From boat makers to farmers, US-led tariff war inflicts pain
WASHINGTON — A Florida boat builder absorbs $4 million in lost business and expects more pain. An Ohio pork producer is losing access to a vital export market and fears the damage will last years. A motorcycle shop near Cologne, Germany, wonders if it even has a future.
A brawl that the United States provoked with its closest trading partners is starting to draw blood. On Friday, the European Union began imposing tariffs on $3.4 billion in American goods — from whiskey and motorcycles to peanuts and cranberries — to retaliate for President Donald Trump’s own tariffs on imported steel and aluminum. China, India and Turkey had earlier begun penalizing American products in response to the U.S. tariffs on metals.
“We’re bleeding pretty bad right now,” said Jim Heimerl, a pork producer in Johnstown, Ohio.
Pork producers like Heimerl are already suffering from plunging prices and reduced income since China’s move to impose a 25 percent tariff on American pork in retaliation for Trump’s tariffs on imported steel and aluminum.
If the trade rift doesn’t worsen, the damage to the overall economy will likely be modest, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. But no one can say that the economic harm will end soon.
Car dealers gear up for Saudi women to hit the roads
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Cradling her 4-month-old daughter, Nour Obeid scans the car showroom and heads to the mid-sized SUVs.
In the past, a woman looking to buy a car in Saudi Arabia would focus on the features in the back, but Obeid is checking out the driver’s seat, picturing herself doing grocery store runs or school drop-offs.
This Sunday, the kingdom will lift the world’s only ban on women driving, a milestone for women who have had to rely on drivers, male relatives, taxis and ride-hailing services to get to work, go shopping and get around.
The move could help boost the Saudi economy by ensuring stronger female participation in the workforce, meaning increased household incomes.
Car companies also see opportunity in this country of 20 million people, half of them female. Ahead of the ban being lifted, they’ve put Saudi saleswomen on showroom floors and targeted potential new drivers with advertising and social media marketing. Earlier this year, Ford sponsored a driving experience specifically for women in the city of Jiddah.
First lady’s ‘don’t care’ jacket is a gift to memers online
NEW YORK — I really don’t care, do u?
Perhaps one day first lady Melania Trump will use her own words to illuminate her fashion “don’t care” message. Until that theoretical moment, we have the memes on one of the digisphere’s most perfect blank canvases: Her green $39 jacket — one so five seasons ago, no less.
Tony European labels have been more Mrs. Trump’s de rigueur, until Thursday’s trip to a Texas center housing some of the more than 2,300 migrant children sent there after their families entered the U.S. illegally. When the first lady left Washington and returned, it was in the Zara jacket with the message heard ‘round the interwebs scrawled graffiti-style in white block letters on the back. (She switched to a different jacket for the visit)
It’s the back, where “I really don’t care, do u?” was placed by the global mass market brand Zara, that has become social media’s playground, from the compassionate to the downright raunchy. Whatever Mrs. Trump may or may not have intended — her spokeswoman declared “it’s a jacket” with “no hidden message” — the outerwear’s doctored image not only spread rapidly among those looking to sound off, but to raise money benefiting children like those the first lady visited.
If Mrs. Trump’s jacket, from Zara’s spring-summer 2016 collection, was some sort of counter-message, or a clear diss of the “fake news media” as her husband tweeted, the memes’ clear winner is a reconfiguring to read, simply: “I really do care, do you?” Other messages shouted on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram: “Rise up” and “I have no idea what I’m doing.” One was a wordy trope about the wearer’s racial, sexual and immigrant background.
Man charged in bike path killings speaks in court of ‘Allah’
NEW YORK — The man charged with murdering eight people on a New York City bike path and injuring many more spoke out in court Friday over a prosecutor’s objection, invoking “Allah” and defending the Islamic State.
Sayfullo Saipov, 30, raised his hand to speak immediately after U.S. District Judge Vernon S. Broderick set an Oct. 7, 2019 date for the Uzbek immigrant’s trial.
Earlier, he had pleaded not guilty through his lawyer to the latest indictment in the Oct. 31 truck attack near the World Trade Center. A prosecutor said the Justice Department will decide by the end of the summer whether to seek the death penalty against Saipov, who lived in Paterson, New Jersey, before the attack.
Speaking through an interpreter for about 10 minutes, Saipov said the decisions of a U.S. court were unimportant to him. He said he cared about “Allah” and the holy war being waged by the Islamic State.
At the prompting of Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Houle, Broderick interrupted Saipov to read him his rights, including that anything he said in court could be used against him.
Nearly 400 people used California assisted death law in 2017
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California health officials reported Friday that 374 terminally ill people took drugs to end their lives in 2017, the first full year after a law made the option legal.
The California Department of Public Health said 577 people received aid-in-dying drugs last year, but not everyone used them. The law allows adults to obtain a prescription for life-ending drugs if a doctor has determined they have six months or less to live. They can self-administer the drugs.
Of the 374 who died, about 90 percent were more than 60 years old, about 95 percent were insured and about 83 percent were receiving hospice or similar care. The median age was 74.
The figures are more than double those from the first six months after the law went into effect June 9, 2016. In those early months 191 people received life-ending drugs, while 111 people took them and died.
Riverside County Superior Court Judge Daniel Ottolia ruled in May that the law is unconstitutional because it was adopted illegally when lawmakers passed it during a special Legislative session called to address health issues. An appeals court last week reinstated the End of Life Option Act, but gave opponents until July 2 to file objections.
Give up after scandals? Television history shows otherwise
NEW YORK — Say this about TV creators in 2018 — they don’t give up easily.
Three current shows — “Roseanne,” ”Transparent” and “House of Cards” — have been crippled by scandal, but each plans to continue without their disgraced stars.
“The bottom line is fundamentally money,” said Karen Tongson, a professor of English, Gender Studies and American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. “These crews, these actors, these shows that have audiences, that have critical acclaim, are pushed to continue for those reasons.”
The reboot of “Roseanne” had an excellent first season in the ratings — it also earned an estimated $45 million in advertising revenue for ABC — when its future was thrown into doubt by a racist tweet by star Roseanne Barr.
On Thursday, ABC said it ordered 10 episodes of a spinoff called “The Conners” after Barr relinquished any creative or financial participation in it, which the network had said was a condition of such a series.