AFP USA

The banking industry is pushing back against White House-aligned crypto companies seeking to expand their business to Main Street customers in the United States.At the heart of the battle being waged by some of Washington’s most powerful lobbies is control over several trillions of dollars in banking deposits and a debate over whether crypto companies can offer an alternative place to stash cash.The crypto industry has long had a complicated and adversarial relationship with traditional banks, a distrust dating back to the birth of the crypto movement in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Crypto believers fear that banks are trying to derail their rise.The current battle centers on draft legislation — the Clarity Act — that would allow crypto players to offer cash rewards to stablecoin holders, boosting their ability to lure customers away from traditional banks.According to the American Banking Association, these incentives would endanger the $6.6 trillion in deposits parked in traditional banks, especially lenders smaller than the national giants JPMorgan Chase or Bank of America.These deposits are the lifeblood of the economy, especially in areas outside major cities, where local banks use them to finance loans to individuals, small businesses and farmers.”Community banks make 60 percent of all the small business loans in this country,” Independent Community Bankers of America CEO Rebeca Romero Rainey told AFP. “They make 80 percent of all agriculture loans. If they don’t have those deposits, where are the funds coming from to fund those loans?”Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies designed to maintain steady value by being pegged to traditional assets like cash or US government bonds — meaning they can be used reliably for transactions and transfers while bypassing banks.The crypto industry touts them as proof that crypto businesses can be trusted and aren’t necessarily high-risk or vulnerable to scams.For Bhau Kotecha, CEO and co-founder of platform Paxos Labs, banning stablecoins from offering interest “would narrow the use cases that make stablecoins compelling for mainstream adoption.”The key player in the battle is Coinbase and its CEO Brian Armstrong, who has led efforts to rehabilitate crypto’s reputation after years of scandals and a Biden administration notably skeptical of crypto’s benefits.In the runup to the 2024 election, Armstrong and Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz helped raise tens of millions of dollars for the Trump campaign and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to change Washington’s stance on crypto.The gamble paid off with the Republican sweep in November 2024.Since Donald Trump’s victory, crypto companies have seen their power and influence surge. Trump and his wife Melania each have their crypto coins, and his sons are heavily invested in the industry. One bill — the GENIUS Act — has already been signed into law, giving stablecoins long-sought legal recognition.But with the Clarity Act — a broader proposal setting the rules of the road for digital assets — the crypto industry is moving onto the banking industry’s turf.- Beware of the midterms -For banks, the risk of customers diverting deposits to stablecoins and potentially gutting their core business was too grave a threat.After their concerns were heard, the Senate Banking Committee was poised last month to pass a version of the bill that would ban stablecoins from paying interest.An irate Armstrong maneuvered to have the bill pulled, and the Clarity Act is now stuck in limbo.”We’d rather have no bill than a bad bill,” Armstrong wrote on X.The banks counter that if the crypto industry wants to operate as banks, they should apply for banking licenses and be regulated like any other lender.The White House remains confident the bill can get back on track, and warns of the consequences if the opportunity is missed and the Democratic party wins midterm elections in November.”You might not love every part of the CLARITY Act, but I can guarantee you’ll hate a future Dem version even more,” said Patrick Witt, who coordinates crypto policy at the White House.

