'Great hoax': White House accused of pushing 'fake propaganda' with boat bombing

Brett Wilkins,

 Common Dreams
September 2, 2025 


U.S. President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., attend a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 26, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

Critics of US imperialism on Tuesday responded with skepticism after President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a deadly military strike on what they claimed was a boat linked to a drug cartel off the coast of oil-rich Venezuela.

Trump said on his Truth Social network that 11 people were killed by a US attack in "international waters" on a boat "positively identified" as being used by the Tren de Aragua gang. Rubio said the "lethal strike" targeted "a drug vessel which had departed from Venezuela."

On the first day of his second term, Trump signed an executive order designating drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. Last month, the president reportedly signed a secret order directing the Pentagon to use military force to combat drug cartels abroad, sparking fears of renewed US aggression in a region that has endured well over 100 US attacks, invasions, occupations, and other interventions since the issuance of the dubious Monroe Doctrine in 1823.



Trump has deployed numerous US warships and thousands of sailors and Marines off the coast of Venezuela, a country he has repeatedly threatened with regime change in the face of defiant anti-imperialist resistance from Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

On Monday, Maduro responded to the US escalation during a press conference, telling reporters that he would declare a "republic in arms" in the event of any attack.

"In the face of this maximum military pressure, we have declared maximum preparedness for the defense of Venezuela," he said, calling the US action "an extravagant, unjustifiable, immoral, and absolutely criminal and bloody threat."

"Mr. President, Donald Trump," Maduro added, "watch out, because Mr. Rubio wants to stain your hands with blood."

Armed with the knowledge of more than a century of US meddling in Venezuelan affairs—a history that includes supporting coups and brutal dictatorships and policies of economic strangulation—anti-imperialist critics questioned the motives of Tuesday's attack.

"If Venezuela didn't have oil, none of this would happen," one user on the social media site X contended.

Another X user asked, "What happened to Trump campaigning on 'No New Wars?'"

"This has jack s--- to do with America First," they added. "Venezuela is zero threat to us. Just another attempt to divert attention away the Epstein files which implicate the rich and powerful across every strata of society."

The independent news site Venezuelanalysis responded to Rubio's announcement in a social media post asking, "Fake propaganda underway?"

"Lil' Marco claims the US military conducted a 'lethal strike' against a drug vessel," the post added, using Trump's old nickname for Rubio. "How did they know it had drugs before striking?"

In an opinion piece published Tuesday by Venezuelanalysis, former Italian parliamentarian and organized crime expert Pino Arlacchi called the latest US aggression against Venezuela a "great hoax" and "geopolitics disguised as 'War on Drugs.'"

"This is not about drugs, crime, or national security," Arlacchi asserted. "It is about oil that the US would rather not pay for."

‘Mockery of science’: US experts blast Trump climate report


By AFP
September 2, 2025


A boy shoots hoops at sunset on August 19, 2025 in San Pedro, California amid a brutal heat wave - Copyright AFP/File Frederic J. BROWN

Issam AHMED

A report commissioned by the Trump administration that disputes the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change mimics tactics once used by the tobacco industry to manufacture doubt, leading US experts said Tuesday.

In a sweeping 440-page rebuttal, 85 scientists accused the government of relying on a small group of handpicked contrarians who drew on discredited research, misrepresented evidence, and bypassed the peer review process to reach pre-determined conclusions.

The Trump administration’s 150-page report was published on the Department of Energy’s website in late July to support the administration’s proposal to overturn the 2009 “Endangerment Finding” — a bedrock determination that underpins much of the federal government’s authority to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

“This report makes a mockery of science,” Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University and one of the co-authors, wrote in a statement.

“It relies on ideas that were rejected long ago, supported by misrepresentations of the body of scientific knowledge, omissions of important facts, arm waving, anecdotes, and confirmation bias. This report makes it clear DOE has no interest in engaging with the scientific community.”

Entitled “A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the US Climate,” the DOE document made sweeping claims: that extreme weather events linked to human-caused emissions were not increasing, US temperatures were not rising, and that higher carbon dioxide levels would benefit agricultural productivity.

