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Donald Trump will announce a trade deal with the United Kingdom on Thursday, US media reported, after the president touted a “major” upcoming agreement on social media.The New York Times and Politico reported that Trump was set to agree to a deal with Britain, citing multiple people familiar with the plans.Trump wrote earlier on Wednesday the “major trade deal” would be announced with a “big, and highly respected country.”He said he would announce the deal at a 10:00 am (1400 GMT) news conference in the Oval Office at the White House, and touted it as the “first of many.”Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on US trading partners last month but temporarily froze most of them to allow for the negotiation of trade deals.He has been claiming for weeks that countries were lining up to strike trade agreements with the United States.The Times said it was not clear whether a US trade deal with Britain had been finalized or if the two countries would announce a framework for an agreement that would be subject to further negotiation.The Bank of England is widely expected to cut its key interest rate by a quarter point Thursday as Trump’s planned tariffs threaten to weaken global economic growth.- An affinity for Britain – Britain this week struck a free-trade agreement with India, its biggest such deal since leaving the European Union, after negotiations relaunched in February following US tariff threats.Britain has sought to bolster trade ties across the world since it left the EU at the start of the decade under Brexit, a need that became more pressing after Trump took power.Prime Minister Keir Starmer visited Washington at the end of February in part to discuss tariffs and came away hopeful that a long-awaited accord could be reached. Trump at the time held out the prospect of a “great” deal, hailing Starmer as a tough negotiator.Starmer during his visit handed Trump an invitation to meet King Charles III in September for an unprecedented second state visit that London hopes will boost transatlantic ties. Trump will become the first political leader to receive a second state visit to Britain, after he traveled there in 2019 during his first term as president. The 78-year-old Republican has long been a vocal fan of the British royal family. He also has a close affinity to the UK due to the fact his mother was born in Scotland, where he owns a golf course.

Donald Trump’s proposal to put 100 percent tariffs on foreign movies left many filmmakers scratching their heads. But it did highlight a problem plaguing Hollywood: cinema is rapidly abandoning its long-time home.For decades almost every film that hit US theatres — as well as most of what was on TV — emanated from a handful of movie lots in the sun-soaked capital of America’s entertainment industry.Actors, stunt performers, costume designers, set builders, editors and special effects wizards flocked to Los Angeles, where they worked with hundreds of thousands of drivers, caterers, location managers, animal handlers and prop wranglers to produce thousands of hours of output every year.The city boomed from the 1920s onwards because it was an industry town with a virtual stranglehold.Not any more.”The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death,” Trump blared on his social media platform over the weekend.- All-time low -The number of shooting days in Los Angeles reached an all-time low last year — lower even than during the Covid-19 pandemic, when filming shut down completely.Less than one-in-five film or TV series broadcast in the United States was produced in California, according to FilmLA, an organization that tracks the movie industry.”On-location production in Greater Los Angeles declined by 22.4 percent from January through March 2025,” it said in a report, with film and TV production both down 30 percent year-on-year.Southern California’s high costs — including for labor — are a problem for studios, whose margins are small, especially as fewer people are prepared to shell out for pricey cinema tickets, preferring to watch titles at home.As revenue pressures mount, production houses are turning to filming opportunities abroad that offer them savings. And there is no shortage of countries courting them: Britain, France, Germany, Australia, Hungary, Thailand and others all offer tax incentives.The temptation to film abroad only increased during the Hollywood actors’ and writers’ strike in 2023, said entertainment lawyer Steve Weizenecker, who advises producers on financial incentives.”During the strikes, I had production that went to the UK, that went to France, Italy and Spain, because they couldn’t shoot here,” he told AFP.”And so the concern now is how do we bring that back?”Toronto, Vancouver, Britain, Central Europe and Australia now all rank above California as preferred filming locations for industry executives.Competition has never been more fierce: in 2024, 120 jurisdictions worldwide offered tax incentives for film and TV production, almost 40 percent more than seven years ago.- Canada first -Canada introduced a tax break for film and TV productions as early as 1995.”That was when the term ‘runaway production’ started being thrown about, because suddenly producers did not have to shoot in California or New York,” Weizenecker said.Canada’s success has since spawned competition between dozens of US states.Georgia, where many Marvel superhero films are shot, has offered a tax credit since 2005. New Mexico, the setting for drug drama “Breaking Bad,” has been doing the same since 2002. And Texas, which has offered tax breaks since 2007, wants to increase its budget allocated to such funding.”Much like Detroit lost its hold on the auto industry, California has lost its dominance, mostly due to the arrogance of not understanding there are always alternatives,” Bill Mechanic, a former Paramount and Disney executive, told Deadline.State officials, prompted by the cries of anguish from Hollywood have belatedly begun to take notice.Last year, California Governor Gavin Newsom called on lawmakers to double the money available to the state’s TV and film tax credit program.California currently offers a tax credit of up to 25 percent that can be used to offset expenses including the cost of hiring film crews or building sets.Two bills trundling through the legislature could increase it up to 35 percent of qualified expenditures, and would expand the kind of productions that would qualify.Newsom reacted to Trump’s tariff suggestion with a counter-proposal for a $7.5 billion federal tax credit that would apply nationwide.Whether or not the Republican would be keen to support an industry he views as hostile and overly liberal remains to be seen, but it would really help, according to George Huang, a UCLA professor of screenwriting.”Right now the industry is teetering,” Huang told the Los Angeles Times. “This would go a long way in helping right the ship and putting us back on course to being the capital of the entertainment world.”

