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In the news today: Bondi gets a congressional subpoena over the Jeffrey Epstein files; Trump's anger at NATO for refusing to help secure oil traffic through the Strait of Hormuz; and how the administration's tariff policies are hurting American manufacturers. Also, how to feed the sharks in a Vegas casino's aquarium. |
Attorney General Pam Bondi listens as she testifies before a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Feb. 11. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner) |
Attorney General Pam Bondi subpoenaed to answer questions about the Epstein files |
Bondi was subpoenaed Tuesday to answer questions from Congress about the Justice Department's sex trafficking investigation of Jeffrey Epstein and the agency's handling of millions of files related to the disgraced financier. Read more. |
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Trump fumes at NATO for refusing to help secure the Strait of Hormuz, and embraces going it alone |
President Donald Trump said Tuesday that NATO and most other allies have rejected his calls to help secure the Strait of Hormuz, grousing that he has been unable to rally support behind his war of choice in Iran that he insists he's conducting for the good of the world, even if it doesn't appreciate his effort. Read more. |
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Trump, who has been pressing allies to help safeguard the critical waterway to ease a chokepoint on the region's oil exports, fumed that the U.S. is not getting support "despite the fact that we helped" NATO "so much," and said that it was in allies' interest to prevent Iran from securing a nuclear weapon. "You would have thought they would have said, 'We'd love to send a couple of minesweepers.' That's not a big deal," Trump said. "It doesn't cost very much money. But they didn't do that."
The European Union's top diplomat pushed back at Trump, saying the 27-nation bloc does not want to be dragged into the U.S.-Israel war on Iran and broadly rejected Trump's demand to send warships to the Straits of Hormuz. "This is not Europe's war. We didn't start the war. We were not consulted," EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Tuesday.
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Trump's tariffs were supposed to help American manufacturers. But instead, they're hurting |
Trump's core rationale for tariffs has been that they would force more factories to open in the U.S. and would generate enough revenue to close federal budget deficits. But that hasn't materialized so far. Factories continue to shed workers, with 98,000 manufacturing jobs lost during Trump's first full 12 months back in the White House. Read more. |
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There's a growing body of evidence that the tariffs that Trump said would help American factories are, in fact, squashing many of them. The problem could get worse as the administration scrambles to craft new tariffs to replace the emergency import taxes that the Supreme Court ruled illegal in February.
The White House maintains that construction spending is high, more workers are being hired to build factories, new investments are being made and labor productivity in manufacturing is increasing — which could eventually fuel a factory revival. "It takes time to get production online, and therefore it will be some more time before we fully materialize the benefits of the president's policies," Pierre Yared, the acting chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said in an email.
- Some of the bright spots in construction cited by the White House appear to be the result of programs launched by Joe Biden. Factory construction spending began to accelerate in 2022 with the anticipation of government support from Biden's CHIPS and Science Act, which included big subsidies for computer chip plants.
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Aquarist Robert LeSage feeds a shark in the Shark Reef Aquarium at the Mandalay Bay hotel-casino in Las Vegas, March 11. (AP Photo/John Locher) |
Some say the sharks in Las Vegas eat just as well as the tourists
Becky O'Brien is lead aquarist at the Shark Reef Aquarium at the Mandalay Bay Resort. Her team feeds 15 species of sharks. They are fed a mix of mackerel, herring, blue runner and sardines in an effort to give them a varied diet like they'd have in the wild, O'Brien said. In one week, the aquarium goes through over 300 pounds of fish, she said. |
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