'Hands Off!' Protesters on Why They Are Rallying Against Trump and Musk

 https://www.newsweek.com/hands-off-protesters-why-they-are-rallying-against-trump-musk-2055931

Thousands of protesters packed Manhattan's Fifth Avenue on Saturday in a sweeping show of opposition to the Trump administration, joining the nationwide "Hands Off!" movement targeting President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk.

The protests were among more than 1,200 coordinated across the United States on Saturday, organized by "Hands Off!" a grassroots movement supported by civil rights groups, labor unions, and advocacy organizations.

Protesters primarily targeted the president and Musk for actions taken during the early months of the second Trump administration, criticizing mass federal layoffs, immigration crackdowns, and U.S. involvement in the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza.

In addition, hundreds of people in European cities—including Frankfurt, Berlin, London, Lisbon and Paris—took to the streets in solidarity with American protests.

‘Hands off!’: Tens of thousands of angry protesters across US assail Trump and Musk

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/hands-off-tens-of-thousands-of-angry-protesters-across-us-assail-trump-and-musk/

Tens of thousands of protesters flooded the streets of major US cities on Saturday to oppose the divisive policies of President Donald Trump, in the largest demonstrations since his return to the White House.

So-called Hands Off! demonstrations were organized for more than 1,200 locations in all 50 states by more than 150 groups, including civil rights organizations, labor unions, LGBTQ advocates, veterans and elections activists, in the biggest day of demonstrations yet by an opposition movement trying to regain its momentum after the shock of the Republican’s first weeks in office.

Laws and customs for Erev Pesach that falls on Shabbat

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/406439

When the 14th of Nisan falls on Shabbat, the chametz is checked with a blessing on the night of the 13th of Nisan. On Friday, the chametz is burned. More below.

Musk slams key Trump adviser Navarro, calls for more free trade

 https://www.axios.com/2025/04/05/musk-trump-tariffs-navarro-tesla

Elon Musk blasted top Trump administration trade adviser Peter Navarro and told an Italian political gathering he wants more free trade, not less.

The two-day rout in the stock market this week, after Trump announced sweeping new tariffs backed by Navarro, cost Musk nearly $18 billion just on his Tesla stock.

By wading into the tariff debate, a subject he's mostly stayed away from, Musk could inject more uncertainty into U.S. efforts to re-order the global economy.

The ridiculous real story behind the tariff plan that turned Donald Trump into a global disaster

Trump defends tariffs after markets plunge for second straight day: ‘Economic revolution’

 https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5233906-donald-trump-tariffs-economic-revolution/?tbref=hp

President Trump on Saturday took a victory lap over the sweeping new tariffs he levied on nearly all foreign trading partners, claiming the end result will serve as an “economic revolution.”

“We have been the dumb and helpless ‘whipping post,’ but not any longer,” he wrote on Truth Social. “We are bringing back jobs and businesses like never before. Already, more than FIVE TRILLION DOLLARS OF INVESTMENT, and rising fast!”

“THIS IS AN ECONOMIC REVOLUTION, AND WE WILL WIN,” he added. “HANG TOUGH, it won’t be easy, but the end result will be historic. We will, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”

Trump Owns the Economy Now

 https://www.wsj.com/opinion/donald-trump-tariffs-economy-march-jobs-markets-karoline-leavitt-jerome-powell-437a89cd?mod=hp_opin_pos_1

He can try to blame the Fed, but the tariff blunder is his alone.

Markets continued to tumble on Friday, but hey, not to worry, at least the March jobs numbers were good. That’s the view from the White House, where press secretary Karoline Leavitt crowed Friday that “the economy is starting to roar” and “the President’s push to onshore jobs here in the United States is working.”

Ms. Leavitt needs to please her boss, but yikes. Someone should tell her the March jobs estimate was made before Mr. Trump’s tariff barrage. Markets for their part are making a bet on the future. The 228,000 job gain did beat expectations, but the manufacturing jobs boom still hasn’t arrived, with only 1,000 net new jobs in the month.

GOP Lawmakers to Worried Businesses: Let’s Try to Wait Out the Tariff Turmoil

 https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/republicans-grin-and-bear-it-as-businesses-beg-for-tariff-relief-1fa3f225?mod=hp_lead_pos1

Many GOP lawmakers say they trust Trump and hope stock-market turbulence is short-lived

“I think their phones are ringing off the hook hearing from constituents,” said Reynolds, who is worried tariffs will push up costs for his suppliers on imported garments. “As Republican representatives, they want to support the president. But also—it’s their job to support their constituents.”

Trump has 'botched' his whole tariff plan with a single slip of the tongue

 https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/trump-has-botched-his-whole-tariff-plan-with-a-single-slip-of-the-tongue-report/ar-AA1CjLMc?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=NMTS&cvid=53128482b7cf4f4fa2b9c79970ced272&ei=11

The Atlantic's Jonathan Chait claimed in an article Friday that President Donald Trump's plan to encourage American manufacturing by imposing huge import tariffs was doomed from the moment he offered to negotiate with targeted countries.