The rebuttal marshals experts from multiple disciplines to challenge each assertion.

“Contrary to the authors’ claims, the human-induced global warming signal is clearly discernible in all-time high and low temperature records over the continental United States and throughout the world,” scientists wrote in one example.

On agriculture, the rebuttal notes that while elevated carbon dioxide can sometimes spur greater yields in isolation, rising heat and shifting rainfall patterns are expected to cause overall declines.

The DOE report also downplays the threat of ocean acidification, stating that “life in the oceans evolved when the oceans were mildly acidic” billions of years ago.

But according to the rebuttal, this is “irrelevant for evaluating whether current or near-future conditions are suitable for modern ecosystems to continue,” since complex multi-cellular life had not evolved at the time.

Since returning to office in January, President Donald Trump has gone far beyond the pro-fossil fuel agenda of his first term.

Republicans recently passed legislation titled the “Big Beautiful Bill” which gutted clean energy tax credits established under former president Joe Biden, while opening ecologically sensitive areas to expanded fossil fuel development.

Trump has also withdrawn the United States from the Paris Agreement on climate and is pressing America’s fossil fuel agenda abroad — requiring the EU in its trade deal to buy more US liquefied natural gas and pressuring the World Bank to stop prioritizing climate change.

'Pervasive problems': New Trump admin report likened to 'Soviet show trial' by experts

Stephen Prager,

 Common Dreams
September 2, 2025 


The US Department of Energy's July climate report is "biased, full of errors, and not fit to inform policymaking," according to a comprehensive review released Tuesday by a group of 85 scientists who reviewed the document independently.


The department's "Climate Working Group" drew up the report as part of the effort by President Donald Trump to fatally undermine the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) determination, commonly known as the "endangerment finding," that greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane endanger human lives by warming the planet.

"If successful," Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M, says, "this move could unravel virtually every US climate regulation on the books, from car emissions standards to power plant rules."

The Energy Department's nearly 150-page paper, titled "A Critical Review of the Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the US Climate." Dessler describes its five authors as "climate contrarians who dispute mainstream science." The team behind the report, he argues, was "hand-picked" by Energy Secretary Chris Wright to lend legitimacy to the Trump administration's predetermined conclusions about climate science.

The DOE report's five authors seek to contradict the much more rigorous analyses conducted by groups like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), whose reports have been written by over a thousand researchers and which cite tens of thousands of academic studies.

The multinational panel has concluded that human fossil fuel usage has considerably warmed the planet, causing increased amounts of extreme weather, threatening food and water security, destroying ecosystems, and risking dangerous amounts of sea-level rise.

The Energy Department's report advances the main idea that climate scientists like those at the IPCC broadly "overstate" the extent of the human-caused climate crisis as well as its risks. Unlike other research of its kind, the department crafted its report in secret, which prompted the expert response.

"Normally, a report like this would undergo a rigorous, unbiased, and transparent peer review," said Dr. Robert Kopp, a climate and sea-level researcher at Rutgers. "When it became clear that DOE wasn't going to organize such a review, the scientific community came together on its own, in less than a month, to provide it."

Their review found that the Energy Department's report "exhibits pervasive problems with misrepresentation and selective citation of the scientific literature, cherry-picking of data, and faulty or absent statistics."

For instance, the report claims that there is "no obvious acceleration in sea-level rise" even though the number of days of high-tide coastal flooding per year has increased more than 10-fold since the 1970s.

It also attempts to portray CO2 emissions as a net benefit to the environment, particularly agriculture, by pointing to its benefits for crop growth, but ignores that the impact of increased droughts and wildfires far outweighs those benefits.

And it attempts to pick out isolated historical weather events like the Dust Bowl during the 1930s as evidence that dramatic climatic changes happen very frequently within short amounts of time and that the unprecedented increase in global temperatures over the past century and a half is not worthy of alarm.

