News of the World
03-04-2025, 12:21 AM
USA
Quote:U.S. stocks plummeted Monday afternoon after President Donald Trump confirmed that blanket tariffs on Canada and Mexico would begin Tuesday.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed lower by 650 points, or about 1.5 percent, after being down as much as 800 points after the president's remarks. The S&P 500 lost 1.75 percent for its biggest loss since December. The tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 500 points, or more than 2.5 percent.
"Very importantly, tomorrow, tariffs 25 percent on Canada and 25 percent on Mexico," Trump said during a Monday event about investment in U.S. chipmaking capacity.
Why It Matters
Trump's remarks dashed investor hopes that the administration would announce a last-minute deal to again delay those tariffs, which are expected to wreak havoc on trade between the U.S. and its immediate neighbors.
What to Know
All three major indexes were already coming into March in the red. The Dow and S&P each fell more than 1 percent in February, while the Nasdaq saw its worst month since April 2024 on growing concerns over tariffs, AI competition and sticky inflation data.
Manufacturing data released earlier on Monday also came in weaker than expected, suggesting inflationary pressure continue to rise. Many economists say the new tariffs on Canada and Mexico are likely to accelerate inflation as they will make goods more expensive as manufacturers pass on the levy to consumers.
Trump signed the executive order imposing the tariffs back on February 1, but postponed them for a month after both countries pledged to help address immigration at their respective borders with the U.S.
But those actions were not enough to placate Trump, who said Monday: "Just so you understand, vast amounts of fentanyl have poured into our country from from Mexico, and as you know, also from China, where it goes to Mexico and goes to Canada."
Many had hoped that the tariffs would not actually go into effect at the 25 percent level the president initially proposed. Those hopes have now been all but dashed.
"They're all set. They go into effect tomorrow," Trump said after telling reporters there was "no room left" to negotiate.
Quote:President Trump said Monday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “won’t be around very long” if he won’t make a peace deal with Russia — deepening the rift between the men after a shouting match Friday in the Oval Office.
Trump amped up the pressure on Zelensky after the Ukrainian leader said Sunday that an end to his country’s war with Russia was “very, very far away.”
“Everybody has to get into a room, so to speak, and we have to make a deal, and the deal can be made very fast,” Trump said at the White House.
“Now, maybe somebody doesn’t want to make a deal, and if somebody doesn’t want to make a deal, I think that person won’t be around very long. That person will not be listened to very long. Because I believe that Russia wants to make a deal. I believe, certainly the people of Ukraine want to make a deal.”
Hours earlier, Trump trashed Zelensky on Truth Social for saying that the war won’t be over anytime soon.
“This is the worst statement that could have been made by Zelenskyy [sic], and America will not put up with it for much longer!” Trump wrote.
“It is what I was saying, this guy doesn’t want there to be Peace as long as he has America’s backing and, Europe, in the meeting they had with Zelenskyy [sic], stated flatly that they cannot do the job without the U.S. – Probably not a great statement to have been made in terms of a show of strength against Russia. What are they thinking?”
Zelensky scrambled Monday to clarify his downbeat assessment, tweeting that “[p]eace is needed as soon as possible” and that “[i]t is very important that we try to make our diplomacy really substantive to end this war the soonest [sic] possible.”
The latest back-and-forth comes as further US support for Ukraine’s defense is in doubt following the stunning public spat triggered by heated words between Kyiv’s leader and Vice President JD Vance.
“You’re either going to make a deal or we’re out, and if we’re out, you’ll fight it out,” Trump said at one point during the exchange on Friday. “I don’t think it’s going to be pretty.”
Trump and Zelensky had been due to sign a mineral-rights framework deal that would have given America a stake in Ukrainian rare earth elements, but the pact was left unsigned and the visiting leader instead was told to leave early.
National security adviser Mike Waltz said Sunday that Zelensky’s conduct in the Oval Office was an “insult” and that officials determined the summit could not be salvaged.
