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Former US President Joe Biden told reporters Friday he was feeling “optimistic” about the future after delivering his first public remarks since revealing he had an aggressive form of prostate cancer. “Well, the prognosis is good. You know, we’re working on everything. It’s moving along. So, I feel good,” Biden, 82, said after an event in Delaware belatedly marking Monday’s Memorial Day federal holiday.Biden’s office announced earlier this month he is battling prostate cancer with a Gleason score of nine, which places him in the most severe category.The veteran Democrat told reporters he had decided on a treatment regime, adding that “the expectation is, we’re going to be able to beat this.””It’s not in any organ, my bones are strong, it hasn’t penetrated. So I’m feeling good,” he said.The mental and physical health of the former president, the oldest person ever to hold the office, was a dominant issue in the 2024 election.After a disastrous debate performance against Trump, Biden ended his campaign for a second term.When Biden’s office announced his diagnosis, they said the cancer had spread to his bones.But Biden told reporters: “We’re all optimistic about the diagnosis. As a matter of fact, one of the leading surgeons in the world is working with me.”The political row over Biden’s aborted candidacy has become a major scandal since the release of the book “Original Sin” — which alleges that Biden’s White House covered up his cognitive decline while he was in office.The ex-president was asked about the controversy and responded with sarcasm, joking that “I’m mentally incompetent and I can’t walk.”He said he had no regrets about initially running for a second term, and that his Democratic critics could have challenged him but chose not to “because I’d have beaten them.”In earlier formal remarks in New Castle, Delaware, Biden spoke of his presidency as his greatest honor, and called for better treatment of veterans.But he saved his most poignant comments to mark the 10th anniversary on May 30 of his son, National Guard veteran Beau Biden, dying of brain cancer at the age of 46.”For the Bidens, this day is the 10th anniversary, the loss of my son Beau, who spent a year in Iraq,” said Biden, who had attended a memorial service for his son earlier in the day.”And, to be honest, it’s a hard day.”

US President Donald Trump said Friday that Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte were “fine,” after a viral video appeared to show her shoving the French president’s face on a trip to Vietnam.”Make sure the door remains closed,” the three-times married Trump quipped to reporters when asked if he had any “world leader to world leader marital advice” for Macron about the video. “That was not good,” added Trump, who was holding a joint press conference with billionaire Elon Musk in the Oval Office.The incident was filmed just as the door of the French presidential plane swung open after landing in Hanoi on Sunday. It showed Brigitte Macron, 72, sticking out both her hands and giving her husband’s face a shove. Macron, 47, appeared startled but quickly recovered and turns to wave through the open door.The 78-year-old US president, who has long had a “bromance” with his French counterpart, said he had been in touch with him since.”I spoke to him. He’s fine. They’re fine. They’re two really good people. I know them very well,” added Trump. “I don’t know what that was all about.”Macron himself denied on Monday that the couple had been having a domestic dispute. He blamed disinformation campaigns for trying to put false meaning on the footage.Musk, who was marking his departure from the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, meanwhile took the chance to joke at Macron’s expense.Asked about a black eye he was sporting, the tycoon replied “I wasn’t anywhere near France” to the apparent puzzlement of a reporter who asked him to explain the comment.Musk then said it was his son who caused the injury with a punch.