"My reading of the report uncovered numerous errors of commission and omission, all of which slant toward a conclusion that human-caused climate change poses no serious risks," said Kerry Emmanuel, a meteorologist and climate scientist who specializes in hurricane physics. "It seems to work backward from a desired outcome."

Dessler notes that over 99% of the literature included in the IPCC's report was simply ignored by the Department of Energy. He described the report as a "mockery of science" akin to a "Soviet show trial."

"The outcome of this exercise by the Department of Energy is already known: climate science will be judged too uncertain to justify the endangerment finding," he said. "Once you understand that, everything about the DOE report makes total sense."


In 2025, the US National Weather Service issued a record number of flash flood warnings, while 255 million Americans were subject to life-threatening triple-digit temperatures in June. The previous year, 48 of 50 US states faced drought conditions, the most ever recorded in US history, while nearly 9 million acres burned due to wildfires.

"We live in a world where the impacts of climate change are increasingly being felt by citizens all around the globe—including communities throughout the US," said Andra Gardner, a professor of environmental science at Rowan University.

"This is perhaps what makes the DOE Climate Working Group report most astounding," she continued. "In a country where we have the tools to not only understand the impacts of climate change but also to begin meaningfully combating the crisis, the current DOE has instead decided to promote fossil fuel interests that will further worsen the symptoms of climate change with a report that turns a blind eye to the established science."

According to an analysis from Climate Power published in January, oil and gas industry donors gave $96 million in direct donations to the campaign of Donald Trump and affiliated super PACs during the 2024 election, while spending $243 million to lobby Republicans in Congress.

The result has been an administration that has purged climate science information from federal websites, laid off thousands of EPA employees, and gutted government funding for wind and solar energy.

Becca Neumann, an associate professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at the University of Washington, says that "the goal" of the report "is clear: to justify inaction and avoid meaningful emissions reductions."

‘A joke’: Trump’s national housing emergency scheme ignites fierce backlash

David Badash,

 The New Civil Rights Movement
September 2, 2025 


U.S. President Donald Trump arrives at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 3, 2025. REUTERS/Aaron Schwartz

Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent says President Donald Trump may declare a national housing emergency this fall, amid a challenging environment for homebuyers

“Bessent said housing affordability would be a critical leg of Republicans’ 2026 midterm election platform,” Bloomberg News reports. “Bessent declined to list any specific actions the president may take, but he suggested that administration officials are directly studying ways to standardize local building and zoning codes and decrease closing costs.”

Bloomberg also notes, “Housing affordability was a top issue in former Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign against Trump in 2024. She promised tax credits for builders that construct starter homes and $25,000 in down payment assistance for certain buyers.”

Over the weekend, The Associated Press reported that “Trump wants to axe an affordable housing grant that’s a lifeline for many rural communities.”


“The program has helped build or repair more than 1.3 million affordable homes in the last three decades, of which at least 540,000 were in congressional districts that are rural or significantly rural, according to an Associated Press analysis of federal data.”

Some critics question Trump’s focus.

Asked if the housing crisis is so severe Trump should be turning to an emergency declaration, House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters on Tuesday (video below), “It’s not clear to me what emergency powers Donald Trump seeks to utilize or what his solution would be in terms of dealing with the housing and affordability issue that is plaguing far too many Americans across the country.”

“Donald Trump promised that he would lower housing costs on day one. Here’s a suggestion for the Trump administration. Try to legislate. And maybe we can find common ground in order to get something done on behalf of the American people. The notion that Donald Trump and the administration would use emergency powers to address a housing crisis that has existed in this country since day one of his administration, and he’s done nothing about is a joke.”


Jeffries went on to warn that, “like many of the other efforts at utilizing emergency power, including most recently, the effort to use a so called emergency to justify the Trump tariffs, which are hurting everyday Americans, it will ultimately be struck down in court.”

Wall Street investment banker Evaristus Odinikaeze responded, saying that “Trump’s ‘day one’ promise on housing turned into a day-one disaster. He hasn’t introduced a single serious housing bill. No rent relief. No expansion of affordable housing. No mortgage protection. Just empty tweets, tariff tantrums, and more crony giveaways. Leader Jeffries is right that he should try legislating instead of litigating, retaliating, and dominating. That’s how we fix housing, not by blaming cities while inflating real estate bubbles with failed policies.”