Video sharing app TikTok has made an eleventh-hour deal to avoid a landmark US trial accusing it, along with Meta and YouTube, of addicting young people to social media, lawyers said on Tuesday.The deal was made as jury selection was to begin in a Los Angeles court that could establish a legal precedent on whether social media companies deliberately designed their platforms to addict children.The case being heard in the California state court is being called a “bellwether” proceeding because its outcome could set the tone for a tidal wave of similar litigation across the United States.The remaining defendants in the suit are Alphabet and Meta, the tech titans behind YouTube and Instagram.Meta co-founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg is slated to be called as a witness during the trial.”The parties are pleased to have reached an amicable resolution of this dispute,” the Social Media Victims Law Center said, noting that the terms of the settlement with TikTok are confidential.The case focuses on allegations that a 19-year-old woman identified by the initials K.G.M. suffered severe mental harm because she was addicted to social media.After joining YouTube at age six, Instagram at 11, Snapchat at 13, and TikTok at 14, the Californian claims to have developed an addiction to the sites that contributed to her depression, anxiety, body image issues and that stoked suicidal thoughts.Social media firms are accused in hundreds of lawsuits of addicting young users to content that has led to depression, eating disorders, psychiatric hospitalization and even suicide.Lawyers for the plaintiffs are explicitly borrowing strategies used in the 1990s and 2000s against the tobacco industry, which faced a similar onslaught of lawsuits arguing that companies sold a harmful product.The trial before Judge Carolyn Kuhl is expected to start next week after a jury is selected.- ‘Significant victory’ -“This is the first time that a social media company has ever had to face a jury for harming kids,” Social Media Victims Law Center founder Matthew Bergman, whose team is involved in more than 1,000 such cases, told AFP.The center is a legal organization dedicated to holding social media companies accountable for harms allegedly caused to young people online.”The fact that now K.G.M. and her family get to stand in a courtroom equal to the largest, most powerful and wealthy companies in the world is, in and of itself, a very significant victory,” Bergman said.Internet titans have argued that they are shielded by Section 230 of the US Communications Decency Act, which frees them of responsibility for what social media users post.However, this case argues those firms are culpable for business models designed to hold people’s attention and to promote content that winds up harming their mental health.”The allegations in these complaints are simply not true,” said Jose Castaneda, a YouTube spokesperson.”Providing young people with a safer, healthier experience has always been core to our work,” he added.Meta has also rejected the allegations.TikTok’s settlement joins Snapchat, which last week confirmed that it made a deal to avoid the trial brought by K.G.M. The terms were not disclosed.The companies face two other similar trials in the same court scheduled for later this year.Lawsuits, including some brought by school districts, accusing social media platforms of practices endangering young users are also making their way through federal court in Northern California and state courts across the country.

Relatives of two Trinidadian men killed last year in a US military strike on a boat allegedly carrying drugs filed a wrongful death lawsuit on Tuesday against the US government.It is the first such case to be brought against the Trump administration over the three dozen missile strikes in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, which have left at least 125 people dead since September.The suit, filed in a federal court in Massachusetts, is being brought by the families of Chad Joseph, 26, and Rishi Samaroo, 41, who were among six people killed in an October 14 strike in the Caribbean.President Donald Trump alleged at the time that “six male narcoterrorists” were killed in a boat allegedly ferrying drugs from Venezuela to the United States.Washington has yet to release any evidence supporting its claims that the targeted boats have links to drug cartels designated by Trump as terrorist organizations.”The United States’ unlawful killings of persons at sea including Mr Joseph and Mr Samaroo constitute wrongful deaths and extrajudicial killings,” the complaint says. “These premeditated and intentional killings lack any plausible legal justification.”Thus, they were simply murders, ordered by individuals at the highest levels of government and obeyed by military officers in the chain of command.”The case is being brought under the Death on the High Seas Act, which allows for redress for wrongful deaths at sea, and the Alien Tort Statute, which allows foreigners to file suit in US courts for rights violations.Plaintiffs in the case are Lenore Burnley, Joseph’s mother, and Sallycar Korasingh, Samaroo’s sister, and they are being represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR).The family members are seeking punitive damages, the amount of which would be determined at trial.”These are lawless killings in cold blood; killings for sport and killings for theater,” CCR legal director Baher Azmy said.The suit is “a critical step in ensuring accountability, while the individuals responsible may ultimately be answerable criminally for murder and war crimes,” Azmy added.- ‘Must be held accountable’ -In a statement, Korasingh said her brother, who had spent 15 years in prison for participation in a homicide, “was a hardworking man who paid his debt to society and was just trying to get back on his feet again.””If the US government believed Rishi had done anything wrong, it should have arrested, charged, and detained him, not murdered him,” she said.According to the complaint, neither man was affiliated with drug cartels and they were simply hitching a ride back to Trinidad from Venezuela, where they had been engaged in fishing and farm work.In December, the family of a Colombian man killed in another strike lodged a complaint with the Washington-based Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).The family of Alejandro Carranza Medina, 42, who was killed on September 15, rejected assertions there were drugs on his vessel and said he was a fisherman doing his job on the open sea.The complaint accuses the United States of violating Carranza’s right to life and to due process.The IACHR is a quasi-judicial body of the Organization of American States, created to promote and protect human rights in the region.