US President Donald Trump signaled renewed trade tensions with China Friday, arguing that Beijing had “totally violated” a tariff de-escalation deal, while saying he expects to eventually speak with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.Trump’s comments came after US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that trade talks with China were “a bit stalled,” in an interview with broadcaster Fox News.Top officials from the world’s two biggest economies agreed during talks in Geneva this month to temporarily lower staggeringly high tariffs they had imposed on each other, in a pause to last 90 days.But on Friday, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform: “China, perhaps not surprisingly to some, HAS TOTALLY VIOLATED ITS AGREEMENT WITH US,” without providing further details.The impasse came as China’s slow-walking on export license approvals for rare earths and other elements needed to make cars and chips fueled US frustration, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.Key to the tariff de-escalation pact was a demand that China resume rare earth exports, the report added, citing sources familiar with the matter.Earlier Friday, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told CNBC: “The Chinese are slow-rolling their compliance, which is completely unacceptable.”While Greer did not go into specifics, he noted reports that Beijing continues to “slow down and choke off things like critical minerals and rare earth magnets,” adding that the US trade deficit with China is still “enormous.”Greer said that Washington was not seeing major shifts in Beijing’s behavior.Trump’s deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller told reporters that with China failing to fulfill its obligations, “that opens up all manner of action for the United States to ensure future compliance.”On Thursday, Bessent suggested that there could be a call between Trump and Xi eventually.Trump told reporters Friday afternoon: “I’m sure that I’ll speak to President Xi, and hopefully we’ll work that out.”US stock markets closed mixed, after fluctuating in the day on jitters that Trump could return to a more confrontational stance on China.- Forthcoming deals? -Washington is also in “intensive talks” with other trading partners, Greer told CNBC, saying he has meetings next week with counterparts from Malaysia, Vietnam and the European Union.The meetings come as he heads to Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) talks in Europe.”The negotiations are on track, and we do hope to have some deals in the next couple of weeks,” Greer said.Washington and Tokyo are making progress towards a deal, Kyodo News reported, citing Japan’s tariffs envoy Ryosei Akazawa.Akazawa, who met with Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in Washington, expects another round of talks before mid-June.But Trump’s tariff plans are facing legal challenges.A US federal trade court ruled this week that the president overstepped his authority in tapping emergency economic powers to justify sweeping tariffs.It blocked the most wide-ranging levies imposed since Trump returned to office, although this ruling has been stayed for now as an appeals process is ongoing.The decision left intact, however, tariffs that Trump imposed on sector-specific imports such as steel and autos.Greer said it was important to get through the legal process so partners have a “better understanding of the landing zone.”Since Trump returned to the presidency, he has slapped sweeping tariffs on most US trading partners, with especially high rates on Chinese imports.New tit-for-tat levies on both sides reached three digits before the de-escalation this month, where Washington agreed to temporarily reduce additional tariffs on Chinese imports from 145 percent to 30 percent.China, meanwhile, lowered its added duties from 125 percent to 10 percent.The US level is higher as it includes a 20 percent levy that Trump imposed on Chinese goods over the country’s alleged role in the illicit drug trade — an accusation that Beijing has pushed back against.The high US-China tariffs, while still in place, forced many businesses to pause shipments as they waited for both governments to strike a deal.

Billionaire Elon Musk sparked fevered speculation when he turned up with a black eye for his Oval Office farewell with US President Donald Trump on Friday.But the South African-born tech magnate said he had a simple explanation: his son had punched him in the face.”I was just horsing around with lil’ X, and I said, ‘go ahead punch me in the face,'” 53-year-old Musk told reporters when asked how he got the shiner.”And he did. Turns out even a five-year-old punching you in the face actually is…” he added, before tailing off.”I didn’t really feel much at the time but I guess it bruises up.”Trump hosted the press conference with Musk to mark the Tesla boss’s last day at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk had expressed increasing disillusionment with the job but said he would remain a “friend and advisor.”Musk’s appearance was overshadowed by allegations in the New York Times that he had engaged in heavy drug use while on the campaign trail for Trump in 2024.Trump said he “didn’t notice” the purple bruise next to Musk’s right eye, but added: “X could do it, if you knew X.”Musk’s son X — full name X Æ A-Xii — made frequent appearances in the White House when his father was running DOGE’s cost-cutting rampage through the federal government.He even sat on Musk’s shoulders during the SpaceX magnate’s first Oval appearance back in February, and was seen picking his nose next to Trump’s “Resolute” Desk.Musk took the chance to joke at French President Emmanuel Macron’s expense when it came to his black eye.After Trump was asked for his reaction to a video of Macron’s wife apparently shoving the French leader’s face, Musk laughed and said: “I’ve got a little shiner here.”Musk, wearing a DOGE baseball cap and a T-shirt saying “The Dogefather,” joked about it again when he was asked how he got the injury.”I wasn’t anywhere near France,” he said.