Quote:The Trump administration is considering cutting off additional military aid to Ukraine following Friday’s dramatic Oval Office blowup involving the president, Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
President Trump was due to meet Monday with key officials — including national security adviser Mike Waltz and Secretary of State Marco Rubio — to discuss the prospect of letting European allies take over assisting Ukraine in its war against Russia, a source close to the White House told The Post.
“This is going to be part of a larger pivot away from conflicts in Europe and a pivot towards building alliances in Latin America and in the Western Hemisphere,” the source said, name-checking El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, Argentina President Javier Milei and Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado Parisca as potential beneficiaries.
At the White House Monday, Waltz pointedly told reporters that “we welcome the Europeans taking a lead in European security.”
“The American people’s patience is not unlimited, their wallets are not unlimited, and our stockpiles and munitions are not unlimited,” Waltz told Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom” Monday.
“So the time to talk is now.”
Trump responded Monday morning on Truth Social to Zelensky’s statement that a peace settlement between Moscow and Kyiv is “very, very far away.”
“This is the worst statement that could have been made by Zelenskyy [sic], and America will not put up with it for much longer!” the president said.
“It is what I was saying, this guy doesn’t want there to be Peace as long as he has America’s backing and, Europe, in the meeting they had with Zelenskyy [sic], stated flatly that they cannot do the job without the U.S. – Probably not a great statement to have been made in terms of a show of strength against Russia. What are they thinking?”
Quote:The city is making it easier for potentially hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants to obtain a municipal residency ID card to help try to pave the way for everything from housing to free health care.
The Adams administration-backed change adds 23 types of lesser IDs that migrants and others can show to prove New York City residency to get the useful card.
For example, illegal migrants and others are now able to produce expired driver’s licenses and previous documents from ICE, the federal Bureau of Prisons and open cases with city departments such as for housing, in addition to 100 other types of IDs, to help obtain an IDNYC card.
The official city IDs were first offered by the de Blasio administration in 2015 to try to help migrants more easily access free health care in city public hospitals, open bank accounts, sign leases and enroll in school, among other things.
All New Yorkers 10 and older, “regardless of immigration status,” can apply for an IDNYC card, the city’s website says.
About 1.7 million people have received the special card to date, including 132,054 last year and 127,859 in 2023, the city says.
There are currently about 670,000 illegal migrants in New York, according to a study released in late January by the liberal-leaning Fiscal Policy Institute. The majority traditionally live in New York City.
Critics blasted the easing-up of access to IDNYC, saying it undermines federal immigration law and President Trump’s vow to enforce it.
“It’s a terrible idea,’’ Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis (R-Brooklyn/Staten Island) told The Post.
“To provide a legitimate government ID to individuals in the country illegally then gives them access to government buildings and services is just another incentive [to come here].
Quote:Kathy come lately.
Gov. Kathy Hochul is jumping on the anti-Trump train — touting herself Monday as the new leader of the “resistance” against the president’s agenda.
“Once you draw first blood on us, you know we’re coming back hard, and I will be leading the resistance on policies like these where you’re hurting New Yorkers directly,” she proclaimed during an interview on NPR’s “Morning Edition.”
The assertion is a far cry from Hochul’s comments less than two weeks ago, when she told reporters just the opposite.
“I’ve been asked countless (times) ‘are you leading the resistance?’ – No, I’m governing the great state of New York,” Hochul said when asked about her shifting stance towards President Trump’s administration.
Hochul, as Trump was taking office, publicly embraced a cooperative relationship with the incoming admin, congratulating him on his stunning election victory in a conversation “focused on collaboration,” sources said at the time.
But since the US Department of Transportation moved to put the kibosh on New York’s congestion pricing scheme, Hochul has struck a different tune, holding a profanity-laden press conference where she compared herself to Rambo as she announced a lawsuit to block Trump from undoing the tolling program.
The governor’s campaign then quickly released an ad using tape from the appearance featuring Hochul wearing a windbreaker as she walk in the subway in slow motion, a scene akin to an actual Rambo movie.
Between her fiery subway press conference and her campaign releasing the dramatic supercut, Hochul met with Trump at the White House in a sit-down her spokesperson described as “frank” and “candid.”
The two have also discussed a possible infusion of federal cash to help rehabilitate Penn Station and make transit upgrades, but the Democrat still has no results to show from her attempts at diplomacy.