The “Doomsday Clock” representing how near humanity is to catastrophe on Tuesday moved closer than ever to midnight as concerns mount on nuclear weapons, climate change and disinformation.The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which set up the metaphorical clock at the start of the Cold War, moved its time to 85 seconds to midnight — four seconds closer than a year ago.The announcement comes a year into President Donald Trump’s second term, in which he has shattered norms — ordering unilateral attacks abroad, deploying force at home in defiance of local authorities and withdrawing from a slew of international organizations.Russia, China, the United States and other major countries have “become increasingly aggressive, adversarial and nationalistic,” said a statement announcing the clock shift, determined after consultations with a board that includes eight Nobel laureates.”Hard-won global understandings are collapsing, accelerating a winner-takes-all great power competition and undermining the international cooperation critical to reducing the risks of nuclear war, climate change, the misuse of biotechnology, the potential threat of artificial intelligence and other apocalyptic dangers.”The Doomsday Clock board warned of heightened risks of a nuclear arms race, with the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty between the United States and Russia set to expire next week.”For the first time in over half a century, there will be nothing preventing a runaway nuclear arms race,” Daniel Holz, a University of Chicago physicist who chairs the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board, told a virtual news conference.Trump has threatened to resume nuclear testing and is pushing a costly “Golden Dome” missile defense system that would further militarize space.- Minnesota approach spells conflict -The board members also voiced alarm over Trump’s crackdown in Minnesota, where he has deployed a phalanx of masked, armed anti-immigration agents who have aggressively repressed protesters and shot dead two people.”History has shown that when governments become unaccountable to their own citizens, conflict and misery follow,” Holz said.The board also noted record emission levels of carbon dioxide, the key driver of the planet’s warming temperatures, as Trump sharply reverses US policy on fighting climate change and a number of other countries have backtracked in turn.Underpinning the threats, board members warned of a dangerous fracturing of global trust.”We are living through an information Armageddon — the crisis beneath all crises — driven by extractive and predatory technology that spreads lies faster than facts and profits from our division,” said Maria Ressa, the Filipina investigative journalist and Nobel Peace Prize winner who faced intense pressure from iron-fisted former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte, now awaiting trial at the International Criminal Court.Ressa pointed to Trump’s use of force in Minnesota and threats to seize Greenland as examples of losing “the battle for information integrity” with memes turning into reality.”The men who control the platforms that shape what billions believe have merged with the men who control governments and militaries,” she said. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, founded by Albert Einstein, Robert Oppenheimer and other nuclear scientists at the University of Chicago, initially placed the clock at seven minutes to midnight in 1947.It was moved closer last year but by only one second, amid guarded hopes on newly reinaugurated Trump’s promises to pursue peace and cooperation.”The problem is that rhetoric has not matched actions at all,” said Alexandra Bell, president and CEO of the Bulletin.

