Author: NY TIMES

President Trump’s announcement of sweeping tariffs on America’s trading partners has widened the rift between the United States and some of its closest allies, while reconfiguring the global economic order.Mr. Trump’s plan, which he unveiled on Wednesday and is calling “reciprocal,” would impose a wave of tariffs on dozens of countries. The European Union will face 20 percent tariffs, but the heavier levies will fall on countries in Asia, hitting friends and foes alike. Security partners Japan and South Korea will face tariffs of 24 and 26 percent respectively, while China will absorb an additional 34 percent on top of…

Markets around the world shuddered on Thursday after President Trump announced across-the-board 10 percent tariffs on all U.S. trading partners except Canada and Mexico, as well as even higher tariffs on dozens of America’s other main trading partners.Futures on the S&P 500, which allow investors to trade the index outside normal trading hours, slumped over 3 percent. Asian markets fell sharply, with benchmark indexes dropping more than 3 percent in Japan, and nearly 2 percent in Hong Kong and South Korea.The slide came after Mr. Trump, speaking at a ceremony at the White House on Wednesday, announced a new 10…

Tariffs on imported vehicles took effect Thursday, a policy that President Trump said would spur investments and jobs in the United States but that analysts say will raise new car prices by thousands of dollars.The 25 percent duty applies to all cars assembled outside the United States. Starting May 3, the tariff will also apply to imported auto parts, which will add to the cost of cars assembled domestically as well as auto repairs.There will be a partial exemption for cars made in Mexico or Canada that meet the terms of free trade agreements with those countries. Carmakers will not…

Alongside extensive reductions to the staff of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Trump administration has asked the agency to cut $2.9 billion of its spending on contracts, according to three federal officials with knowledge of the matter.The administration’s cost-cutting program, called the Department of Government Efficiency, asked the public health agency to sever roughly 35 percent of its spending on contracts about two weeks ago. The C.D.C. was told to comply by April 18, according to the officials.The cuts promise to further hamstring an agency already reeling from the loss of 2,400 employees, nearly one-fifth of its…

“I have already told you everything,” she said. “I should have the freedom to do what I would like.”But she did not object when I accompanied her back to her hotel. She stayed up for hours in the lobby chatting with friends about Jungian astrology, the controversy at the 1980 Chopin competition and a suitor who once told her that she had so many personalities, she could date several people at once. She grew obsessed at one point with proving that a waxy-looking plant in the lobby was real, burying her nose in its branches and digging into the soil.“Look…

The Israeli government on Wednesday laid out plans to expand its renewed military offensive in the Gaza Strip and seize large parts of the enclave, a strategy that piles more pressure on Hamas and raises concerns about Israel’s plans beyond the war.The announcement from Israel’s defense minister adds to the growing drumbeat from officials in recent days who have suggested that Israel was shifting tactics to hold on to swaths of the territory, at least temporarily. They have asserted a vision for postwar Gaza in which Palestinians would move elsewhere — an idea vehemently rejected by much of the world.In…

I am getting married in two weeks, and I’m really excited! We have been planning this wedding for nine months. One of our biggest scheduling concerns was my fiancé’s brother: He’s in the Army. Yesterday, he told my fiancé that his wife would not be joining him at the wedding. Last week, she auditioned to be a dancer for a professional football team and was offered the job. (There’s a game on our wedding day.) I am shocked and hurt that she made this decision! I am also shocked that my future brother-in-law supports his wife’s choice. Even my future…

More than a century after the fighting stopped, the U.S. Army’s First Division has not fully faded from memory in Cantigny, the tiny hilltop village in northern France that it helped to save in World War I.In the woods, there is the trench that was once the unit’s muddy forward position. In a cellar, graffiti scrawled on stone by young, green doughboys, among the first Americans to see action in that war. In patches of farmland, the live shells that for years have turned up during plowing.And in an otherwise unremarkable back room, grenades and shell casings found in the…

China’s Xiaomi, a consumer electronics giant turned automaker, said it was cooperating with a police investigation into a fatal crash involving one of its electric vehicles while the driver was using the car’s autonomous driving features.A Xiaomi SU7 sedan drove into a concrete guardrail on an expressway in eastern China late Saturday at around 60 miles per hour, according to a post on Xiaomi’s official social media account. On Tuesday, local media published reports about the collision and ensuing fire, which killed three college students, along with pictures of the charred remains of the vehicle.Xiaomi said the driver had deployed…

President Trump plans to meet with top White House officials on Wednesday to discuss a proposal that could secure TikTok’s future in the United States, two people familiar with the plans said.Mr. Trump will consider a proposal for a new ownership structure for the popular video app, which is owned by the Chinese internet giant ByteDance. Lawmakers and other U.S. officials have argued that the app’s ties to China raise national security concerns, and a federal law that was passed last year requires TikTok to change its ownership or face a ban in the United States. The latest deadline for…