'I could live 30 years - but plan to die': Has assisted dying in Canada gone too far?

 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3wxq28znpqo

April Hubbard sits on the theatre stage where she plans to die later this year.

She is not terminally ill, but the 39-year-old performance and burlesque artist has been approved for assisted dying under Canada's increasingly liberal laws.

April was born with spina bifida and was later diagnosed with tumours at the base of her spine which she says have left her in constant, debilitating pain.

She's been taking strong opioid painkillers for more than 20 years and applied for Medical Assistance in Dying (Maid) in March 2023. While she could yet live for decades with her condition, she qualified to end her life early seven months after applying. For those who are terminally ill it is possible to get approval within 24 hours.

Congress Is Freaking Out About Trump’s Trade War, But Not Enough to Stop Him

 https://time.com/7274601/tariffs-trump-republicans-against/

While most Hill Republicans tried to avoid criticizing their party’s leader, frustrations were being laid bare as their talking points didn’t match those coming out of the White House. Lawmakers were insisting Trump’s new tariffs are a starting point for a negotiation while the White House said they’re actually the end of the discussion. Frantic calls to Cabinet agencies about home-district impacts were yielding platitudes and not promises. Even give-Trump-a-chance Republicans began losing patience as their office phone lines were on fire. 

“None of this was thought through,” says one Republican lobbyist who is trying to tell her association’s members not to panic. “The math doesn’t work. The end game doesn’t work. The politics doesn’t work. This is just a mess and it is going to cost Republicans seats.”

Republicans at the Capitol understand this is going to hurt not just Americans, but their own political futures. It’s why, in a low-key fever, they’re freaking out. But here’s the rub: while they know this is bad for just about everyone, don’t expect them to exercise their congressional authority to get Trump to back off. Their prospects may be bad right now, but they view crossing a President who leads a vindictive movement as even worse. This is not a moment where anyone in Washington is expecting political bravery. Far from it. The question many Republicans in the Capitol are asking themselves: which path will yield the least pain for selfish spoils? It’s a pretty weak way to run a superpower. 

The Economist Slams ‘The Madness of King Donald’ With Scathing Takedown of Tariffs

 https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-economist-slams-the-madness-of-king-donald-with-scathing-takedown-of-tariffs/

The Economist has posted a scathing takedown of “The Madness of King Donald” in its latest cover feature, lambasting the president’s “Liberation Day” tariffs as “flat-out nonsense” and “utterly deluded.” On the same day that Trump flew to Florida for some R&R after his tariff policy caused the U.S. economy to tank, the publication heralded the moment as “America’s total abandonment of the world trading order and embrace of protectionism.” The administration’s “catalogue of foolishness” will hurt American consumers, reduce competition, and damage global trade, they argued, while taking swipes at Trump’s “pathetic” grasp of technicalities and lack of knowledge on the history of tariffs and their applications. The piece concludes that while Trump’s policies are reckless and based on “deluded” economic theories, the world can limit the fallout by pursuing deeper integration amongst themselves and cutting the U.S out of the picture—although they admit this will take time.“There is no avoiding the havoc Mr Trump has wrought, but that does not mean his foolishness is destined to triumph,” the magazine concluded.

Violence and Education?

 Sanhedrin (94b) What did Hezekiah do to ensure Torah study? He inserted a sword at the entrance of the study hall and said: Anyone who does not engage in Torah study shall be stabbed with this sword. As a result, they searched from Dan in the north to Beersheba in the south, and did not find an ignoramus. They searched from Gevat to Antipatris and did not find a male child, or a female child, or a man, or a woman who was not expert even in the complex halakhot of ritual purity and impurity. 

The Real Story of the Maryland Father Deported to El Salvador By Mistake

 https://www.newsweek.com/kilmar-armando-abrego-garcia-deported-el-salvador-maryland-father-ms13-2054507

The U.S. government has long-argued that Abrego Garcia resident has ties to MS-13, a criminal gang that began in immigrant communities in Los Angeles with ties to Central and South American countries. His attorneys argue he doesn't have a criminal history and has never been charged with a crime in the U.S., El Salvador, or anywhere else.

Abrego Garcia was denied bond because officials argued there was sufficient evidence to show he was "a verified member" of MS-13, meaning he was a danger to the community.

His attorneys claimed, and ICE later confirmed, that the only verification came from a form filled out by the Prince George County Police Department, which based his membership on the fact that "he was wearing a Chicago Bulls hat and a hoodie; and that a confidential informant advised that he was an active member of MS-13 with the Westerns clique" – a group based out of Long Island, New York.

"It was so clear that they had absolutely no evidence that Kilmar was ever a gang member, yet they made us prove he was not one," Vasquez Sura wrote on March 24, 2019, during his immigration hearing.

Trump’s self-inflicted tariff crisis sparks confusion, chaos and questions of competence

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/03/politics/trump-tariffs-chaos-competence/index.html 

“I think it’s going very well,” Trump told reporters Thursday, in the aftermath of his “Liberation Day” announcement the day before.

“It was an operation like when a patient gets operated on and it’s a big thing,” Trump said. “We’ve never seen anything like it. The markets are going to boom. The stock is going to boom. The country is going to boom.”

The conflicting messages and sense of drift posed fundamental questions of whether a presidential inner circle that critics have long said is delusional about the impact of a tariff war also has the competence to navigate out of the crisis.

“They know nothing,” veteran Wall Street trader Peter Tuchman told CNN’s Erin Burnett.

“The formula they used … it’s like apples, oranges, a couple of cashews divided by 10 times four.” He added: “None of it makes any sense and billions and trillions of dollars are being wiped out of the market on a day-to-day basis.