Indeed, some say Trump has no power to unilaterally declare housing standards.

Georgetown University Professor of Law Victoria Nourse, one of the nation’s leading scholars of Congress, the separation of powers, and statutory interpretation, according to her bio, remarked: “POTUS has no constitutional authority to impose uniform building codes on the states.”

Some critics say the current housing crisis is actually being made worse by Trump’s own actions.

The Atlantic’s James Surowiecki, author of “The Wisdom of Crowds,” remarked, “Trump jacked up tariffs on lumber and steel, raising the cost of home construction. Now he’s thinking about declaring a national emergency to remedy a problem he’s exacerbated.”

Media Matters’ Matthew Gertz framed it this way:

“1. Increase cost of materials through tariffs on steel and lumber. 2. Increase cost of labor through immigration enforcement. 3. ‘Declare a national housing emergency.'”

Dean Baker, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, asked, “Is ‘national emergency’ some sort of magical incantation that negates all laws and the Constitution?”

Watch the video below or at this link.

'Big worry': Economist warns new bubble about to burst — and Trump may bail out 'grifters'

Sarah K. Burris
September 2, 2025 

RAW STORY


U.S. President Donald Trump shouts to reporters as he walks on the roof of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 5, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

University of Michigan economics and public policy Professor Justin Wolfers said he has a fear that the cryptocurrency bubble will burst and that President Donald Trump will use taxpayer dollars to help bail out the crypto market, the way the United States did after the mortgage crisis in 2008.

Trump has profited over $5 billion with his own meme coin and is now opposing any regulation of cryptocurrency.

Wolfers said that the idea of "stablecoin" is a joke, noting that if people want to buy into a truly stable $1 investment, they can go to the bank and get a $1 billion.


"Those stablecoins, the value of those is currently being held up by Binance. The former CEO of Binance is in jail right now, sort of hoping for a bit of a pardon," Wolfers said, though the CEO has since been released. "And so right, there's your conflict of interest. But there's something deeper here. It's quite possible the next financial crisis is a crypto crisis. That all of a sudden the value of these things goes to zero."

He compared it to nothing more than a casino.

"And if Vegas goes bankrupt, we let him go bankrupt. But if the president goes down with it, I have a funny feeling there might be a bailout. And it's a bailout of yours and my money to keep a bunch of grifters rich. And I think it's a very, very big worry for the future of financial stability," Wolfers added.

MSNBC host Katy Tur questioned Wolfers about how Trump's sons making billions off of cryptocurrency compares with Hunter Biden selling artwork. Wolfers sarcastically answered that it's obviously due to Biden being a terrible artist and the Trump sons being geniuses.

The Bulwark's Sam Stein pointed out that the story is an important one that sounds the alarm about outright corruption, but it's being ignored because Trump and his administration are plagued by a firehose of scandal.

"You have a confluence of factors here that is unlike anything we've ever seen in terms of the corruption of the presidency. But with Trump, it's so blatant and so public that it tends to become like the, you know, 23rd or 24th most important story of the day," said Stein.

See the clip below or at the link here.

'Straight up scam': Analyst shocked as Trump family rakes in billions with new 'grift'

Robert Davis
September 2, 2025 
RAW STORY

Zach Witkoff, Co-Founder and CEO of World Liberty Financial, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump pose before they ring the opening bell to celebrate the closing of ALT5’s $1.5 billion offering and adoption of its $WLFI Treasury Strategy at the Nasdaq Market, in New York City, U.S., August 13, 2025. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz


President Donald Trump's family has invested heavily in crypto ventures during Trump's second term, a move that has alarmed two analysts.

On Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the family's new token, WLFI, began trading and made the family $5 billion richer, which surpasses the value of the family's decades-long real estate portfolio. The token was issued by World Liberty Financial, which is controlled by his two sons, Don Jr. and Eric. World Liberty Financial was founded by Zach Witkoff, the son of Trump's chief envoy, Steve Witkoff.