Using Trump as a foil may be Hochul’s best bet at raising her dismally sagging approval numbers, pollsters said.
“It’s a plus because she’s making Trump a target. Targets work in politics.” Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College polling institute, told The Post Monday.
A Siena College poll released last month showed 57% of New Yorkers would prefer someone else to run in the 2026 gubenatorial election over Hochul.
Only 39% of New Yorkers rated her favorably in the same poll.
“Because Hochul doesn’t have a strong identity, she can find one by attacking Trump,” Miringoff added.
Others said that while Hochul’s resistance rebrand might be a wise political move for her, she needs to follow through beyond posting clips online.
“New Yorkers are savvy,” Jon Reinish, a Democratic strategist, told The Post.
Quote:President Trump’s Education Department is floating a buyout offer of up to $25,000 to its employees, which is set to terminate at 11:59 p.m. Monday, officials told The Post.
The department shared details of the “Voluntary Separation Incentive Payment” — which will come to $25,000 or uniquely calculated severance, whichever amount is less — to employees on Friday afternoon.
So far, officials say 137 workers of the more than 4,000 at the department, including those slated for retirement, have taken them up on the offer.
“This is a one time offer in advance of a very significant Reduction in Force for the US Department of Education,” wrote chief human capital officer Jacqueline Clay in the missive, which was first reported by Politico Friday.
The offer followed requests last week from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) for agencies to submit “reorganization plans” by March 13.
It also follows a broader federal buyout package that OPM extended to 2 million government employees who didn’t want to return to in-person work in Washington, DC.
Around 75,000 accepted those terms before a Feb. 12 deadline. They will be able to leave their jobs while being awarded full pay and benefits until the end of the 2025 fiscal year on Sept. 30.
To be eligible for the Education Department’s offer, employees must not have received the initial OPM buyout, must not be temporary or politically appointed workers, and must not have been rehired out of retirement or in the process of retiring due to a disability.
Eligible retirees in the Voluntary Early Retirement Plan (VERA) or Optional Retirement will be able to receive the extra cash on top of existing benefit packages.
Those who took any student loan repayments over the past three years, a recruitment or relocation bonus in the last two years or a retention bonus in the last year are not eligible.
Eligible employees must also have worked for the government for at least three years.
Tech billionaire Elon Musk first suggested the buyout plan last year before overseeing its implementation by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
And just in case you missed it last weekeend...
Agencies will not be required to change current accommodations for non-English speakers
Quote:President Donald Trump on Saturday signed an executive order making English the official language of the U.S.
The order revokes an executive order issued by former President Bill Clinton in 2000, "Improving Access Services for Persons with Limited English Proficiency," that required federal agencies and recipients of federal funding to provide language assistance to non-English speakers.
However, Trump's order notes it does not "require or direct" any change in services provided by any agency.
It will be up to agency heads to decide if any changes should be made.
While English has been used as the country's national language — seen in every historic governing document — the U.S. has never had an official language.
"A nationally designated language is at the core of a unified and cohesive society, and the United States is strengthened by a citizenry that can freely exhange ideas in one shared language," Trump wrote in the order.
The U.S. is one of just a few countries without an official language. About 180 of the 195 countries across the globe have made the distinction.
Trump has been outspoken about designating English as the nation's language, specifically in 2024, as he criticized former President Joe Biden's immigration policies.
"We have languages coming into our country. We don’t have one instructor in our entire nation that can speak that language," Trump said while speaking before the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2024. "These are languages—it’s the craziest thing—they have languages that nobody in this country has ever heard of. It’s a very horrible thing."
The order states it is intended to "promote unity" and "cultivate a shared American culture for all citizens," while ensuring consistency in government operations and creating a pathway to civic engagement.
First lady Melania Trump speaks at least five languages, including English, French, Italian, German and Slovene, Fox News Digital previously reported.
Quote:The two top leaders of one of the biggest human smuggling rings that funneled 20,000 illegal migrants into the US since 2019 have been arrested in Los Angeles, authorities said.