Merwil Gutierrez, 19, was among 200 Venezuelans controversially deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador in March without due process or any criminal charges, says his father who has heard nothing for weeks.”I don’t know if my son is okay, if he is sick, I don’t know if he is eating at all,” Wilmer Gutierrez, Merwil’s father, told AFP.  “The relatives of all those who are there” have the same concerns, he said.Merwil does not know why he was taken to El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) in a wave of deportations that has stirred legal debate in the United States over a lack of due process and alleged human rights violations, his father said.Merwil was arrested by agents around 11:00 pm on February 24 from the door of the Bronx building where he lived, after buying dinner and socializing with neighbors.The agents initially asked for another man with a different name, his father said. After checking his identity, one agent told him he could go, but another decided to detain him, along with two others, said Wilmer in a park in front of their building. He last spoke to his son while Merwil was detained in a Texas processing center where he learned that he would be deported the next day. Both men assumed it would be to their native Venezuela.”When we found out that those flights had arrived in El Salvador… we weren’t sure about whether they had sent him to Venezuela, because no flight was due to leave for there,” said the 40-year-old father of three.Until US authorities issued a list of those deported to El Salvador some days later, Wilmer was in the dark about his son’s whereabouts.The removals conducted by the Trump administration sparked condemnation and allegations he has run roughshod over the law, court orders and human rights in his push to conduct the “largest deportation effort in US history.”- ‘Simply a kidnapping’ -One of the most publicized was the removal of Maryland man Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was apparently deported to his native El Salvador by accident.The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment.Last week, a Texas judge blocked deportations like Merwil Gutierrez’s under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act.Previously, the US Supreme Court and several district courts had temporarily halted the expulsions. Merwil had filed for asylum, said lawyer Ana de Jesus from the organization Immigracion al Dia, who described what happened to her client as “horrible.” Together with other migrant support organizations, they are considering seeking a court order demanding the government correct its abuse of power. “Regardless of whether something can be done or not, what we’re trying to do is make noise, public pressure because what is being done — not following due process, not allowing us to help our clients — it is simply a kidnapping,” said de Jesus.In Merwil’s case, two US lawmakers from New York, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Adriano Espaillat, said in a statement “we are horrified by ICE’s abduction of Merwil Gutierrez, who was violently taken from his doorstop in the Bronx and deported to El Salvador.”After an arduous journey through the famously dangerous jungles of the Darien Gap, between Colombia and Panama, following hundreds of thousands of other Venezuelans, Wilmer and his then 17-year-old son entered the US in July 2023 seeking asylum.Wilmer insists his son, whom he describes as passionate about clothing and shoes, did not have the tattoos commonly linked by law enforcement to the violent Tren de Aragua Venezuelan street gang.”If they made a mistake in this country, then let them do the time in this country or send them to their own country,” said Wilmer. Father and son both worked nights at a packaging warehouse since arriving in New York.On the night of his arrest, Merwil was off work.”That dream (of coming to the United States) turned into a nightmare. It was beautiful while we were coming,” the father said, swiping through images of their journey on his phone. “Look at his childlike face,” he said wistfully. “If they send him back to Venezuela… I would grab my suitcase and leave — that’s where the American dream ends.”