“It was nothing but blood on the streets.”

Wall Street traders may no longer trust Trump, but it will take more than a stock market slump to shatter the rare bond that the president enjoys with his base.

Past presidents have irrevocably severed trust with the public when they insisted on a reality that voters could perceive was false. This includes Lyndon Johnson’s insistence on expanding a war he was losing in Vietnam, George W. Bush’s denial when victory in Iraq degenerated into an insurgency and Joe Biden’s insistence that the chaotic exit from Afghanistan was a success.

Judging by their remarks on Thursday, Trump and Vance risk going down a similar road even as their situation promises to get worse.

Lutnick to plunging markets: Let Trump run the global economy

 https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5230299-lutnick-insists-trump-run-the-global-economy-as-markets-tank/

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said President Trump should run the global economy as markets plummet due to the onset of Wednesday’s tariff announcement for a range of nations.

“Let Donald Trump run the global economy. He knows what he’s doing. He’s been talking about it for 35 years,” Lutnick said during a Thursday morning CNN appearance.

“You got to trust Donald Trump in the White House.”

His words came hours after the Nasdaq composite, Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 index all opened with significant losses.

Trump Responds To Market Turmoil Over Tariffs: 'Going Very Well' - Alternative Reality or Idiocy?

 https://www.newsweek.com/trump-responds-market-turmoil-tariffs-2055053

By Thursday afternoon, Wall Street was on track for its worst day since 2022. As of 2:30 p.m. ET, the S&P 500 index had fallen 4.3 percent, while the Nasdaq had tumbled more than 5 percent.

Asian and European markets also fell sharply as economists, analysts and investors sounded the alarm about the potentially devastating impact Trump's tariffs could have on the global economy.

A reporter asked Trump how he thinks things are going as U.S. markets continue plunging in response to his tariffs, which were announced on Wednesday.

"I think it's going very well," Trump replied. "It was an operation, like when a patient gets operated on and it's a big thing. I said this would exactly be the way it is. We have six or seven trillion dollars coming into our country and we've never seen anything like it."

He added: "The markets are going to boom, the stock is going to boom, the country's going to boom. And the rest of the world wants to see, is there any way they can make a deal. They've taken advantage of us for many, many years. And many years we've been at the wrong side of the ball and I'll tell you what, I think it's going to be unbelievable."

Trump and His ‘Little Disturbance’ From Tariffs

 https://www.wsj.com/opinion/donald-trump-tariffs-disturbance-markets-trade-243b36ef?mod=hp_opin_pos_1

President Trump said there would be “a little disturbance” from his tariffs, but how does he define little? The stock market Thursday suffered its worst day since the government shut down the economy in March 2020. Not to worry, the White House says tariffs will eventually be worth the pain. Feeling better?

Stocks Suffer Biggest One-Day Wipeout in Value Since March 2020

 https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/trump-tariffs-trade-war-stock-market-04-03-2025?mod=WSJ_home_supertoppertop_pos_1

U.S. markets suffered their steepest declines since 2020 on fears President Trump’s new tariff plans will trigger a global trade war and drag the U.S. economy into recession.

Major stock indexes dropped as much as 6% on Thursday. Stocks lost roughly $3.1 trillion in market value, their largest one-day decline since March 2020. On Friday, stock-index futures drifted lower, and stocks in Japan were hit for a second day.

In Thursday's market plunge, the Dow industrials dropped 1679 points, or 4%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq, which powered the market higher for years, was down 6%, pulled lower by big declines in Nvidia, Apple and Amazon.com. The S&P 500, which fell 4.8%, and the other benchmarks suffered their sharpest declines since the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic.

A third global recession in 20 years looms

 https://www.axios.com/2025/04/02/trump-reciprocal-tariffs-cause-recession

A truly enormous shock is needed to tip the entire global economy into recession. Since World War II, there have been two of these events: the financial crisis of 2008-09, and the coronavirus pandemic of 2020.

 President Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs, if they stay in place and especially if they face retaliation from targeted nations, could be the third such economic earthquake in 17 years.

It's almost impossible to overstate the sheer magnitude of the announced tariffs, along with the degree to which they could devastate the global economy.

GOP senator says he ‘won’t apologize’ after telling fired HHS employee he ‘probably deserved it’

 https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5229211-senator-jim-banks-wont-apologize-fired-hhs-employee/?tbref=hp

Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) on Wednesday said he “won’t apologize” for telling a fired Health and Human Services (HHS) employee that he “probably deserved it,” after video footage of the exchange was widely circulated on social media.  

The viral video showed former HHS employee Mack Schroeder approaching Banks in a Senate office building on Tuesday and asking him about the mass layoffs at HHS. Schroeder, who noted that he personally was among the fired HHS employees, asked the senator how he would ensure residents in his state got the services they needed.

“You probably deserved it,” Banks told Schroeder, referring to Schroeder’s termination. When Schroeder asked why, Banks told him, “Because you seem like a clown.”

Stocks in major decline as Trump's tariffs roil global markets

 https://edition.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-tariffs-news-04-03-25/index.html

Global markets rattled: US stock markets fell sharply Thursday, as did Asian and European markets, after the tariff announcement. Meanwhile, gold hit a new record high as investors seek safer investments. Leading economists told CNN they feared the tariffs could lead to a global recession.

Dow plunges more than 1,500 points as Trump’s reciprocal tariffs threaten trade war

 https://nypost.com/

President Trump’s “Liberation Day” has been followed by a “Day of Reckoning” on Wall Street.