Eduardo Domingo Renoj-Matul, who was busted Friday, is accused of helming the twisted group, which lured migrants from Guatemala for $15,000 to $18,000 and handed them off to smugglers in Mexico who would bring them into the US.
The feds also collared Cristobal Mejia-Chaj, who prosecutors said was Renoj-Matul’s “right-hand man,” on Friday. The two men are being held without bond.
The ring is accused of holding some of its victims hostage in stash houses and killing seven migrants, including a 4-year-old, according to a federal indictment.
Acting US Attorney Joseph McNally said the indictment and arrests “have dismantled one of the country’s largest and most dangerous smuggling organizations.”
“This work saves lives, and the members of the organization will now face significant consequences,” said McNally.
Some of the smuggled migrants were held hostage in stash houses in Phoenix and Los Angeles until they could pay their fees, officials said.
Once the debt was paid, the group allegedly transported the migrants across the country to at least 20 states, including New York, for an additional fee.
In one example of the group’s brutality, prosecutors alleged Renoj-Matul called a migrant’s mother, threatening that her daughter “would come home in a box” if she failed to pay her smuggling fees.
A third suspect, Helmer Obispo-Hernandez, described as the group’s “lieutenant,” is still at-large after threatening to behead a Homeland Security agent, along with members of their family, authorities said.
If convicted of all, the accused smugglers face the death sentence or life imprisonment.
EUROPE
Quote:A driver plowed a car into pedestrians at a street carnival in Germany early Monday, killing two and injuring at least ten others — five of them seriously — in an area on high alert for possible terrorist attacks, according to police and reports.
The driver crashed an SUV “at speed” into a pedestrian zone in the city of Mannheim in the state of Baden-Wurttemberg — before getting out and running off, police sources told Bild.
Videos shared online showed multiple bodies strewn on the ground as first responders attempted to resuscitate some of the most seriously injured.
A second clip shows armed police chasing a suspect, who was arrested soon after the carnage, according to authorities.
The suspect is a 40-year-old German man from the neighbouring state of Rhineland-Palatinate who did not appear to be politically or religiously motivated, officials said.
Broadcaster SWR reported that the suspect had experienced psychological issues.
“At this time, we have no indications of an extremist or religious background regarding the specific motivation for the act,” Interior Minister of the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg Thomas Strobl told reporters.
“The motivation may rather be rooted in the perpetrator’s own personal circumstances. However, this is the subject of ongoing investigations.”
It was unclear whether the driver deliberately targeted the Rose Monday carnival celebrations in the region — where police had been on alert for possible terrorism following a string of recent attacks.
Police, however, assured that there were no “indications of a second perpetrator,” and there was no more danger to the public.
“It is terrible here, nobody knows what happened, you only see injured people and the dead, and you don’t know what to do,” one eyewitness told Mannheimer Morgen of the carnage.
The identities of those killed had not yet been released late Monday, nor had the details of the injuries.
Quote:The Kremlin claimed Monday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s fiery shouting match with President Trump at the White House proves that he will have to be forced into a peace deal.
“What happened at the White House on Friday, of course, demonstrated how difficult it will be to reach a settlement trajectory around Ukraine,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
“The Kyiv regime and Zelensky do not want peace. They want the war to continue.
“It is very important that someone forces Zelensky himself to change his position,” he added.
“Someone has to make Zelensky want peace. If the Europeans can do it, they should be honored and praised.”
Russia’s remarks come just days after Trump and Vice President JD Vance clashed with the Ukrainian leader in the Oval Office when the president accused Zelensky of disrespecting the US and saying he risked triggering World War Three.
Zelensky, for his part, said on Sunday that he believed he could salvage his relationship with Trump and was still “ready” to sign a US-Ukraine minerals deal — but Ukraine wouldn’t concede any territory to Russia as part of a peace deal.
Trump, meanwhile, urged people to stop focusing on Putin and worry more about illegal migrants coming into the US.
“We should spend less time worrying about Putin, and more time worrying about migrant rape gangs, drug lords, murderers, and people from mental institutions entering our Country — So that we don’t end up like Europe!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Sunday.