Google on Friday urged a US judge to reject the notion of making it spin off its Chrome browser to weaken its dominance in online search.Rival attorneys made their final arguments before US District Court Judge Amit Mehta, who is considering “remedies” to impose after making a landmark decision last year that Google maintained an illegal monopoly in search.US government attorneys have called on Mehta to order Google divest itself of Chrome browser, contending that artificial intelligence is poised to ramp up the tech giant’s dominance as the go-to window into the internet.They also want Google barred from agreements with partners such as Apple and Samsung to distribute its search tools, which was the focus of the suit against the Silicon Valley internet giant.Three weeks of testimony ended early in May, with Friday devoted to rival sides parsing points of law and making their arguments before Mehta in a courtroom in Washington.John Schmidtlein, an attorney for Google, told Mehta that there was no evidence presented showing people would have opted for a different search engine if no exclusivity deals had been in place.Schmidtlein noted that Verizon installed Chrome on smartphones even though the US telecom titan owned Yahoo! search engine and was not bound by a contract with Google.Of the 100 or so witnesses heard at trial, not one said “if I had more flexibility, I would have installed Bing” search engine from Microsoft, the Google attorney told the judge.- ‘More flexibility’ -Department of Justice (DoJ) attorney David Dahlquist countered that Apple, which was paid billions of dollars to make Chrome the default browser on iPhones, “repeatedly asked for more flexibility” but was denied by Google.Google contends that the United States has gone way beyond the scope of the suit by recommending a spinoff of Chrome, and holding open the option to force a sale of its Android mobile operating system.”Forcing the sale of Chrome or banning default agreements wouldn’t foster competition,” said Cato Institute senior fellow in technology policy Jennifer Huddleston.”It would hobble innovation, hurt smaller players, and leave users with worse products.”The potential of Chrome being weakened or spun off comes as rivals such as Microsoft, ChatGPT and Perplexity put generative artificial intelligence (AI) to work fetching information from the internet in response to user queries.The online search antitrust suit was filed against Google some five years ago, before ChatGPT made its debut, triggering AI fervor.Google is among the tech companies investing heavily to be a leader in AI, and is weaving the technology into search and other online offerings.- Kneecap Google? -Testimony at trial included Apple vice president of services Eddy Cue revealing that Google’s search traffic on Apple devices declined in April for the first time in over two decades.Cue testified that Google was losing ground to AI alternatives like ChatGPT and Perplexity.Mehta pressed rival attorneys regarding the potential for Google to share data as proposed by the DoJ in its recommended remedies.”We’re not looking to kneecap Google,” DoJ attorney Adam Severt told the judge.”But, we are looking to make sure someone can compete with Google.”Schmidtlein contended that the data Google is being asked to share contains much more than just information about people’s online searches, saying it would be tantamount to handing over the fruit of investments made over the course of decades.”There are countless algorithms that Google engineers have invented that have nothing to do with click and query data,” Schmidtlein said.”Their remedy says we want to be on par with all of your ingenuity, and, respectfully your honor, that is not proportional to the conduct of this case.”

French scientist Etienne-Emile Baulieu, the inventor of the abortion pill, died at the age of 98 at his home in Paris on Friday, his wife told AFP.The doctor and researcher, who achieved worldwide renown for his work that led to the pill, had an eventful life that included fighting in the French resistance and becoming friends with artists such as Andy Warhol.”His research was guided by his commitment to the progress made possible by science, his dedication to women’s freedom, and his desire to enable everyone to live better, longer lives,” Baulieu’s wife Simone Harari Baulieu said in a statement. French President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to his life, calling him “a beacon of courage” and “a progressive mind who enabled women to win their freedom”.”Few French people have changed the world to such an extent,” he added in a post on X.Baulieu’s most famous discovery helped create the oral drug RU-486, also known as mifepristone, which provided a safe and inexpensive alternative to surgical abortion to millions of women across the world.For decades, he pushed governments to authorise the drug, facing fierce criticism and sometimes threats from opponents of abortion. When Wyoming became the first US state to outlaw the abortion pill in 2023, Baulieu told AFP it was “scandalous”.Then aged 96, Baulieu said he had dedicated a large part of his life to “increasing the freedom of women,” and such bans were a step in the wrong direction.On news of his death, French Equality Minister Aurore Berge passed on her condolences to Baulieu’s family, saying on X he was “guided throughout his life by one requirement: human dignity.”