Early WLFI investors could purchase coins for as little as $0.015 per coin last year, WSJ reported. The Trump family, including President Trump himself, holds about one-quarter of all of the new tokens.

Some commentators described the launch as a "rug pull," where a crypto project's creators abscond with investors' funds shortly after it launches. The price of WLFI crashed from around $0.32 to less than $0.22 within hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

Jon Favreau and Jon Lovett discussed the launch on a new episode of "Pod Save America" on YouTube.

Favreau described the venture as a "crypto grift."

"This is just a straight-up f------ scam," Favreau said.

The Trump family has also invested in other crypto projects like a Trump memecoin and a Melania memecoin. Trump Media, the company that owns Truth Social, also buys cryptocurrencies, according to WSJ.

Watch the entire episode below or by clicking here.

Nestle CEO switch a chance to reset: experts


By AFP
September 2, 2025


Nestle's headquarters is in Vevey on the shores of Lake Geneva in western Switzerland - Copyright AFP/File Angela Weiss

Nathalie OLOF-ORS

Nestle’s sudden sacking of its chief executive over an office relationship gives the Swiss food giant a chance to reset and return to its strengths, industry analysts said Tuesday.

The multinational behind Nespresso coffee capsules and KitKat chocolate bars announced late Monday it had dismissed Laurent Freixe with immediate effect over an “undisclosed romantic relationship with a direct subordinate”.

The company veteran had only been in post since September 2024, a year in which Nestle saw its revenue decline by 1.8 percent to 91.35 billion Swiss francs ($113.66 billion).

And in late July this year, Nestle reported a 10.3-percent drop in first half profits as it struggled to turn around its fortunes amid sluggish consumer spending in China, even as it passed on higher cocoa and coffee prices to consumers.

As the share price declined, Freixe was tasked with reviving sales by emphasising the group’s flagship products.

In a swift move announced after the Swiss markets closed on Monday, Nespresso CEO Philipp Navratil was appointed to take over from Freixe by his fellow board members.

After initially dropping more than 3.5 percent after trading began on Tuesday, Nestle shares recovered ground and closed down 0.74 percent on the Swiss stock exchange at 74.93 Swiss francs.

The SMI index overall was down 0.72 percent.



– ‘Good Swiss compromise’ –



The change at the top could lead to paralysing uncertainty, said Patrik Schwendimann, an analyst at Zurich Cantonal Bank.

“But in a positive scenario it could accelerate Nestle’s return to its strengths,” he said.

Navratil is “a good Swiss compromise” between his two predecessors, with Mark Schneider meant to bring in a “breath of fresh air from outside”, and his successor Freixe a return to “tried-and-tested Nestle recipes”.

“Philipp Navratil should bring a breath of fresh air from within.”

Andreas von Arx, an analyst at Baader Helvea, said that Freixe’s return to the “Nestle of old” model had received a mixed review from investors, and wondered if his departure was now “a chance for real change”.

“We would hope that the new CEO now finally has the ambition to tackle category/product problem issues, where we see the reasons as more structural, and less as temporarily/mismanagement,” he said.

Born in 1976, Navratil started his career with Nestle in 2001 and had various roles in Central America before taking over responsibility for global strategy and innovation for the Nescafe and Starbucks brands in 2020.

The Swiss and Austrian national became chief executive of the Nespresso brand in July last year.



– Track record in coffee –



“Navratil has a decent execution track record in coffee, which is Nestle’s biggest business,” said Jon Cox, an industry analyst with the Kepler Cheuvreux financial services company.

“He needs to deliver on the turnaround plan and return Nestle to its traditional mid-single digit growth and annual margin improvement model.”

Nestle owns more than 2,000 brands, including Purina dog food, Maggi bouillon cubes, Gerber baby food and Nesquik chocolate-flavoured drinks.