In the wake of the Oval Office clash, European leaders leaped to Zelensky’s defense — with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer saying at a summit in London that they had agreed to draw up a Ukraine peace plan to present to the US.
The Kremlin said the summit was an attempt to continue the war and not to seek peace.
“We see that… a fragmentation of the collective West has begun,” Peskov said.
“There remains a group of countries that rather constitutes the party of war, which declares its readiness to further back Ukraine in terms of supporting the war and ensuring the continuation of hostilities.”
Quote:France and Britain are proposing a partial one-month truce between Russia and Ukraine that would cover air, sea and energy infrastructure attacks but not include ground fighting, French President Emmanuel Macron and his foreign minister said.
The comments came amid a flurry of European diplomacy designed to shore up Western support for Ukraine following an acrimonious meeting between President Volodymyr Zelensky and President Trump in the Oval Office on Friday.
“Such a truce on air, sea and energy infrastructure would allow us to determine whether Russian President Vladimir Putin is acting in good faith when he commits to a truce. And that’s when real peace negotiations could start,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on Monday.
Under the Anglo-French proposal, European ground troops would only be deployed to Ukraine in a second phase, Macron said in an interview published in Le Figaro late Sunday.
“There will be no European troops on Ukrainian soil in the coming weeks,” Le Figaro quoted Macron as saying as he flew to London for a meeting of European leaders, convened by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to advance efforts at drawing up a Ukraine peace plan.
“The question is how we use this time to try to obtain a truce, with negotiations that will take several weeks and then, once peace is signed, a (troop) deployment,” Macron said.
The French president did not elaborate on how air, sea and energy infrastructure could be monitored.
“In my eyes that can only be possible with NATO or at least NATO command and then Patriot systems, long-range missiles and aviation, which Ukraine does not have,” said a European diplomat.
“And you have to negotiate with Russia so that it doesn’t carry out the massive attacks.”
The Kremlin, which has rejected the idea of Western troops being deployed to Ukraine, said on Monday the Oval Office clash between Trump and Zelensky showed how difficult it would be to reach a settlement on the conflict in Ukraine.
‘Different options’
Zelensky, asked if he was aware of the plan mentioned by Macron, told reporters in London: “I’m aware of everything.”
MIDDLE EAST
Quote:One person was killed and four others wounded after a terrorist went on a stabbing frenzy at a bus station in the Israeli city of Haifa on Monday, authorities said.
The killer, identified by police as an Arab Israeli citizen, was shot and killed by security guards soon after knifing the victims at the Lev Hamifratz transit hub.
The terrorist rode in on a bus — then shouted “Allahu Akbar” before attacking those around him, a witness told the Times of Israel.
Shocking surveillance video captured the attacker running up behind one of his victims and repeatedly stabbing him in the back before he was taken out.
Cops said the attacker, who was from a nearby Arab Druze town, had only just recently returned to Israel after some time abroad.
Hamas quickly praised the attack but stopped short of claiming responsibility for it.
Investigators, who described the incident as a terrorist attack, said they were still probing whether the knifeman acted alone.
Quote:US Central Command forces conducted a precision strike on Feb. 23 targeting and killing Muhammed Yusuf Ziya Talay, a senior military leader of the terrorist organization Hurras al-Din, an affiliate of the terrorist organization, officials said.
“As we have said in the past, we will continue to relentlessly pursue these terrorists in order to defend our homeland, and U.S., allied, and partner personnel in the region,” CENTCOM Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla said.
The attack came roughly a week after CENTCOM forces conducted an airstrike targeting and killing a “senior finance and logistics official” with Hurras al-Din.
Hurras al-Din, which was formed in 2018 after the Nusrah Front terror group decided to split from Al-Qaeda, operates largely in Syria’s Idlib Province and is thought to have as many as 2,500 members, according to the National Counterterrorism Center.
The group “advocates attacks against the West and Israel to expel foreign influence from Muslim lands, and it seeks to set the conditions necessary to form a new caliphate across the Levant and the broader Middle East,” according to the NCC.
Quote:A man allegedly carrying $2.5 million in cash destined for the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah reportedly was detained Friday at Beirut’s airport in a bust that an expert told Fox News Digitial is “unprecedented.”