- ‘Fascinated by artists’ -Born on December 12, 1926 in Strasbourg to Jewish parents, Etienne Blum was raised by his feminist mother after his father, a doctor, died.He changed his name to Emile Baulieu when he joined the French resistance against Nazi occupation at the age of 15, then later adding Etienne.After the war, he became a self-described “doctor who does science,” specialising in the field of steroid hormones.Invited to work in the United States, Baulieu was noticed in 1961 by Gregory Pincus, known as the father of the contraceptive pill, who convinced him to focus on sex hormones.Back in France, Baulieu designed a way to block the effect of the hormone progesterone, which is essential for the egg to implant in the uterus after fertilisation.This led to the development of mifepristone in 1982.Dragged before the courts and demonised by US anti-abortion groups who accused him of inventing a “death pill”, Baulieu refused to back down.”Adversity slides off him like water off a duck’s back,” Simone Harari Baulieu told AFP.”You, a Jew and a resistance fighter, you were overwhelmed with the most atrocious insults and even compared to Nazi scientists,” Macron said as he presented Baulieu with France’s top honour in 2023.”But you held on, for the love of freedom and science.”In the 1960s, literature fan Baulieu became friends with artists such as Andy Warhol.He said he was “fascinated by artists who claim to have access to the human soul, something that will forever remain beyond the reach of scientists.”- Alzheimer’s, depression research -Baulieu kept going into his Parisian office well into his mid-90s.”I would be bored if I did not work anymore,” he said in 2023.His recent research has included trying to find a way to prevent the development of Alzheimer’s disease, as well as a treatment for severe depression, for which clinical trials are currently underway across the world.”There is no reason we cannot find treatments” for both illnesses, he said.Baulieu was also the first to describe how the hormone DHEA secreted from adrenal glands in 1963. He was convinced of the hormone’s anti-ageing abilities, but drugs using it only had limited effects, such as in skin-firming creams.In the United States, Baulieu was also awarded the prestigious Lasker prize in 1989.After his wife Yolande Compagnon died, Baulieu married Simone Harari in 2016.He leaves behind three children, eight grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren, according to the statement released by his family.

Pop sensation Taylor Swift, who was locked in a feud with record executives since 2019 over ownership of her music, has bought back the rights to her entire back catalog, she said Friday.”All of the music I’ve ever made … now belongs … to me,” she wrote on her website, after years of disputes over her first six albums, a number of which she rerecorded to create copies she owns herself.”To say this is my greatest dream come true is actually being pretty reserved about it,” she wrote in the letter to her devoted followers.”To my fans, you know how important this has been to me — so much so that I meticulously re-recorded and released four of my albums, calling them Taylor’s Version.”Those records included the award-winning “Reputation” and “Taylor Swift.”Swift bought back her masters from Shamrock Capital, an LA investment firm, for an undisclosed amount.The re-recording power move came in the wake of public sparring with industry mogul Scooter Braun, her one-time manager whose company had purchased her previous label and gained a majority stake in her early work.He later sold Swift’s master rights to the private equity company.- ‘This fight’ -The situation left Swift publicly incensed: “I just feel that artists should own their work,” she said in 2019.”She’s a vocal advocate for artists’ rights,” Ralph Jaccodine, a professor at the Berklee College of Music, told AFP previously.  “She’s built her own brand.”Before her public efforts to regain control of her work, Prince, George Michael, Jay-Z and Kanye West all also fought for control of their masters — one-of-a-kind source material that dictate how songs are reproduced and sold — but none had gone so far as to re-record them completely.The queen of pop, whose recent nearly two-year-long, $2 billion Eras tour shattered records, said that she was “heartened by the conversations this saga has reignited within my industry.”Swift’s lucrative tour which wrapped last year was a showbusiness sensation, and will have helped offset the costs of buying back her catalog.The 149 shows across the world typically clocked in at more than three hours long each.Tour tickets sold for sometimes exorbitant prices and drew in millions of fans, along with many more who didn’t get in and were willing to simply sing along from the parking lot.”Every time a new artist tells me they negotiated to own their master recordings in their record contract because of this fight, I’m reminded of how important it was for all this to happen,” Swift said in her letter.

