbots –- a rapidly-evolving technology — in a misinformation-filled internet landscape, as tech experts call for stronger regulation.”Grok’s odd, unrelated replies are a reminder that AI chatbots are still a nascent technology, and may not always be a reliable source for information,” the site Tech Crunch wrote.”In recent months, AI model providers have struggled to moderate the responses of their AI chatbots, which have led to odd behaviors.”Earlier this year, OpenAI’s chief executive Sam Altman said he was rolling back an update to ChatGPT that caused the chatbot to be overly sycophantic.Grok, which Musk promised would be an “edgy” truthteller following its launch in 2023, has been mired in controversy.In March, xAI acquired the platform X in a $33 billion deal that allowed the company to integrate the platform’s data resources with the chatbot’s development.The investigative outlet Bellingcat recently discovered that X users were using Grok to create non-consensual sexual imagery, leveraging the bot to undress women in photos they posted on the platform.Last August, five US states sent an open letter to Musk, urging him to fix Grok after it churned out election misinformation.In another embarrassment for Musk, the chatbot recently suggested the billionaire was likely the “biggest disinformation spreader on X.””The evidence leans toward Musk due to his ownership of X and active role in amplifying misinformation, especially on elections and immigration,” the chatbot wrote.As many X users turn to Grok to verify information, the chatbot has in multiple instances fact-checked false Russian disinformation claims and ruled they were true, according to the disinformation watchdog NewsGuard.”The growing reliance on Grok as a fact-checker comes as X and other major tech companies have scaled back investments in human fact-checkers,” NewsGuard researcher McKenzie Sadeghi told AFP.”Despite this apparent growing reliance on the technology for fact checks, our research has repeatedly found that AI chatbots are not reliable sources for news and information, particularly when it comes to breaking news.”

US loses last triple-A credit rating as Moody’s cuts over govt debt

The United States lost its last triple-A credit rating from a major agency Friday as Moody’s announced a downgrade, citing rising levels of government debt and dealing a blow to Donald Trump’s narrative of economic strength and prosperity.The downgrade to Aa1 from Aaa adds to the bad news for the US president, coming on the same day his flagship spending bill failed to pass a key vote in Congress due to opposition from several Republican fiscal hawks.Explaining its decision, the ratings agency noted “the increase over more than a decade in government debt and interest payment ratios to levels that are significantly higher than similarly rated sovereigns.”Moody’s warned it expects federal deficits to widen to almost nine percent of economic output by 2035, up from 6.4 percent last year, “driven mainly by increased interest payments on debt, rising entitlement spending, and relatively low revenue generation.”As a result, it expects the federal debt burden to increase to about 134 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2035, compared to 98 percent last year.The White House took to X to push back, with communications director Steven Cheung singling out the chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, Mark Zandi, for criticism.”Nobody takes his ‘analysis’ seriously. He has been proven wrong time and time again,” Cheung posted.- ‘Fiscal house is not in order’ -Moody’s decision to downgrade the United States from its top credit rating mirrors similar decisions from the two other major US ratings agencies, S&P and Fitch.S&P was the first to cut its rating for the United States back in 2011, during Barack Obama’s first term in office, citing its concerns that a debt management plan “would be necessary to stabilize the government’s medium-term debt dynamics.”Twelve years later, Fitch followed suit, warning of “a steady deterioration in standards of governance over the last 20 years, including on fiscal and debt matters.”Moody’s echoed its peers in its decision Friday, noting in a statement that “successive US administrations and Congress have failed to agree on measures to reverse the trend of large annual fiscal deficits and growing interest costs.””We do not believe that material multi-year reductions in mandatory spending and deficits will result from current fiscal proposals under consideration,” it added, flagging that it expected larger deficits to continue over the next decade.America’s “fiscal performance is likely to deteriorate relative to its own past and compared to other highly-rated sovereigns,” Moody’s said. For Republican congressman French Hill, who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, the Moody’s downgrade “is a strong reminder that our nation’s fiscal house is not in order.”House Republicans “are committed to taking steps to restore fiscal stability, address the structural drivers of our debt, and foster a pro-growth economic environment,” he said.Brendan Boyle, the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said the downgrade “is a direct warning: our fiscal outlook is deteriorating, and House Republicans are determined to make it worse.””The question is whether Republicans are ready to wake up to the damage they’re causing,” Boyle said.The Moody’s decision comes amid a tough fight in Congress to pass Trump’s much-touted “big, beautiful” spending bill, which aims to revamp and renew a roughly $5 trillion extension of his 2017 tax relief, paid for at least partially through deep cuts to the Medicaid health insurance program that covers more than 70 million low-income people.On Friday, the agency also changed its outlook from “negative” to “stable,” noting that despite the United States’ poor record tackling rising government debt levels, the country “retains exceptional credit strengths such as the size, resilience and dynamism of its economy and the role of the US dollar as global reserve currency.”

