Donald Trump says ceasefire remains in place despite strikes, with Iranian TV saying situation is ‘back to normal’

The US and Iran exchanged fire late on Thursday in the most serious test yet of their month-long ceasefire.

Iran accused the US of violating the ceasefire by targeting two ships at the strait of Hormuz and attacking civilian areas, as the US insisted it struck in retaliation.

US president expresses impatience at speed of EU’s implementation and warns of ‘much higher’ tariffs

• US trade court rules against Trump’s 10% global tariffs

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Donald Trump has walked back from his threat to tear up part of the US trade deal with the EU by hiking tariffs on car imports.

The US president has given the EU until 4 July to implement its side of the deal, reducing tariffs to zero on most American imports, warning that the bloc would face “much higher” tariffs if it did not do so.

Trump also issues new deadline for EU to implement trade deal terms before raising tariffs to ‘much higher levels’

The US trade court on Thursday ruled against Donald Trump’s latest 10% global tariffs, finding across-the-board tariffs were not justified under a 1970s trade law.

The US court of international trade ruled in favor of small businesses that challenged the tariffs, which took effect on 24 February. The ruling was 2-1, with one judge saying it was premature to grant victory to the small business plaintiffs.

Ryan Cohen selling tube socks and baseball cards after offering $55.5bn, although source of funds remains unclear

The CEO of GameStop, Ryan Cohen, said he was selling vintage video games, baseball cards, GameStop merchandise and a $14,000 pair of tube socks to help fund the company’s proposed $55.5bn acquisition of eBay.

His platform of choice? eBay, of course.

Prosecutors allege SPLC funneled over $3m to sources in extremist groups but legal experts say case is weak

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The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) pleaded not guilty on Thursday to charges related to allegations the organization committed fraud and conspired to money launder.

The 11-count indictment filed last month accuses the civil rights organization of committing fraud in connection to a program in which it paid informants to monitor rightwing extremist groups. The program no longer exists. The investigation is being handled by the US attorney for the middle district of Alabama, which includes Montgomery, the state capital.

Move comes days after supreme court ruling weakened Voting Rights Act protections against racial gerrymandering

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Tennessee’s Republican-dominated legislature passed redistricting maps on Thursday, eliminating the state’s one Democratic, Black-majority congressional district a week after the US supreme court effectively gutted a major section of the Voting Rights Act.

The move cracks Tennessee’s ninth congressional district, which covers Memphis, into three pieces, each of which contains almost exactly a third of the city’s Black voters. The new maps mean that all nine of Tennessee’s congressional districts are Republican-leaning.

Latest briefings float hope of basic deal that would keep peace and free shipping while further negotiations continue

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The US and Iran are close to a temporary agreement to halt the war in the Middle East, officials in Pakistan claimed on Thursday, as diplomatic activity gathered fresh momentum after a near breakdown of the current ceasefire earlier this week.

Officials on Islamabad said a very basic “interim” deal could be reached as early as this weekend and that Tehran was reviewing a US proposal.

President indicated that deal had materialised but truth was that Saudi Arabia had stopped US use of its bases

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When Donald Trump abruptly pulled the plug on “Project Freedom”, the scheme to open the strait of Hormuz, barely a day after it had been announced, he gave the impression that an opportunity for a peace deal had materialised that could not be missed.

To the surprise of nobody who has been following the US’s recent adventures in geopolitics, Trump’s spin concealed a lot of the underlying reality. It turns out that Trump suspended Project Freedom after Saudi Arabia stopped the US military from using its bases or airspace to carry out the operation, which involved giving air cover to commercial shipping sailing through the strait.

A group of prominent Senate Democrats sent a letter to FCC chair, Brendan Carr, to protest the commission’s order last week challenging ABC’s licenses

A group of prominent Senate Democrats sent a letter on Thursday to Brendan Carr, the Trump-aligned Federal Communications Commission chair, asking him to rescind the US media regulator’s order last week requiring ABC to apply early to renew its television licenses.

The eight ABC-owned station licenses were not originally up for renewal until 2028 at the earliest and 2031 at the latest; now, the renewal requests must be filed by the end of May.

Musician whose real name is Bill Kahan Kapri is charged with trafficking MDMA after incident last November

Kodak Black, the Florida-based rapper, was scheduled to appear in court in Orlando on Thursday on a felony drug charge stemming from an incident last year in which gunshots were allegedly fired near a children’s educational building.

The musician, who has a long history of arrests and was sentenced to a three-year prison term on a firearms charge in 2019 before being pardoned by Donald Trump, turned himself in to the Orange county jail on Wednesday, multiple media reports said.