Donald Trump’s order to withhold $5 billion earmarked to grow the electric vehicle charging network in the United States is being challenged in court by more than a dozen states, California officials said Wednesday.The lawsuit is the latest attempt by a coalition of largely liberal jurisdictions looking to push back on what they see as the American president’s overreach, especially on environmental issues.”The President continues his unconstitutional attempts to withhold funding that Congress appropriated to programs he dislikes,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta.”This time he’s illegally stripping away billions of dollars for electric vehicle charging infrastructure, all to line the pockets of his Big Oil friends.”A mammoth congressional bill passed in 2022 aimed at bolstering America’s crumbling infrastructure included $5 billion to help build out charging points for electric vehicles.But as soon as he arrived in the Oval Office in January, Trump ordered that the money be stopped, part of a slew of executive orders the Republican has issued, which also included demands that the United States produce more fossil fuels.The cash had been allocated by Congress to the states, and in some cases was expected to be paired with state and private funds as jurisdictions look to grow charging networks and reduce the range anxiety that drivers of gas cars sometimes say puts them off switching to electric vehicles.The lawsuit announced Wednesday contends that as president, Trump does not have the power to divert monies the legislature has allocated.”The complaint asks the court to declare that the… directive is unlawful and to permanently stop the administration from withholding the funds,” a statement said.Trump, a climate change skeptic, has long been hostile to electric vehicles and has repeatedly lashed out at Environmental Protection Agency rules requiring automakers to cut greenhouse gas emissions in their cars.California, which is home to the lion’s share of EVs and hybrid vehicles in the United States, plans to phase out the sale of new gas-powered vehicles by 2035.The lawsuit comes as Republicans in Congress are trying to remove the rules that allow the state — the biggest and richest in the nation — to make its own vehicle emission rules.”The facts don’t lie: The demand for clean transportation continues to rise, and California will be at the forefront of this transition to a more sustainable, low-emissions future,” said Bonta.”California will not back down, not from Big Oil, and not from federal overreach.”Bonta is joined in the lawsuit by attorneys general from, Colorado, Arizona, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, Wisconsin, Vermont, and the District of Columbia.

Joseph Nye, a versatile and influential political scientist and US policymaker who coined the term “soft power,” a concept of nations gaining dominance through attractiveness now scoffed at by President Donald Trump, has died, Harvard University announced Wednesday. He was 88.Nye, who died Tuesday, first joined Harvard’s faculty in 1964 and served as dean of the Harvard Kennedy School as well as in positions under presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.The author of 14 books and more than 200 journal articles, the neo-liberal thinker studied topics as varied as arms control and pan-Africanism but became best known for developing the term “soft power” in the late 1980s.As opposed to hard power, such as weapons and economic sanctions, soft power includes values and culture that can win over others.”Soft power — getting others to want the outcomes that you want — co-opts people rather than coerces them,” Nye wrote in a 2004 book on the topic.Among other examples, he pointed to growing US influence in Latin America when Franklin Roosevelt instituted a “good neighbor policy” and, conversely, how the Soviet Union lost Eastern Europe through brutality even as Moscow’s hard power grew.Trump, since returning to office in January, has sharply reduced US soft power, including through dismantling foreign assistance and cracking down on international students, and has sought to ramp up military spending.In responses to AFP in February about how he saw Trump’s second term, Nye wrote: “Trump does not really understand power. He only thinks in terms of coercion and payment.” “He mistakes short-term results for long-term effects. Hard coercive power (such as a threat of tariffs) may work in the short term while creating incentives for others to reduce their reliance on the US in the longer term,” he wrote to AFP by email.”Our success over the past eight decades has also been based on attractiveness.”But he said that US soft power had seen cycles in the past, pointing to the unpopularity of the United States during the Vietnam War.”We will probably recover somewhat after Trump, but he has damaged trust in the US,” he wrote.- Nuclear thinker -Nye acknowledged the limitations of soft power alone. In his book, he wrote: “Excellent wines and cheese do not guarantee attraction to France, nor does the popularity of Pokemon games assure that Japan will get the policy outcomes it wishes.”Nye was considered a possible national security advisor if John Kerry won the White House in 2004. He was also particularly active on Japan, where former president Barack Obama considered appointing him ambassador.Always attentive to soft power, Nye took to the opinion pages of The New York Times in 2010 to criticize some in the Obama administration for seeking to play “hardball” with a new, inexperienced Japanese government over base relocation, calling for a “more patient and strategic approach” to the longtime US ally.Much of Nye’s time in government was focused on nuclear policy. He argued that the risk of nuclear weapons could have deterred major powers from entering World War I — but that the spread of nuclear weapons since the end of the Cold War posed new dangers.”He was proudest of having contributed both intellectually… and practically (in the Carter and Clinton administrations) to preventing nuclear war,” fellow Harvard scholar Graham Allison said in a statement.