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs trial: Takeaways from first week of testimony

The first week of testimony in the sex trafficking trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs included a witness core to the case: Casandra Ventura, the music mogul’s ex-girlfriend who accuses him of harrowing abuse, coercion and rape.Combs, 55, is facing federal charges of sex trafficking and leading an illegal sex ring that enforced its power with crimes including arson, kidnapping and bribery — and faces life in prison if convicted.Here are takeaways from the trial’s first week, which is expected to last upwards of another two months.- Key witness Ventura -Ventura, the 38-year-old singer known as “Cassie,” took the stand as a star witness mere weeks before she is due to give birth to her third child. She was largely composed but at times openly wept as she recounted degrading sex parties she said Combs coerced her into for years, at times weekly.Combs would direct her to take drugs before the elaborately choreographed sex that routinely involved male escorts, which he dubbed “freak-offs.”The drugs were a “buffer” to withstand the “humiliating” and often-filmed sexual encounters, Ventura said.The jury was repeatedly shown disturbing surveillance footage of Combs brutally beating and dragging Ventura.It was a regular experience, she told jurors. “He would mash me in my head, knock me over, drag me, kick me, stomp me on the head if I was down.”- Drugs, sex and violence -The defense acknowledged violence played a role in the relationship but said both of them were party to it.They showed jurors reams of text messages in a bid to cast Ventura as a willing participant in the freak-offs. Their relationship was tumultuous and had toxic qualities, the defense admitted, but they showed loving — and sexually graphic — texts to indicate that it was still based on a foundation of love.Ventura didn’t deny that, but she said that love — along with her reputation and career — was also a chip Combs played to control her and force her into freak-offs against her will.The defense spent significant time on issues of drug abuse, with Ventura testifying that both she and Combs were opioid addicts.Combs’s counsel implied that withdrawal symptoms and “bad” batches of party drugs could have resulted in erratic behavior.- Domestic abuse vs trafficking -There’s no question that physical assault was part of Combs and Ventura’s relationship: it’s evident in the widely publicized surveillance footage from the hotel incident that was already seared into the public consciousness prior to trial.But the defense contends that while Ventura’s relationship with Combs included domestic abuse, it did not amount to sex trafficking. She behaved erratically and even violently herself, they said.Ventura was the first of two anticipated witnesses — the other is anonymously identified as Jane — included in the sex trafficking charges Combs faces.During opening statements Combs’s defense lawyer Teny Geragos called Combs’s accusers “capable, strong adult women,” and said his situation with Ventura was a “toxic relationship” but “between two people who loved each other.”- Combs familial entourage -Lawyers on both sides as well as Ventura have described Combs as “larger than life.” The artist made hundreds of millions in the music, fashion, media and liquor industries and is often credited with helping to take hip-hop mainstream.But the rap producer and global superstar once famous for his lavish parties now appears visibly aged after months in prison, his once jet-black hair now gray.His court entourage has included his mother along with a rotating cast of his seven children, including his 18-year-old twin daughters.- What’s next -To successfully convict Combs prosecutors must prove that he ran a criminal enterprise in which he and employees conspired to do his bidding at all costs.The government also alleges that Combs sex-trafficked Ventura and Jane through coercion or force.The prosecution is expected to show that Combs’s inner circle committed or helped with crimes at his behest, including sex crimes but also arson and kidnapping.Other witnesses have included a former hotel security guard who responded to a distress call from Ventura after a freak-off, a male escort who participated in the sex parties, and a special agent who was present for Combs’s arrest last year.Currently on the stand is Dawn Richard — a singer who found fame on MTV’s reality show “Making the Band,” which Combs produced. Richard previously filed a separate civil suit against Combs alleging sexual assault and battery.After that, prosecutors indicated Kerry Morgan, Ventura’s former but longtime best friend, and Ventura’s mother are expected to testify.