Pop sensation Taylor Swift, locked in a feud with record executives since 2019 over ownership of her music, has bought back the rights to her entire back catalog, she said Friday.”All of the music I’ve ever made … now belongs … to me,” she wrote on her website, after years of dispute over her first six albums, a number of which she has rerecorded to create copies she owns herself.”To say this is my greatest dream come true is actually being pretty reserved about it,” she wrote in the letter penned to fans. “To my fans, you know how important this has been to me — so much so that I meticulously re-recorded and released four of my albums, calling them Taylor’s Version.”Thos records included the award-winning “Reputation” and “Taylor Swift.”Swift bought back her masters from Shamrock Capital, an LA investment firm, for an undisclosed amount.The queen of pop, whose recent nearly two-year-long, $2 billion Eras tour shattered records, said that she was “heartened by the conversations this saga has reignited within my industry.”Swift’s ultra-lucrative tour which wrapped last year was a showbusiness sensation, and will have helped offset the costs of buying back her catalog.The 149 shows across the world typically clocked in at more than three hours long each.Eras tour tickets sold for sometimes exorbitant prices and drew in millions of fans, along with many more who didn’t get in and were willing to simply sing along from the parking lot.

Elon Musk faced accusations Friday that he used so much ketamine on the 2024 campaign trail that he developed bladder problems, as the billionaire prepared to give a farewell press conference with Donald Trump.A New York Times report that Musk’s drug use had caused concerns was published just hours before he was to appear with Trump in the White House on his last day as the US government’s cost cutter-in-chief.The newspaper said the world’s richest man also took ecstasy and mushrooms and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).The South African-born tech tycoon, the biggest donor to Trump’s 2024 election campaign, told people that ketamine, an anesthetic that can cause dissociation, had affected his bladder, the NYT added, noting that it was a known effect of long-term use.Space X and Tesla boss Musk did not immediately comment, but the White House played down the report.Asked if he was concerned about alleged drug use by Musk, Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller told reporters: “The drugs that we’re concerned about are the drugs running across the southern border.”Trump’s administration has pledged to crack down on migration and the flow of the opiate fentanyl from Mexico.Miller separately told CNN when asked if Musk had been drug tested while working for the White House: “You’ll have the opportunity to ask Elon all the questions you want today yourself.”Musk has previously admitted to taking ketamine, saying he was prescribed it to treat a “negative frame of mind” and suggesting his use of drugs benefited his work.- ‘Terrific’ -The latest claims will add to the challenge of putting a positive spin on Musk’s departure after just four turbulent months.Trump has announced a joint press conference in the Oval Office at 1.30 pm (1730 GMT). The president praised the “terrific” Musk on Thursday and insisted that his influence would continue despite him returning to his companies.”This will be his last day, but not really, because he will, always, be with us, helping all the way,” Trump said on his Truth Social network.But the news conference will be a far cry from Musk’s first appearance in the Oval Office in February, when he brought his young son with him and outshone even the attention-seeking president himself.At the time the 53-year-old was almost inseparable from Trump, glued to his side on Air Force One, Marine One, in the White House and at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.Yet Musk is now leaving Trump’s administration under a cloud, after admitting disillusionment with his role and criticizing the Republican president’s spending plans.- ‘Disappointed’ -The right-wing magnate’s DOGE led an ideologically-driven rampage through the federal government, with its young “tech bros” slashing tens of thousands of jobs.It has also shuttered whole departments including the US Agency for International Development (USAID), leading to huge cuts in foreign aid that critics say will hit some of the world’s poorest people and help US rivals.But DOGE’s achievements fell far short of Musk’s boasts when he blazed into Washington brandishing a chainsaw at a conservative event and bragged that it would be easy to cut two trillion dollars.In reality, the independent “Doge Tracker” site has counted just $12 billion in savings while the Atlantic magazine put it far lower, at $2 billion.Musk’s “move fast and break things” mantra was also at odds with some of his cabinet colleagues, and he said earlier this week that he was “disappointed” in Trump’s planned mega tax and spending bill as it undermined DOGE’s cuts.Musk’s companies, meanwhile, have suffered.Tesla shareholders called for him to return to work as sales slumped and protests targeted the electric vehicle maker, while Space X had a series of fiery rocket failures.