The US Border Patrol commander famed for reveling in aggressive, televised immigration crackdowns, and some federal agents were expected to leave Minneapolis on Tuesday as the White House sought to stem fallout over the second fatal shooting of a protester in a month.The imminent exit of Gregory Bovino, known for his military-style outfits and phalanxes of masked agents, was reported by US media as President Donald Trump’s new envoy Tom Homan was due to meet Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey.Homan, the top US border security official, brings a less confrontational communication style and his appointment as Trump’s new point man for Minneapolis underlines the Republican president’s scramble to contain the political crisis.In another possible sign of deescalation, Frey announced, without giving details, that “some federal agents” will be leaving the Minnesota city.Protesters, braving sub-zero weather, were due to gather outside the state legislature later Tuesday.The shooting death at point blank range of 37-year-old protester Alex Pretti on Saturday sparked outrage nationwide, even among some of Trump’s usually ultra-loyal Republican allies in Congress.Former Democratic president Joe Biden on Tuesday said the situation “betrays our most basic values as Americans.” Former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have also spoken out.Pretti, shot multiple times after being knocked to the ground, was the second US citizen killed by immigration officers in Minneapolis this month, turning the city into ground zero of national tensions over Trump’s mass deportation policies.Protester Renee Good, a mother of three, was shot by an agent at point blank range in her car on January 7.The killings capped months of escalating violence in which masked, unidentified, and heavily armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and US Border Patrol agents have grabbed people suspected of violating immigration laws off the streets.The roving units are the spearhead for Trump’s vow to deport hundreds of thousands of people who are in the country illegally. But while the policy was initially popular, the chaotic and violent implementation is causing uproar.Despite multiple videos clearly showing that Pretti posed no threat, top officials initially claimed he had been intending to kill federal agents and described him as a “domestic terrorist.” Trump himself amplified the conspiracy theory on social media before retreating on Monday with a more conciliatory message.Concern over the violence and the attempt to blame Pretti for his death quickly spread to Washington.Republican Senator Rand Paul said Tuesday that agents involved in the Pretti shooting should be put “immediately” on administrative leave. Centrist Democratic Senator John Fetterman — who rarely criticizes Trump — said “grossly incompetent” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem should be fired.The turmoil could even result in suspension of wide swaths of US government funding with Democrats threatening to block approval of routine spending bills up for votes in the Senate later this week.- Protestors feel vindicated -At a demonstration in Minneapolis on Monday, locals expressed relief that ICE was expected to scale down.”It’s a vindication to some degree. We have a lot of fear around what kind of violence and reprisals might come as they leave,” protester Kyle Wagner told AFP.”Our neighborhoods and communities have been brutalized by them, so any decrease in the numbers and the severity is just a huge relief to the community that’s been suffering for months now.”Jasmine Nelson, who was also at the demonstration, said she was inspired by locals coming together to protest the killings.”It’s really beautiful to see everyone get together like this and fight against these injustices,” she said.On another front, a federal judge in Minneapolis heard arguments on Monday about whether the deployment of federal officers violates the state of Minnesota’s sovereignty.In addition, the acting director of ICE, Todd Lyons, was ordered to appear in a Minnesota federal court on Friday over a case of a man challenging his detention by the agency.

