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Welcome back, we made it through the end of the week. Let’s take a look at the stories making headlines today: Trump unveils double-digit tariffs on dozens of U.S. trading partners; conservative influencer Laura Loomer meets Zelenskyy in Ukraine after her major reversal on the war; and nearly 150,000 mail ballots have been rejected in California’s June primary.
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President Donald Trump speaks during an event in the Rose Garden of the White House, Thursday, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
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Trump imposes new tariffs
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President Donald Trump is going ahead with new double-digit tariffs on dozens of U.S. trading partners just as the clock runs out Friday on stopgap levies he imposed after a stinging defeat at the Supreme Court. Read more.
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- The United States will slap taxes of 10% to 12.5% on imports from 60 trading partners accounting for 99% of U.S. imports, charging that they have inadequately enforced bans on goods produced by forced labor. The new tariffs will take effect just as temporary 10% worldwide tariffs expire Friday. Trump had turned to those temporary levies after the Supreme Court struck down his biggest and boldest tariffs in February.
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Laura Loomer meets Zelenskyy in Ukraine after her major reversal on the war
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The ardent ally of President Donald Trump, with a reputation for incendiary social media commentary, sat down with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday. Read more.
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It was a stunning reversal for a woman who had spent years criticizing U.S. support for Ukraine's defense. Loomer had minimized Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and amplified Russian propaganda to her nearly 2 million followers.
Trump gave his stamp of approval on social media. “Very good!!!” he wrote on Thursday evening. It was unclear what had prompted Loomer's trip or how she had arranged the meeting with Zelenskyy. Loomer and the White House did not respond to requests for comment on the trip. “It is really important that @LauraLoomer is in Ukraine and sees things with her own eyes as they are,” Zelenskyy’s office wrote.
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Nearly 150,000 mail ballots rejected in California primary despite efforts to count every vote
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According to state data, 1.73% of all mail ballots were rejected in the June election. It's a spike from recent elections even as the state attempts to make voting easier with the goal of boosting participation and counting every ballot. Read more.
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California has become notorious for its ponderously slow vote counts that can drag on for weeks and sometimes longer, largely the result of multiple changes over the years that were intended to increase turnout but have done little to achieve that. Among the changes: Every voter receives a mail-in ballot that can arrive at an election office seven days late and still be counted, provided the envelope is postmarked by Election Day.
Yet even with that generous week-long window, the primary driver of the higher rejection numbers is late-arriving ballots, according to data compiled by the secretary of state’s office. Voting experts suspect the main problem is postmarks on ballots that came after Election Day, making them ineligible to be counted. The culprit could be U.S. Postal Service changes that might affect the timing of when postmarks are applied.
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Egg and cheese on an everything bagel, right before the photographer ate it on Tuesday. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills)
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Our readers weigh in on bagels
I spent yesterday afternoon drooling over your emails after Wednesday’s bagel story, which absolutely stuffed my inbox. Thanks to everyone who wrote in. We heard from some of you in Hawaii, Costa Rica, Arizona, Colorado and Louisiana, who wrote about missing favourite bagel shops. Several readers told me off for omitting onion, tomato and capers from my smoked salmon and cream cheese order, which are all ingredients I like, promise! Both Josh Cornfield, who wrote the story, and Dario Lopez-Mills, who photographed the bagels, like an egg on their bagels sometimes. In fact, Dario cooked the egg and cheese you see above himself. Once he was sure he had the shot, he ate it for breakfast. Nice gig, right? Happy Friday, bagel lovers.
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Let me know here which stories you'd like to see more of in Morning Wire. You can invite a friend to subscribe here. For news in real time visit APNews.com. - Nadja
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