US envoy Steve Witkoff briefed members of the UN Security Council on Wednesday about various topics, including Gaza, participants in the closed-door talks said.The informal meeting in New York came a day after Witkoff was formally sworn in as President Donald Trump’s special envoy for the Middle East.At the swearing-in ceremony, Trump teased a “very, very big announcement” to come before his multi-nation visit to the Middle East next week, without providing details.Witkoff, a billionaire real estate developer and close Trump ally, has been acting as lead US negotiator on several major disputes, including the Israel-Hamas war, the Russia-Ukraine conflict and  Iran’s nuclear program.After the meeting Wednesday, ambassadors from the UN Security Council’s 14 other members declined to give details of Witkoff’s remarks.”It was confidential,” Pakistani Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad said.Panamanian Ambassador Eloy Alfaro de Alba called it “an informal meeting, it was very interesting, about various subjects, not only Gaza.”Since Trump’s return to office in January there has not been a permanent US ambassador to the UN, making it difficult for council members to stay abreast of American positions on various issues, some diplomats have said.Witkoff also met separately on Wednesday with Israel’s UN ambassador, Danny Danon.Danon said afterward they had an “important discussion about the regional issues.””We will continue to cooperate with our strongest ally, the United States,” he added.

The US Federal Reserve on Wednesday announced another pause in rate cuts and warned of higher risks to its inflation and unemployment goals in a likely reference to President Donald Trump’s tariff rollout.Policymakers voted unanimously to hold the US central bank’s key lending rate at between 4.25 percent and 4.50 percent, the Fed said in a statement.Speaking to reporters in Washington after the decision was published, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said there was “a great deal of uncertainty” about where the Trump administration’s tariff policies will end up. The US president introduced steep levies last month on China and lower “baseline” levies of 10 percent on goods from most other countries, sparking weeks of turbulence in the financial markets. The White House also slapped higher tariffs on dozens of other trading partners and then abruptly paused them until July to give the United States time to renegotiate existing trade arrangements.Many analysts have warned that the administration’s actions will likely push up inflation and unemployment while slowing growth — at least in the short run.That could complicate the path towards rate cuts for the Fed, which has a dual mandate to act independently of political pressure to keep inflation at two percent over the longer term, and the unemployment rate as low as possible. – ‘A really difficult choice’ -The Fed said Wednesday that “swings in net exports” did not appear to have affected the solid economic activity — a nod to the pre-tariff surge in imports in the first quarter ahead of the introduction of Trump’s “liberation day” tariffs.Wall Street stocks closed higher following the Fed’s decision.The “hard” economic data published in recent weeks points towards an economic slowdown, while the unemployment rate has hovered close to historic lows, and the inflation rate has trended towards the Fed’s two percent target.However, the “softer” economic survey data have pointed to a sharp drop-off in consumer confidence and growing expectations of higher inflation over the longer term — in contrast to the market’s inflation expectations, which remain relatively well-anchored.”All the hard data are backward looking,” former Fed economist Rodney Ramcharan told AFP on Wednesday. “And all the soft data that they’re getting…those data look pretty bad.””The Fed doesn’t have a lot of good options in front of them,” added Ramcharan, now a professor of finance at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business. “It’s a really difficult choice.”- Rate cuts delayed – Powell was also asked about the recent public criticism leveled at him and the Fed by senior government officials — including the president, who has called for him to cut rates to boost economic growth.An upbeat Powell said Trump’s criticism didn’t affect the Fed’s job of tackling inflation and unemployment “at all.””We are always going to consider only the economic data, the outlook, the balance of risks, and that’s it,” he added. Following the April tariff rollout, many analysts pared back or delayed their expectation of rate cuts for this year, predicting that tariffs will push up prices and slow growth — at least in the short run.  “The best course of action for the FOMC may simply be to wait for more clarity about trade policy and its implications for the U.S. economy,” Wells Fargo chief economist Jay Bryson wrote in an investor note after the decision was published by the Fed’s rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee.”While the Fed is, and should be, focused on the fragility of inflation expectations, we expect that by late summer labor market weakness will prompt a policy response,” JPMorgan chief economist Michael Feroli wrote in a note to clients, penciling in a first rate cut for September. 

