Upping ante, Trump threatens new tariffs on Chinese imports
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump directed the U.S. Trade Representative to prepare new tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports Monday as the two nations moved closer to a potential trade war.
The tariffs, which Trump wants set at a 10 percent rate, would be the latest round of punitive measures in an escalating dispute over the large trade imbalance between the two countries. Trump recently ordered tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese goods in retaliation for intellectual properly theft. The tariffs were quickly matched by China on U.S. exports.
“China apparently has no intention of changing its unfair practices related to the acquisition of American intellectual property and technology,” Trump said in a statement Monday announcing the new action. “Rather than altering those practices, it is now threatening United States companies, workers, and farmers who have done nothing wrong.”
Trump added: “These tariffs will go into effect if China refuses to change its practices, and also if it insists on going forward with the new tariffs that it has recently announced.”
Trump said that if China responds to this fresh round of tariffs, then he will move to counter “by pursuing additional tariffs on another $200 billion of goods.”
Report says more than 1 billion small arms in world, up from 2007
UNITED NATIONS — There are more than 1 billion firearms in the world today, including 857 million in civilian hands — with American men and women the dominant owners, according to a study released Monday.
The Small Arms Survey says 393 million of the civilian-held firearms, 46 percent, are in the United States, which is “more than those held by civilians in the other top 25 countries combined.”
“The key to the United States, of course, is its unique gun culture,” the report’s author, Aaron Karp, said at a news conference. “American civilians buy an average of 14 million new firearms every year, and that means the United States is an overwhelming presence on civilian markets.”
The report said the numbers include legal and illegal firearms in civilian hands, ranging from improvised craft weapons to factory-made handguns, rifles, shotguns and, in some countries, even machine guns.
The estimate of over 1 billion firearms worldwide at the end of 2017 also includes 133 million such weapons held by government military forces and 22.7 million by law enforcement agencies, it said.
Former Mexico President Vicente Fox joins High Times board
LOS ANGELES — Former Mexico President Vicente Fox, who calls himself a soldier in the global campaign to legalize marijuana, is joining the board of directors of venerable cannabis publication High Times to advance his agenda.
Speaking with the Associated Press about his views on cannabis and his new appointment, Fox said he foresees a day when a robust legal marketplace will produce new jobs and medicines while sharply reducing cartel violence in his home country.
He also sees pot being part of the North American Free Trade Agreement among Mexico, Canada and the U.S., where some 30 states are embracing legalized marijuana in some form.
Fox’s appointment to the magazine’s board points to the growing acceptance of the once-scorned industry. Earlier this year, former U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, reversed his long-held position against legalization and became an adviser to a cannabis company.
Warned 30 years ago, global warming ‘is in our living room’
SALIDA, Colo. — We were warned.
On June 23, 1988, a sultry day in Washington, James Hansen told Congress and the world that global warming wasn’t approaching — it had already arrived. The testimony of the top NASA scientist, said Rice University historian Douglas Brinkley, was “the opening salvo of the age of climate change.”
Thirty years later, it’s clear that Hansen and other doomsayers were right. But the change has been so sweeping that it is easy to lose sight of effects large and small — some obvious, others less conspicuous.
Earth is noticeably hotter, the weather stormier and more extreme. Polar regions have lost billions of tons of ice; sea levels have been raised by trillions of gallons of water. Far more wildfires rage.
Over 30 years — the time period climate scientists often use in their studies in order to minimize natural weather variations — the world’s annual temperature has warmed nearly 1 degree (0.54 degrees Celsius), according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. And the temperature in the United States has gone up even more — nearly 1.6 degrees.
Doubts loom over Colombia peace deal with hawk’s election
BOGOTA, Colombia — Uncertainty loomed over Colombia’s fragile peace deal on Monday with the victory of one of its most hawkish critics in a bruising presidential runoff that laid bare deep divisions in the South American nation as it emerges from decades of bloody conflict.
Ivan Duque, a law-and-order disciple of a powerful former president, won Sunday’s vote with a commanding 12-point lead over rival Gustavo Petro, a former rebel and ex-Bogota mayor.
On the campaign trail, Duque repeatedly vowed to roll back benefits inscribed in the deal, such as demanding that rebel commanders behind scores of atrocities first confess to their war crimes and compensate victims before they are allowed to take up the congressional seats they have been promised in the accord.
But once he takes office in August from the peace deal’s architect, President Juan Manuel Santos, Duque is likely to tread softer if he wants to broaden his base of support and unite the country, analysts said.
“Ironically, he has a chance to make the accords stronger by providing something the peace process has lacked from the outset: a national consensus,” said Michael Shifter, a longtime observer of Colombia and president of the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington.
Authorities: Rapper XXXTentacion shot dead in Florida
DEERFIELD BEACH, Fla. — Troubled rapper-singer XXXTentacion was shot and killed Monday in Florida in what police called an apparent robbery attempt.
The 20-year-old rising star, whose real name is Jahseh Dwayne Onfroy, was pronounced dead Monday evening at a Fort Lauderdale-area hospital, the Broward Sheriff’s Office said. He was shot earlier outside a Deerfield Beach motorcycle dealership.
XXXTentacion had been at RIVA Motorsports checking out inventory, sheriff’s public information officer Keyla Concepcion said. He was in a black BMW i8 and preparing to leave before 4 p.m. when two armed suspects approached him. At least one of them fired, and then both suspects fled the scene in a dark SUV, Concepcion said. Investigators don’t have a motive, and no arrests have been made.
Stephanie Martinez, a 29-year-old mother who lives in the neighborhood, was just coming back from the pool with her kids when she heard three shots. She drove to the end of the street and saw the rapper’s body in the car.
“He has his mouth open and his hand out. Two people went over and checked his pulse,” said Martinez, who also saw blood. “It’s just weird because he should’ve had security and stuff with him.”