The multinational has suffered a series of setbacks, including a bottled water scandal that began in France in 2024 and the deterioration in sales in the wake of the wave of inflation.

Jean-Philippe Bertschy, an analyst at Swiss investment managers Vontobel, said that by promoting Philipp Navratil, Nestle was banking on a leader from the next generation of the group’s executives.

“We know Philipp as exceptionally straightforward, ambitious, and relentlessly focused on results. One of his first priorities will be to pull Nestle out of its current cycle of negative headlines,” he said.

Fear over rise in counterfeit medicines as Mounjaro demand escalates


By Dr. Tim Sandle
EDITOR AT LARGE

SCIENCE

DIGITAL JOURNAL
September 2, 2025


At 12 months, the average patient on Eli Lilly's new drug Mounjaro lost seven percent more weight than the average for Ozempic

 - Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File SCOTT OLSON

Mounjaro maker Eli Lilly has reportedly paused shipments of the weight-loss drug to the UK as demand continues to rise, ahead of a 170% price hike in September. The drug is intended for people who are clinically assessed as requiring a rapid weight loss treatment in contrast to more convenit0nal routes. However, some consumers see the drug as an easy fix to circumvent diet and exercise.

Another consequence of the rise increase is for those who are not prescribed the medication but who wish to acquire it privately may look to other sources. Chemist4U, an online pharmacy, has warned that the sharp price rise could drive patients to seek weight loss injections from unregulated sources.

This comes at a time when the UK Border Force seized approximately 18,300 illegal weight loss and diabetes medications between January 2024 and June 2025.

The seizures were:

Month and Year	Detained or seized	Items seized
February 2024	280	Slimming capsules
March 2024	241	Semaglutide, Testosterone and Oxandrolone
April 2024	9,100	Semaglutide, Ivermectin and slimming capsules
May 2024	418	Saxenda, Liraglutide, Semaglutide, slimming coffee
June 2024	322	Weight loss pens, vitamins and antibiotics
July 2024	820	Semaglutide, slimming capsules
August 2024	4,375	Semaglutide, Metronidazole
September 2024	32	Mounjaro, Slimming supplements
December 2024	256	Mounjaro, Semaglutide
January 2025	250	Weight loss injections, steroids
February 2025	26	Mounjaro, Wegovy, Tirzepatide
March 2025	306	Tirzepatide, Semaglutide, Anastrozole, Tadalafil
April 2025	116	Mounjaro, Semaglutide, weight loss injections
May 2025	1,774	Semaglutide, Nebido, steroids
Total	18,316

Border Force provided seizure data in mixed formats (items, weight, or volume); the dataset was standardised to count individual units, and entries reported only by weight or volume, where a reasonable estimate (e.g. the number of pens in a box) could not be made, were excluded from the final tally.

The data highlights the scale of smuggling operations, with criminals attempting to import hundreds of illicit products to meet growing demand in the black market. It also shows that Heathrow Airport security staff have intercepted criminals attempting to smuggle potentially counterfeit Mounjaro pens hidden on their bodies.

Unregulated online sellers, beauty retailers and social media platforms are increasingly being used to distribute counterfeit weight loss jabs. The online pharmacy warns that these products may be unlicensed, contaminated or stored improperly, which can pose serious health risks to patients.

Four tips for buying weight loss injections safely online

1. Registered online pharmacies in England, Wales and Scotland must display the GPhC’s internet pharmacy logo on their website. Alongside the GPhC logo, the pharmacy should display its unique registration number. You can use this number to verify the pharmacy’s credentials.  
2. Never take medication without consulting a healthcare professional. Certified prescribers like those at Chemist4U will review your medical history and advise you before prescribing any weight loss treatment. 
3. Double-check your prescription details and ensure the name and dose on your injection pen match what your healthcare provider has prescribed.  
4. If you think you have purchased fake Mounjaro or Wegovy, do not use the medicine and report it to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). 

The above advice can help to steer consumers away from fraudulent and dangerous products.

