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Everybody knows penguins are smuggling fentanyl from their base at the South Pole into the US, just look at the way they walk, they're plainly high as kites. Plus the disrespect they showed Trump and Vance in the Oval Office. Tie-less and constantly chatting between themselves.

CNN Business reporter Allison Morrow on Thursday took stock of Musk's three recent business and political failings: 1. His $20 million losing bet on the pro-Trump candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. 2.Tesla's biggest sales drop ever, falling 13% in the first quarter, while its No. 1 rival grew revenue by 60% in the same time period. Musk has lost more than a quarter of his total net worth since January as Tesla shares have slumped. 3. Rumours swirling that Trump wants to sack Musk although the White House denies it. Morrow went on to say there was so far no sign of any business plan to regain customers. According to her, the sales drive with Trump on the South Lawn, combined with the Commerce secretary’s appealing to Americans to buy Tesla shares, fell flat; whilst the FBI threatening to prosecute Tesla vandals as domestic terrorists stretched the definition of terrorism beyond credibility according to legal experts. 'Parade of humiliation' has engulfed Elon Musk in just the last day: CNN Business reporter

It's not only Krugman ridiculing Trump's formula for tariffs. The maths is simple: take the U.S. goods trade deficit with a country, divide it by that country's exports to the U.S. and turn it into a percentage figure; then cut that figure in half to produce the U.S. "reciprocal" tariff, with a floor of 10%. That's how the volcanic Australian territory of Heard Island and McDonald Islands in the Antarctic ended up with a 10% tariff. Madagascar, with a GDP per head of just over $500 p.a. faces a 47% tariff on the modest $733 million of exports of vanilla, metals and apparel that it did with the U.S. last year. "Presumably no one is buying Teslas there," John Denton, head of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), told Reuters, an ironic reference to the improbability of Madagascar being able to placate Trump by buying upmarket U.S. products. Madagascar is not alone: the bluntness of the formula as applied to economies which cannot afford to import much from the U.S. inevitably leads to a high reciprocal tally: 50% for Lesotho in Southern Africa, 49% for Cambodia in Southeast Asia. Richer countries are nonplussed too. For the European Union it has produced a punitive tariff of 20% - four times the 5% which the World Trade Organization calculates as the EU's average tariff rate. Trump's tariff formula confounds the world, punishes the poor

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Journalist James Surowiecki observed Wednesday evening that the president's sweeping worldwide tariffs seemed to be based on a simplistic formula, which takes the U.S. trade deficit with an individual nation and divides that number by its exports to the U.S. Surowiecki posted on X. "They didn't actually calculate tariff rates + non-tariff barriers, as they say they did. Instead, for every country, they just took our trade deficit with that country and divided it by the country's exports to us. So we have a $17.9 billion trade deficit with Indonesia. Its exports to us are $28 billion. $17.9/$28 = 64%, which Trump claims is the tariff rate Indonesia charges us. What extraordinary nonsense this is." However because Trump claims to be 'nice' he then divides the figure by half! In a final flourish, if US trade deficit/imports with a country is less than 10%, or the US has a trade surplus with a country, Trump then slaps a flat 10% tariff on that country. 'Truly amazing': Journalist slaps down White House aide's attempted fact check

On Tuesday, the Trump regime targeted Harvard University, threatening to withdraw about $9 billion in contracts and multiyear grants unless Harvard capitulates to unspecified demands. Last week, Trump targeted major Washington law firms, threatening to cut off their access to government buildings and government contracts unless they agreed to various ultimatums. Yesterday, the regime placed 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico and “reciprocal” tariffs on imports from all other nations. Some governments say they’ll retaliate. Others, Israel and Vietnam, for example, are responding by rolling back their own tariffs. Trump says he’ll continue to raise tariffs until other countries capitulate to various unspecified demands. What do all these have in common? Trump’s unquenchable thirst for power, dominance, and intimidation. Here are 8 rules for dealing with this. 1. Don't believe his said reasons for action. He'll use whatever pretext he can find to issue demands and get universities, for example, to capitulate. 2. Don't assume that Trump is concerned about other nations’ “unfair” trade practices or illegal immigration. These, too, are pretexts. He is using tariffs, immigration, and every tool at his command to force them to cave in to his demands. 3. Surrender and domination are the goals: whether a university, a large law firm, a big non-profit organisation, even a Democratic state like California. Surrender is the point. 4. Each capitulation confirms the narrative that Trump is all-powerful, invincible, and able to get every person, institution, and country to prostrate themselves before him. 5. Each submission fuels his lust for dominance and attempt to create an image of absolute power, King Trump. 6. It’s vitally important, therefore, that institutions and countries join together to fight this systemic intimidation. University faculties must united under the American Association of University Professors to speak out against Trump’s assault on free speech and debate at universities, sue the Trump administration for violating their rights under the First Amendment, and develop a media strategy to alert the public to the demagogue's threats. 7. Canada, Mexico, Japan, and the European Union must unite to create a special trade zone that bars the United States. They should threaten to curtail American banks’ access to their public procurement markets, limit the large figures their citizens invest in American companies annually, and increase tax and regulatory pressure on American digital platforms. 8. The media should highlight institutions that are standing up to Trump (such as the Jenner & Block law firm, Canada, and Mexico) and condemn those that are surrendering to him ( Columbia University, the Paul Weiss law firm, and Israel and Vietnam on tariffs). This is all about Trump’s thirst for power, transforming the United States into a dictatorship. The only way to deal with Trump's demands for capitulation | Opinion .

Paul Krugman's views: "The EU, like the United States, has generally low tariffs; the average tariff it charges on US goods is less than 3 percent. So where does this 39 percent number come from? I have no idea. Many people speculated that Trump would count value-added taxes as tariffs, even though they aren’t — European producers selling to the EU market pay the same VAT as US producers, so it doesn’t discriminate and therefore isn’t protectionist. But even if you get that wrong, EU VAT rates are in the vicinity of 20 percent, so you still can’t get anywhere close to 39 percent." Trump falsehoods according to Krugman: " Trump is still claiming that we’re subsidizing Canada by $200 billion a year. Aside from the basic mistake of claiming that a Canadian trade surplus means that we’re somehow subsidizing Canada, he’s inflating the actual trade surplus by a factor of three. Many, many people have pointed out the error, but Trump is sticking with it, the same way Musk is sticking with the millions of dead Social Security beneficiaries thing." 'Full-on crazy': Nobel-winning economist aghast at Trump's tariffs and wildly false claims

Gaza ambulance 'crushed' by IDF as aid attacks increase On Sunday, a mass grave containing the bodies of 15 first responders was unearthed in Gaza. Sky News investigates how their final moments unfolded. The group had disappeared during a rescue mission one week earlier.

The administration of US President Donald Trump has begun mass layoffs of 10,000 employees at healthcare institutions as part of a campaign to reduce federal employees. Security prevented some employees from entering the building a few hours after they received notice of their dismissal. The layoffs affected several well-known agencies within the US Department of Health and Human Services, including the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The layoffs included dismissal of leading scientists overseeing public health, cancer research, and vaccine and drug approval. This raises concerns about how the US will respond to ongoing emergencies - such as the measles outbreak and the spread of bird flu. ''The FDA as we've known it is finished, with most of the leaders with institutional knowledge and a deep understanding of product development and safety no longer employed," former Commissioner Robert Califf wrote in a LinkedIn post. "I believe that history will see this a huge mistake," he wrote. "It will be interesting to hear from the new leadership how they plan to put 'Humpty Dumpty' back together again." Mass layoffs in US healthcare sector