“The detainee and the seized funds will be handed over to the investigation division at the General Directorate of General Security,” Lebanon’s finance ministry said in a statement obtained by Reuters, which cited sources saying that the man had been traveling from Turkey.
“We are seeing indications that the terrorist Hezbollah group funded by the Islamic Republic is still committed to rearming and rebuilding its decimated infrastructure,” Israeli ambassador to the UN Danny Danon told Fox News Digital. “This is yet another attempt of Tehran to destabilize the Middle East. Israel will not hesitate to defend itself from any threat it perceives from the north.”
“The $2.5 million dollar seizure is unprecedented,” added David Daoud, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
“We haven’t seen anything like this. Now, this does track though the fact this money is coming in from Turkey, this does track with Israeli claims that Turkey is being used as a conduit by the Iranians to get more funds to Hezbollah,” Daoud told Fox News Digital.
“Plausibly, this is one thing that got caught – how many cash transfers are getting through the dragnet?” he also said.
The money the individual was carrying was bound for Hezbollah, which has been weakened recently by Israel’s military, sources told Reuters.
There was no immediate reaction from Hezbollah on Friday.
"For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ," 1 Thessalonians 5:9
Maranatha!
The Internet might be either your friend or enemy. It just depends on whether or not she has a bad hair day.
![[Image: SP1-Scripter.png]](https://www.save-point.org/images/userbars/SP1-Scripter.png)
![[Image: SP1-Writer.png]](https://www.save-point.org/images/userbars/SP1-Writer.png)
![[Image: SP1-Poet.png]](https://www.save-point.org/images/userbars/SP1-Poet.png)
![[Image: SP1-PixelArtist.png]](https://www.save-point.org/images/userbars/SP1-PixelArtist.png)
![[Image: SP1-Reporter.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/GmxWbHyL/SP1-Reporter.png)
My Original Stories (available in English and Spanish)
List of Compiled Binary Executables I have published...
HiddenChest & Roole
Give me a free copy of your completed game if you include at least 3 of my scripts!
Just some scripts I've already published on the board...
KyoGemBoost XP VX & ACE, RandomEnkounters XP, KSkillShop XP, Kolloseum States XP, KEvents XP, KScenario XP & Gosu, KyoPrizeShop XP Mangostan, Kuests XP, KyoDiscounts XP VX, ACE & MV, KChest XP VX & ACE 2016, KTelePort XP, KSkillMax XP & VX & ACE, Gem Roulette XP VX & VX Ace, KRespawnPoint XP, VX & VX Ace, GiveAway XP VX & ACE, Klearance XP VX & ACE, KUnits XP VX, ACE & Gosu 2017, KLevel XP, KRumors XP & ACE, KMonsterPals XP VX & ACE, KStatsRefill XP VX & ACE, KLotto XP VX & ACE, KItemDesc XP & VX, KPocket XP & VX, OpenChest XP VX & ACE
Maranatha!
The Internet might be either your friend or enemy. It just depends on whether or not she has a bad hair day.
My Original Stories (available in English and Spanish)
List of Compiled Binary Executables I have published...
HiddenChest & Roole
Give me a free copy of your completed game if you include at least 3 of my scripts!
Just some scripts I've already published on the board...
KyoGemBoost XP VX & ACE, RandomEnkounters XP, KSkillShop XP, Kolloseum States XP, KEvents XP, KScenario XP & Gosu, KyoPrizeShop XP Mangostan, Kuests XP, KyoDiscounts XP VX, ACE & MV, KChest XP VX & ACE 2016, KTelePort XP, KSkillMax XP & VX & ACE, Gem Roulette XP VX & VX Ace, KRespawnPoint XP, VX & VX Ace, GiveAway XP VX & ACE, Klearance XP VX & ACE, KUnits XP VX, ACE & Gosu 2017, KLevel XP, KRumors XP & ACE, KMonsterPals XP VX & ACE, KStatsRefill XP VX & ACE, KLotto XP VX & ACE, KItemDesc XP & VX, KPocket XP & VX, OpenChest XP VX & ACE