Consumer confidence in the United States plunged in January to its lowest level since 2014, survey data showed Tuesday, as American households continue to fret about inflation and elevated costs of living.The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index slumped by 9.7 points from December to 84.5, with consumers growing more cautious about major spending decisions.A consumption slowdown — if it took hold — would hit at the key driver of the world’s biggest economy, with consumer spending accounting for more than two-thirds of US GDP.The new data comes as US President Donald Trump struggles to reverse voters’ negative feelings about the economy ahead of the critical midterm elections in November — in which his Republican Party risks losing control of Congress.”Confidence collapsed in January, as consumer concerns about both the present situation and expectations for the future deepened,” said the research group’s chief economist Dana Peterson.She added that all five components of the index worsened, driving the overall level to its lowest since May 2014 — “surpassing its Covid-19 pandemic depths.”While the Conference Board survey data on expectations has diverged from spending patterns in the past, economist Oliver Allen of Pantheon Macroeconomics said: “We’d be surprised if its recent deterioration proves to be an entirely false signal.”This is “particularly given the recent stagnation in real incomes and the already rock-bottom personal saving rate,” he said in a note.In January, net views on current business conditions “dwindled to just barely positive,” while perceptions of employment conditions also weakened, The Conference Board said.Meanwhile, consumers tended to be pessimistic about factors influencing the economy.”The low hiring rate is a problem,” said Navy Federal Credit Union chief economist Heather Long.”Layer on top of that a lot of geopolitical uncertainty over Venezuela, Greenland and the Federal Reserve, and Americans continue to be frustrated with the economy,” she added.Peterson of The Conference Board flagged that “references to prices and inflation, oil and gas prices, and food and grocery prices remained elevated.””Mentions of tariffs and trade, politics, and the labor market also rose in January, and references to health/insurance and war edged higher,” she said.Consumers increasingly indicated that they were not planning on big-ticket purchases in the next six months as well, suggesting that they are becoming more selective in their spending.”Used cars, furniture, TVs, and smartphones remained the most popular within their categories for future purchases,” according to The Conference Board.

Mexico’s exports climbed 7.6 percent in 2025, despite its auto, steel and aluminum sectors being swept up in US President Donald Trump’s tariffs blitz, according to figures released Tuesday.Over 80 percent of Mexico’s exports, which totalled $664.8 billion, went to the neighboring United States, according to statistics released by national statistics agency INEGI.Latin America’s second-biggest economy, which is part of a free-trade agreement with the United States and Canada, has so far largely managed to avoid bilateral US tariffs.But its steel and aluminum have been hit by levies on US imports of the metals of up to 50 percent.Its key auto and auto parts sectors also face tariffs of 25 percent on goods that do not fall under the USMCA (United States-Mexico-Canada) trade agreement.While Mexico’s manufacturing exports grew 9.8 percent last year, its auto exports were down by 4.2 percent.The country’s imports also rose last year, but at a slower pace — 4.4 percent — than exports, resulting in a trade surplus of $771 million.Under pressure from Trump, Mexico has hiked tariffs on China, its second-largest trading partner after the United States.Trump accuses Chinese producers of using Mexico as a tariffs-free backdoor into the United States.Sheinbaum’s decision to implement tariffs of up to 50 percent on some Chinese goods from January 1 was widely seen as a concession to her powerful northern counterpart ahead of a review of the USMCA deal set for the fist half of 2026.Mexico has also increased levies on imports from other countries with which it does not have a trade deal, including South Korea, India, Indonesia, Russia, Thailand, Turkey, Taiwan and Brazil.

Jury selection begins Tuesday for a landmark trial that could establish a legal precedent on whether social media companies deliberately designed their platforms to addict children.The case being heard in a California state court in Los Angeles is being called a “bellwether” proceeding because its outcome could set the tone for a tidal wave of similar litigation across the United States.Defendants in the suit are Alphabet, ByteDance and Meta, the tech titans behind YouTube, TikTok and Instagram.Meta co-founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg is slated to be called as a witness during the trial.Social media firms are accused in hundreds of lawsuits of addicting young users to content that has led to depression, eating disorders, psychiatric hospitalization and even suicide.Lawyers for the plaintiffs are explicitly borrowing strategies used in the 1990s and 2000s against the tobacco industry, which faced a similar onslaught of lawsuits arguing that companies sold a harmful product.The trial before Judge Carolyn Kuhl is expected to start next week after a jury is selected.It focuses on allegations that a 19-year-old woman identified by the initials K.G.M. suffered severe mental harm because she was addicted to social media.”This is the first time that a social media company has ever had to face a jury for harming kids,” Social Media Victims Law Center founder Matthew Bergman, whose team is involved in more than 1,000 such cases, told AFP.The center is a legal organization dedicated to holding social media companies accountable for harms allegedly caused to young people online.”The fact that now K.G.M. and her family get to stand in a courtroom equal to the largest, most powerful and wealthy companies in the world is, in and of itself, a very significant victory,” Bergman said.Internet titans have argued that they are shielded by Section 230 of the US Communications Decency Act, which frees them of responsibility for what social media users post.However, this case argues those firms are culpable for business models designed to hold people’s attention and to promote content that winds up harming their mental health.”The allegations in these complaints are simply not true,” said Jose Castaneda, a YouTube spokesperson.”Providing young people with a safer, healthier experience has always been core to our work,” he added.Meta and TikTok have also rejected the allegations.Snapchat last week confirmed that it made a deal to avoid the trial. The terms were not disclosed.Lawsuits, including some brought by school districts, accusing social media platforms of practices endangering young users are also making their way through federal court in Northern California and state courts across the country.