Manhunt in US tourist hub New Orleans after 10 escape jail

Ten prisoners escaped a New Orleans jail early Friday after breaking through a wall behind a toilet, law enforcement said, slipping away without being detected until hours later.A manhunt is underway in the tourist hub, the southern state of Louisiana’s largest city, for nine fugitives who police say “are considered to be armed and dangerous.” One inmate is back in custody after being found hiding under a car in a tourist area Friday morning.Shortly after midnight (0500 GMT), the inmates broke through a wall behind a toilet, worked their way through the jail, then jumped over an enclosure wall, escaping the facility undetected until 8:30 am. That’s when a headcount revealed they were gone.At first, law enforcement erroneously said 11 inmates had escaped, but the number was later revised to 10.Media reports said some of the men are accused of murder, and circulated a photograph of the inside of a cell after the escape. The photo showed a rectangular hole leading out of a cell, the wall above it scrawled with obscene graffiti that says “we innocent,” “we out” and “to (sic) easy.”

Trump calls ex-FBI chief a ‘dirty cop’ after alleged threat

Donald Trump labeled former FBI director James Comey a “dirty cop” Friday over a social media post that the US president deemed a veiled call for assassination and which prompted a Secret Service probe.Comey made a now-deleted post on Instagram the previous day that showed an image of “86 47” spelled out in sea shells, with “86” being slang for kill and Trump the 47th president.”He knew exactly what that meant,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News broadcast on Friday. “That meant assassination, and it says it loud and clear. Now, he wasn’t very competent, but he was competent enough to know what that meant.””He’s calling for the assassination of the president,” Trump said, branding Comey “a dirty cop.”Comey said Thursday on Instagram that he posted “a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message.””I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down,” he said.Trump administration officials were unconvinced, with Department of Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem saying DHS and the US Secret Service — which is charged with protecting the president — were investigating and “will respond appropriately.”FBI Director Kash Patel meanwhile said the law enforcement agency was “in communication with the Secret Service” and that it would “provide all necessary support.”And Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said Comey had “issued a call to action to murder the president of the United States,” adding: “We fully support the Secret Service investigation into Comey’s threat on President Trump’s life.”On Friday, US media reported Comey was questioned by the Secret Service over his post.Trump was wounded in the ear during an assassination attempt at a campaign rally last July in Butler, Pennsylvania, and has faced other threats.Comey and Trump have a contentious history, with the president firing him in 2017 as the FBI chief was leading a probe into whether Trump’s aides colluded with Moscow to sway the presidential vote the previous year.Democrats suspected Trump was seeking to hamper that investigation, but the president said his decision was motivated strictly by Comey’s mishandling of a high-stakes probe into the emails of his presidential rival, Hillary Clinton.