"The key to making it work was to convince businesses that the new arrangement is durable," Chait wrote. "Nobody is going to invest in building new factories in the United States to create goods that until last week could be imported more cheaply unless they’re certain that the tariffs making the domestic version more competitive will stay in place."

The problem, according to Chait was, "Once you’ve said you might negotiate the tariffs, nobody is going to believe you when you change your mind and say you’ll never negotiate." And, indeed, just over two hours later, Chait wrote that Trump posted that he had just negotiated a possible agreement with Vietnam.

Suspected fertility mix-up leads father to learn he isn't daughter's biological parent

 https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/article-848721

The Health Ministry is investigating a suspected fertility treatment error after an urgent demand was made on Tuesday by the parties involved in the incident.

The error surfaced after a genetic test revealed that a man who raised a girl for years is not her biological father. The discovery was made during a routine medical examination the teenager underwent abroad due to a health issue.

Following the revelation, the father approached the doctor who had treated his wife at a central Israel fertility clinic. In an attempt to trace the origin of the error, he requested information about other patients who underwent embryo transfers around the same time. The doctor, in violation of medical privacy laws, disclosed the identity of another woman who had undergone treatment during that period.

Laura Loomer Is a Warning

 https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/04/laura-loomer-trump-warning/682314/

White House staffers, it seems, had better hope that they stay in Laura Loomer’s good graces. This week, Loomer—a far-right provocateur who has described herself as “pro–white nationalism” and Islam as a “cancer on humanity”—met with Donald Trump in the Oval Office. After she reportedly railed against National Security Council officials she believed were disloyal to the president, the White House fired six NSC staff members the next day. More firings could be on their way: Yesterday, a person close to the administration told my colleague Michael Scherer that “Loomer has been asked to put together a list of people at State who are not MAGA loyalists.”

Loomer’s power marks how little Trump now seems to care about being around people who have expressed racist and extremist ideas and kept racist and extremist company. She is a bit like the Forrest Gump of Trumpworld—an unlikely but persistent character who just keeps popping up during some of the right’s biggest moments. When Trump got off his private plane on his way to the presidential debate in September, Loomer appeared with him. The next day, when Trump traveled to New York for a 9/11-anniversary memorial, Loomer was again there with him. (She has called 9/11 an “inside job.”) As I wrote at the time, prominent Republicans did not like that their presidential candidate was associating himself with Loomer, and publicly challenged Trump over it. He seemingly has not listened.

General Fired After Laura Loomer Launches Loyalty Purge

 https://www.thedailybeast.com/general-timothy-haugh-fired-after-laura-loomer-launches-loyalty-purge/

President Donald Trump has fired the general serving as director of the National Security Agency after far-right activist Laura Loomer accused him of being disloyal to the president.

Air Force General Timothy Haugh, who also heads U.S. Cyber Command, was fired Thursday along with five key National Security Council aides, the Washington Post reported.

McConnell calls out Trump for hiring ‘amateur isolationists’ at Pentagon, firing NSA director

 https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5234058-mcconnell-trump-pentagon-nsa-criticism/

President Trump’s decisions to pick “amateur isolationists” for senior policy jobs at the Pentagon and to fire Gen. Timothy Haugh, the head of the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command, without explanation.

“If decades of experience in uniform isn’t enough to lead the N.S.A. but amateur isolationists can hold senior policy jobs at the Pentagon, then what exactly are the criteria for working on this administration’s national security staff,” McConnell said in comments to The New York Times.

“I can’t figure it out,” he said.

McConnell and other Senate Republican defense hawks have signaled their concern about the Trump administration’s decisions to hire Michael DiMino to serve as deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East and Andrew Byers to serve as deputy assistant secretary of defense for South and Southeast Asia.

Trump’s ‘reciprocal’ tariffs aren’t quite what they seem. Here’s the real story

 https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/05/business/trump-reciprocal-tariffs-real-numbers/index.html

The massive tariffs that President Donald Trump announced for dozens of trading partners Wednesday were pitched as “reciprocal,” simply aiming to match the tariffs other countries charge the United States.

But the methodology behind Trump’s attempt to rebalance trade has nothing to do with the tariff rate that foreign countries impose on the US.

The Trump administration instead used a grossly oversimplified calculation that it said factored in a broad set of issues such as Chinese investment, alleged currency manipulation and other countries’ regulations. The administration’s calculation divided a country’s trade deficit with the US by its exports into the country times 1/2. That’s it.

The president is essentially taking a sledgehammer to address a litany of grievances, using the trade deficit that other countries have with the US as a scapegoat. And the vague calculation could have broad implications for countries America depends on for goods — and the foreign companies that supply them.