A Polish model testified Wednesday against fallen film mogul Harvey Weinstein in his retrial on sex assault charges, the first time the woman claiming the former Miramax boss forced oral sex on her has been heard in criminal court.Kaja Sokola, 39, alleges that Weinstein sexually assaulted her in spring 2006 in a Manhattan hotel, claims the former cinema scion denies.While the other accusers in the New York case — onetime production assistant Miriam Haley and then-aspiring actress Jessica Mann — testified at Weinstein’s original trial, Sokola is being heard for the first time.The accounts of the other two women helped galvanize the #MeToo movement nearly a decade ago, but the case is being re-prosecuted as Weinstein faces a new trial in New York.Weinstein’s 2020 convictions on charges relating to Haley and Mann were overturned last year by the New York Court of Appeals, which ruled that the way witnesses were handled in the original trial was unlawful.The former Miramax studio boss is charged in the New York retrial with the 2006 sexual assault of Haley and the 2013 rape of Mann, as well as the assault on Sokola.He was in court Wednesday, pushed to the defense bench in a wheelchair to which he was handcuffed until he was unshackled by one of the two court officers guarding him.He leaned back in his chair as Sokola entered the courtroom and swore an oath, listening intently to her recall her experience which was not shared with the jury at his initial trial in 2020.Prosecutor Shannon Lucey walked Sokola through her education and first forays into modeling, showing the court several shots of her as a teen adorning magazine spreads, before touching on how she came to New York in 2002 to work. Her testimony will continue Thursday.Weinstein — the producer of box office hits such as “Pulp Fiction” and “Shakespeare in Love” — has never acknowledged any wrongdoing.He is serving a 16-year prison sentence after being convicted in California of raping and assaulting a European actress more than a decade ago.

Three former Memphis police officers were found not guilty of all charges Wednesday in the beating death of a Black motorist that sparked calls for police reform, local media reported.Five Black police officers were charged in connection with the January 2023 death of Tyre Nichols, 29, who was kicked, punched, tased and pepper sprayed.The five officers, members of a since-disbanded special anti-crime squad called the Scorpion Unit, were captured on video beating Nichols during a traffic stop near his home in the Tennessee city of Memphis.He died at a hospital three days later.Two of the officers pleaded guilty to state and federal charges while the three others — Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith — chose to go to trial.A jury acquitted Bean, Haley and Smith on Wednesday of all of the state charges they faced, including the most serious charge of second-degree murder, the Commercial Appeal reported.The Memphis newspaper said the mostly white jury deliberated for eight and a half hours before delivering the not guilty verdict.Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci, prominent civil rights attorneys who have represented the Nichols family, condemned the verdict as a “devastating miscarriage of justice.””Tyre’s life was stolen, and his family was denied the justice they so deeply deserve,” they said in a statement. “We are outraged, and we know we are not alone.”Bean, Haley and Smith have already been convicted of federal charges including witness tampering and could face up to 20 years in prison. Haley was also convicted of using excessive force.Sentencing was delayed until the conclusion of the state trial.The two other former Memphis police officers, Emmitt Martin and Desmond Mills, reached plea agreements in the state and federal cases in which they pleaded guilty to using excessive force and witness tampering.Then-vice president Kamala Harris attended Nichols’s funeral and his relatives were invited to president Joe Biden’s State of the Union address in Washington.

US President Donald Trump downplayed the role of European countries in World War II on Wednesday as he formally designated May 8 as a day to celebrate victory over Nazi Germany.”The victory was mostly accomplished because of us, like it or not,” Trump said at the White House shortly after issuing a proclamation on the new “Victory Day.””It was American tanks and ships and trucks and airplanes and service members that vanquished the enemy 80 years ago this week. Without America, the Liberation would never have happened.”Trump had announced his intention to rename May 8 earlier this week, noting that unlike much of Europe his country had no day to mark the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945.Trump said he also planned to establish a separate “Victory Day” for World War I — and claimed US credit for ending that conflagration too.”Without us those wars would not have been won,” he said.Trump’s comments came despite the fact that many European allies suffered far more casualties and devastation than the United States in the two global conflicts.The United States suffered significant losses after joining World War II in 1941, with more than 400,000 service members killed, and played a crucial role in the D-Day landings and defeat of Adolf Hitler.The Soviet Union, of which Russia was the largest republic, suffered the most with more than 20 million killed.Britain lost 384,000 soldiers and 70,000 civilians in World War II.