Trump blasts Supreme Court over block on deportations

US President Donald Trump lashed out Friday at the Supreme Court after it blocked his bid to resume deportations of alleged Venezuelan gang members, saying the justices are “not allowing me to do what I was elected to do.”Trump’s berating of the high court, in a post on Truth Social, came after it dealt another setback to his attempt to swiftly expel alleged Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang members using an obscure wartime law, the 1798 Alien Enemies Act (AEA).Trump has been at loggerheads with the judiciary ever since he returned to the White House, venting his fury at numerous court rulings at various levels that have frozen his executive orders on multiple issues.In a 7-2 decision, the conservative-majority Supreme Court, which includes three justices nominated by Trump, blocked his bid to use the AEA to carry out further deportations of TdA members, saying they were not being given enough time to legally contest their removal.Trump, who campaigned for the White House on a pledge to deport millions of undocumented migrants, said the Supreme Court decision means the government will have to go through a “long, protracted, and expensive Legal Process” to expel “murderers, drug dealers (and) gang members.””The Supreme Court of the United States is not allowing me to do what I was elected to do,” he said. “This is a bad and dangerous day for America!”Trump invoked the AEA, which was last used to round up Japanese-Americans during World War II, in March to deport a first group of alleged TdA members to a notorious prison in El Salvador without due process.Attorneys for several of the deported Venezuelans have said their clients were not gang members, had committed no crimes and were targeted largely on the basis of their tattoos.The Supreme Court intervened on April 19 to temporarily block further deportations of undocumented Venezuelan migrants, saying they must be afforded due process.In Friday’s unsigned order, the court paused plans to deport another group of detainees held in Texas, saying they were not being given enough time to mount a meaningful legal challenge to their expulsion.”Notice roughly 24 hours before removal, devoid of information about how to exercise due process rights to contest that removal, surely does not pass muster,” the justices said.Conservative justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented. Trump thanked them in his Truth Social post for “attempting to protect our Country.”- ‘More notice’ -The justices also noted that a Salvadoran man had been deported to El Salvador “in error” along with the alleged TdA members in March and the Trump administration has claimed “it is unable to provide for (his) return.”The justices stressed they were not deciding whether Trump could legally use the AEA to deport undocumented migrants, and they ordered a lower court to “expeditiously” examine the question.”To be clear, we decide today only that the detainees are entitled to more notice than was given,” they said.”We did not on April 19 — and do not now — address the underlying merits of the parties’ claims regarding the legality of removals under the AEA.”We recognize the significance of the Government’s national security interests as well as the necessity that such interests be pursued in a manner consistent with the Constitution,” they said.Three federal district court judges have ruled that Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to carry out deportations was unconstitutional while one, a Trump appointee, said it was permissible.In invoking the AEA, Trump said TdA was engaged in “hostile actions” and “threatening an invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States.”Since taking office, Trump has sent troops to the Mexican border, imposed tariffs on Mexico and Canada for allegedly not doing enough to stop illegal crossings, and designated gangs like TdA and MS-13 as terrorist groups.

US loses last triple-A credit rating as Moody’s cuts on growing govt debt

The United States lost its last triple-A credit rating from a major agency on Friday as Moody’s announced a downgrade, citing rising levels of government debt and dealing a blow to Donald Trump’s narrative of economic strength and prosperity.The downgrade to Aa1 from Aaa adds to the bad news for the US president, coming on the same day his flagship spending bill failed to pass a key vote in Congress due to opposition from several Republican fiscal hawks.Explaining its decision, the ratings agency noted “the increase over more than a decade in government debt and interest payment ratios to levels that are significantly higher than similarly rated sovereigns.” In its decision, Moody’s warned that it expects federal deficits to widen to almost nine percent of economic output by 2035, up from 6.4 percent last year, “driven mainly by increased interest payments on debt, rising entitlement spending, and relatively low revenue generation.”As a result, it expects the federal debt burden to increase to “about” 134 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2035, compared to 98 percent last year.Moody’s decision to downgrade the United States from its top credit rating mirrors similar decisions from the two other major US ratings agencies, S&P and Fitch.S&P was the first to cut its rating for the United States back in 2011, during Barack Obama’s first term in office, citing its concerns that a debt management plan “would be necessary to stabilize the government’s medium-term debt dynamics.”Twelve years later, Fitch followed suit, warning of “a steady deterioration in standards of governance over the last 20 years, including on fiscal and debt matters.”Moody’s echoed its peers in its decision Friday, noting in a statement that “successive US administrations and Congress have failed to agree on measures to reverse the trend of large annual fiscal deficits and growing interest costs.””We do not believe that material multi-year reductions in mandatory spending and deficits will result from current fiscal proposals under consideration,” it added, flagging that it expected larger deficits to continue over the next decade. “The US’ fiscal performance is likely to deteriorate relative to its own past and compared to other highly-rated sovereigns,” Moody’s said. The Moody’s decision comes amid a tough fight in Congress to pass Trump’s much-touted “big, beautiful” spending bill, which aims to revamp and renew a roughly $5 trillion extension of his 2017 tax relief, paid for at least partially through deep cuts to the Medicaid health insurance program that covers more than 70 million low-income people.On Friday, the agency also changed its outlook from “negative” to “stable,” noting that despite the United States’ poor record tackling rising government debt levels, the country “retains exceptional credit strengths such as the size, resilience and dynamism of its economy and the role of the US dollar as global reserve currency.”