Economists back Fed Governor Cook as Trump attempts ouster

RACIST, SEXIST, SIZEIST; TRUMP

By AFP
September 2, 2025


Lisa Cook is the first Black woman to serve on the Fed's board

 - Copyright AFP/File SAUL LOEB

Beiyi SEOW

Nearly 600 economists have signed an open letter expressing support for Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook and US central bank independence, as Cook battles President Donald Trump’s attempt to fire her.

“Good economic policy requires credible monetary institutions,” said the letter, whose 593 signatories as of Tuesday include Nobel laureates and former US government officials.

“Credible monetary institutions, in turn, require the independence of the Federal Reserve,” the letter added.

The support came after Trump said on his Truth Social platform last week that he was immediately removing Cook over claims of mortgage fraud.

Cook, the first Black woman to serve on the Fed’s board, is challenging her ouster in court.

On Tuesday, her lawyers pushed back on Trump’s justification in firing her and argued in a filing that she was not given a chance to meaningfully contest allegations against her.

The open letter signed by economists noted that: “Recent public statements about Governor Cook — including threats of removal and a claim that she has been fired — have arrived alongside unproven accusations.”

“This approach threatens the fundamental principle of central bank independence,” the letter cautioned.

As of Tuesday, signatories included Nobel laureates Claudia Goldin, Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Romer.

Also on the list were Christina Romer, who served as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers under former president Barack Obama, and Jared Bernstein, who held the post under Joe Biden.

The letter was organized by Tatyana Deryugina, an associate professor of finance at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Among the allegations Cook faces are that she claimed two primary residences on mortgage documents in 2021 — one in Michigan and another in Georgia. A primary residence typically attracts better mortgage terms for a loan.

But although Trump pointed to a criminal referral in announcing Cook’s removal, she has not been charged with a crime. The alleged incidents also occurred before she took office as a Fed governor in 2022.

In their Tuesday filing, Cook’s lawyers argued that the referral letter’s language signaled charges against Cook “were nothing more than a set of cherry-picked, cut-and-paste allegations.”

They charged that the aim was “to try to give the President political cover to remove a (Fed) Board member with whom he has policy disagreements.”

They also warned that allowing Trump to keep Cook out of her office even temporarily “would amount to a crack in the foundation” of the Fed’s near-century of independence.

The Supreme Court suggested in a recent ruling that Fed officials can only be removed for “cause,” which could be interpreted to mean malfeasance or dereliction of duty.

The central bank has faced growing pressure in recent months, with Trump urging for lower interest rates.

But policymakers have been cautious in cutting rates as they monitor the effects of Trump’s tariffs on the economy.

LOOTING THE WHITE HOUSE

Not my bag: Trump blames AI for viral video

By AFP
September 2, 2025


Fox News reporter Peter Doocy shows US President Donald Trump his phone during an Oval Office press conference - Copyright AFP SAUL LOEB

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday blamed AI for a viral video that appeared to show a black bag being thrown out of a White House window.

Trump’s claim came despite US media earlier quoting a White House official as saying that a contractor had been disposing of trash during renovations.

“No, that’s probably AI-generated,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office when a reporter asked about the video.

“Actually, you can’t open the windows. You know why, they’re all heavily armored and bulletproof.”

Trump asked the journalist, Peter Doocy of Fox News, to show him the video.

The brief clip that went viral over the weekend appears to show a black plastic bag being thrown out an open window on the second floor of the White House, where the private presidential residence is located.

After Doocy approached the lectern and showed him, the 79-year-old said it was a “little bit scary” how realistic artificial intelligence-generated videos could be.

But before Trump was asked about it, US media including the New York Times quoted the White House press office as saying that the video was real, although it showed nothing suspicious.

Instead it showed a contractor doing “regular maintenance” while Trump was absent.

The internet rumor was not the only one that Trump was forced to debunk on Tuesday — he also dismissed as “fake news” a series of social media-driven rumors about his health, including that he might even be dead.