US First Lady Melania Trump made a rare political intervention Tuesday as she called for “unity” after federal agents killed two people during immigration raids in Minneapolis. But in an interview to promote the release of her self-titled documentary this week, the Slovenian-born former model still appeared to put the blame on demonstrators by calling for them to “protest in peace.”Her husband, President Donald Trump, has sought to pivot amid a growing backlash over the killing on Saturday of Alex Pretti, the second person shot dead by immigration agents in Minneapolis this month. “We need to unify. I’m calling for unity,” Melania told “Fox and Friends” when asked for her message about the shootings and the protests in Minneapolis.The 55-year-old added that President Trump had a “great call” with the Democratic governor of Minnesota and mayor of Minneapolis “and they are working together to make it peaceful and without riots.””I’m against the violence, so please, if we protest, protest in peace, and we need to unify in these times,” she said, speaking against a backdrop of the logo for her movie “Melania.”Melania Trump held a screening of her new Amazon movie at the White House on Saturday, hours after Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse, died from multiple gunshots wounds.The movie has its premiere at the Kennedy Center in Washington — recently renamed the Trump-Kennedy Center by a board handpicked by the Republican president — on Thursday.It is released in cinemas on Friday. Reports put Amazon’s licensing deal for the film at around $40 million.Top Trump officials initially called Pretti a “terrorist” and “assassin,” but the White House distanced itself from that language on Monday as footage emerged showing that the victim was shot after agents had already removed a sidearm from him. 

The flagship of the French Navy, the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier, on Tuesday set course for the Atlantic, the defence ministry said, after the United States and Europe butted heads over Greenland.On Wednesday, French President Emmanuel Macron is to meet the leaders of Denmark and Greenland in Paris, his office said.European powers rallied together when US President Donald Trump this month undermined the transatlantic alliance by threatening to seize the autonomous Danish territory.Greenland is strategically located between the Arctic Ocean and the North Atlantic Ocean.The French defence ministry did not specify where the Charles de Gaulle was being deployed. But sources familiar with the matter told AFP that the aircraft carrier was heading to the North Atlantic, which has been at the heart of the geopolitical tensions.”The naval air group has set sail from the Toulon naval base to take part in Orion 26, a large-scale joint and allied exercise,” the French defence ministry said.”Conducted over the coming weeks in the Atlantic zone — a strategic area for the defence of European interests — this exercise will bring together French forces alongside their regional allies and partners.”The carrier strike group includes the aircraft carrier and its aircraft, as well as various escort and support vessels, such as an air-defence frigate, a supply ship and an attack submarine. None of the sources questioned by AFP said how far north in the North Atlantic the carrier strike group would go.Russian submarines from the Northern Fleet or the Baltic Fleet regularly go through the North Atlantic Ocean.Trump had this month threatened to seize Greenland and impose tariffs on any European countries — including France, Germany and Britain — that opposed him. After European pushback, he later backed down on the threat to take the territory by military force.NATO chief Mark Rutte warned on Monday that Europe cannot defend itself without the United States. But France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot hit back, posting on X that “Europeans can and must take responsibility for their own security”.