Combs’s ex Cassie wraps grim week of testimony

Casandra Ventura, the ex-girlfriend of music mogul Sean Combs, on Friday finished four grueling days on the witness stand in his sex trafficking trial, testifying in graphic, deeply personal terms about years of abuse including rape.Combs is facing federal charges of sex trafficking and leading an illegal sex ring that enforced its power with crimes including arson, kidnapping and bribery — and Ventura’s testimony is core to the prosecution’s case.Ventura — the singer known as Cassie, who is heavily pregnant with her third child — told jurors that Combs raped, beat and forced her into degrading, drug-fueled sex parties dubbed “freak-offs” throughout their decade-plus relationship.In the final stretch of her testimony in a Manhattan courtroom, Ventura faced a blitz of questions over a $20 million settlement she received from Combs in a separate civil case prior to the start of criminal proceedings. She said she was also set to receive $10 million in another settlement with the Intercontinental Hotel, where Combs assaulted her in a 2016 incident caught on camera that was aired in open court.Ventura remained largely composed throughout the week but broke down near the end of her testimony.”I’d give that money back if I never had to do freak-offs,” she said through tears in an emotional crescendo, referring to the marathon sex parties with male escorts she says Combs systematically subjected her to.”I would have had agency and autonomy. I wouldn’t have had to work so hard to get it back,” she said.She said Combs’s treatment of her made her feel “worthless.”The defense sought to tarnish her credibility with painstaking readings of years-old text messages between the couple, emphasizing that she stayed with Combs despite the alleged abuse, and pointing to times when she had acted violently.”I will kill you,” Ventura was heard saying in an audio recording to a man she believed had a video of a freak-off.Defense lawyer Anna Estevao highlighted tender text exchanges, and implied drug addiction had played a key role in Combs’s rage.Ventura insisted there was subtext to many of the suggestive or keen messages she sent to Combs over the years, and that she often felt pressured into freak-offs with the music industry heavyweight, especially as she was signed to his label.”I worried for my safety. I worried for my career. But I also was in love with him, so I worried that he wouldn’t want to be with me” if she didn’t comply with his demands, she said.- ‘Extremely challenging’ -Ventura’s lawyer Douglas Wigdor read a statement on her behalf, after she wearily left the courtroom holding her belly.”This week has been extremely challenging, but also remarkably empowering and healing,” she said.She said she hoped her testimony would help other abuse survivors and asked for privacy as she prepares to give birth.”I am glad to put this chapter of my life to rest,” she said.In a separate statement, also read by Wigdor, Ventura’s husband Alex Fine praised her “strength and bravery” while adding he felt “profound anger” as he sat in court “in front of a person who tried to break her.”Combs initially introduced Fine and Ventura, who already have two children together, it was stated in court.- Many weeks to come -Combs, 55, made hundreds of millions in the music, fashion, media and liquor industries and is often credited with helping to bring hip-hop into the mainstream.But the rap producer and global superstar once famous for his lavish parties now appears visibly aged after months in prison.He has pleaded not guilty to all charges but faces life in prison if convicted.The defense contends that while Ventura’s relationship with Combs was complicated and included domestic abuse, it did not amount to sex trafficking.Late in the day, prosecutors began questioning Dawn Richard — a singer who found fame on MTV’s reality show “Making the Band,” which Combs produced. Richard previously filed a separate civil suit against Combs alleging sexual assault and battery.She told jurors Friday she witnessed Combs attempt to hit Ventura over the head with a skillet.Proceedings are expected to continue into the summer.