Google not required to sell Chrome, judge rules

By AFP
September 2, 2025


The US government pushed for Google to sell Chrome, but lost in court

 - Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP Brandon Bell

Alex PIGMAN

A US judge on Tuesday rejected the government’s demand that Google sell its Chrome web browser as part of a major antitrust case but imposed sweeping requirements to restore competition in online search.

The landmark ruling came after Judge Amit Mehta found in August 2024 that Google illegally maintained monopolies in online search through exclusive distribution agreements worth billions of dollars annually.

Judge Mehta’s decision in the Google case represents one of the most significant rulings against corporate monopoly practices in two decades, and could have fundamentally reshaped the tech giant’s future.

The US government pushed for Chrome’s divestment, contending that the browser serves as a crucial gateway to internet activity and facilitates a third of all Google web searches.

But in his ruling, Mehta warned that a Chrome divestiture “would be incredibly messy and highly risky” and said US government lawyers had overreached in making that request.

– Offensive against Big Tech –

The case primarily focused on Google’s expensive distribution agreements with Apple, Samsung, and other smartphone manufacturers that established Google as the default search engine on iPhones and other devices.

Under this arrangement, Google pays Apple tens of billions of dollars annually for prime placement on the iPhone.

In his decision last year, Judge Mehta concluded that Google’s default status on the iPhone allowed the company to evolve into an internet powerhouse, insulated from competitive threats.

But Mehta on Tuesday said an outright ban of these deals was off the table, insisting that such a ban could have too profound an effect on other businesses.

“Cutting off payments from Google almost certainly will impose substantial — in some cases, crippling — downstream harms to distribution partners, related markets, and consumers,” the ruling said.

Instead, under his order, Google must make available to “qualified competitors” search index data and user interaction information that rivals can use to improve their services.

The company must also offer search result syndication services to competitors for up to five years.

The ruling also specifically addresses the emerging threat from generative artificial intelligence chatbots like ChatGPT, extending restrictions to prevent Google from using exclusive deals to dominate the AI space as it did with traditional search.

A technical committee will oversee implementation of the remedies, which take effect 60 days after the final judgment is entered.

The parties have until September 10 to submit a revised final judgment consistent with the court’s ruling.

Google faces another legal case, awaiting a federal court decision in Virginia regarding its web display advertising technology business.

A separate judge ruled earlier this year that Google’s ad tech operations also constitute an illegal monopoly that stifles competition.

These cases are part of a broader government and bipartisan offensive against Big Tech. The US currently has five pending antitrust cases against major technology companies.

The original search engine case against Google, along with a separate case targeting Meta, originated during the first Trump administration in 2020.

The Biden administration maintained these prosecutions while launching additional cases against Apple and Amazon, as well as the second case challenging Google.

US limits TSMC chipmaking tool shipments to China


By AFP
September 2, 2025


Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is the world's largest contract maker of chips that are used in everything from smartphones to missiles, and counts Nvidia and Apple among its clients - Copyright AFP/File I-Hwa CHENG

President Donald Trump’s administration has revoked Taiwanese semiconductor giant TSMC’s authorization to export US chipmaking equipment to China without a license, further restricting access to US technology in the country.

The move comes as the US Commerce Department moved to end the “validated end-user” (VEU) program allowing select foreign semiconductor manufacturers to export US-origin goods and tech license-free to make chips in China.

“TSMC has received notification from the US Government that our VEU authorization for TSMC Nanjing will be revoked effective December 31, 2025,” said a spokesperson for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company on Tuesday.

“While we are evaluating the situation and taking appropriate measures, including communicating with the US government, we remain fully committed to ensuring the uninterrupted operation of TSMC Nanjing,” TSMC added in a statement.

TSMC is the world’s largest contract maker of chips that are used in everything from smartphones to missiles, and counts Nvidia and Apple among its clients.

But the center of its most advanced manufacturing remains in Taiwan.

On Friday, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security said that former VEU participants will have 120 days after the new rule is published in the Federal Register to apply for and receive export licenses.

But while the bureau plans to grant licenses to allow these businesses to run existing China-based plants, it does not plan to issue licenses for them “to expand capacity or upgrade technology,” it said.