US: S&P 500, Nasdaq dip from record highs with Trump tax bill in focus
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 33.3 points, or 0.08 per cent, at the open to 44,061.49. The S&P 500 fell 17.7 points, or 0.29 per cent, at the open to 6,187.25, while the Nasdaq Composite dropped 79.1 points, or 0.39 per cent, to 20,290.611 at the opening bell. Reuters
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Straits Times
38 minutes ago
- Straits Times
Pro-Palestinian Georgetown student can remain free, US appeals court rules
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox FILE PHOTO: A statue of John Carroll, first Archbishop of Baltimore and founder of Georgetown University, sits on the Georgetown campus in Washington June 14, 2012. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo A pro-Palestinian Georgetown University student from India, detained by President Donald Trump's administration but then released on a judge's order, can remain free while fighting deportation efforts, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Tuesday. A three-judge panel of the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 against the administration's request that Badar Khan Suri be returned to immigration detention. The 4th Circuit said it found no grounds to overturn the decision by U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles to order Suri's release. "To allow the government to undermine habeas jurisdiction by moving detainees without notice or accountability reduces the writ of habeas corpus to a game of jurisdictional hide-and-seek," Judge James Andrew Wynn wrote on Tuesday. Habeas corpus refers to a procedure under which the legality of a person's incarceration can be challenged in court. Suri, 41, was arrested in Virginia in March and then moved by the U.S. government to Texas, where he was released in May after the ruling by Giles. Suri is a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown's Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, part of the Jesuit university's School of Foreign Service. The Trump administration has attempted to deport foreign pro-Palestinian student protesters while accusing them of being antisemitic, threats to American foreign policy and extremist sympathizers. Suri has denied the U.S. government's allegations that he spread Palestinian militant propaganda and antisemitism on social media. Protesters, including some Jewish groups, have said the U.S. government has conflated criticism of Israel's military assault in Gaza with antisemitism and advocacy for Palestinian rights with support for extremism. Human rights advocates have raised free speech and due process concerns over the administration's actions toward these students. Other pro-Palestinian students who were arrested by the government and subsequently released under judicial orders include Columbia University students Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi and Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk. Suri's wife, Mapheze Saleh, is a U.S. citizen. Saleh is from Gaza, according to the Georgetown University website, which said she has written for Al Jazeera and Palestinian media outlets and worked with the foreign ministry in Gaza. Saleh was not arrested. REUTERS
CNA
an hour ago
- CNA
Powell reiterates US Fed will wait for more data before cutting rates
SINTRA: US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Tuesday (July 1) reiterated the US central bank's plans to "wait and learn more" about the impact of tariffs on inflation before lowering interest rates, again setting aside President Donald Trump's demands for immediate and deep rate cuts. "We're simply taking some time," Powell said at a central bank gathering in Portugal a day after Trump sent him a handwritten missive noting how low other central banks had cut rates and suggesting the US needed to move. "As long as the US economy is in solid shape, we think that the prudent thing to do is to wait and learn more and see what those effects might be." Yet Powell also declined to rule out a possible rate cut at the Fed's upcoming July 29-30 meeting, prompting investors to slightly boost the possibility of a reduction at that session and shifting focus to a jobs report to be issued on Thursday and new inflation data coming in two weeks, both covering the month of June. Powell noted that a majority of Fed officials in recent projections do expect to lower the benchmark interest rate later this year, and are closely attuned to whether inflation increases this summer, as policymakers and many economists expect. "It's going to depend on the are going meeting by meeting," Powell said. "I wouldn't take any meeting off the table or put it directly on the table. It's going to depend on how the data evolve.' The Fed is facing a complicated moment, weighing sometimes conflicting data that could leave officials faced with both rising unemployment and rising inflation, the worst of both worlds for a central bank tasked with maintaining both stable prices and maximum employment. Uncertainty over trade and other administration policies has left businesses also unsure of what to do, and the Fed's decision-making has been under virtually daily assault from a president eager to install his chair when Powell leaves the Fed's top job next May. At the Sintra gathering, an annual forum sponsored by the European Central Bank and akin to the Fed's yearly gathering at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Powell got at least a momentary reprieve. FED IS FOCUSED "100%" ON INFLATION AND JOBS TARGET Asked about Trump's barrage of insults, Powell's comment that the Fed was focused "100%" on its inflation and jobs target drew applause from the audience and from the heads of the ECB, the Bank of England and other central banks who joined him onstage for a panel discussion. Central bank independence from the lobbying of elected officials, at least in the setting of interest rates, is considered key to keeping inflation under control. Powell said his message to whomever Trump chooses to succeed him in a little over 10 months would be "we're trying to deliver macro stability, financial stability, economic stability for the benefit of all the people. If we're going to do that successfully, we need to do it in a completely non-political way, which means we don't take sides. We don't play one side against the other." It remains unclear how long the Fed may have to wait to gain the clarity it needs to resume reducing interest rates. The central bank cut steadily last year, beginning in September - something Trump alleges was politically motivated - but stopped in December after lowering the benchmark rate a full percentage point to the current 4.25% to 4.5% range. Powell has made no secret of why. "In effect, we went on hold when we saw the size of the essentially all inflation forecasts for the United States went up materially as a consequence," Powell said. The central bank targets inflation of 2%, and recent readings remain above that level now for the fourth year running following a spike in prices during the COVID-19 pandemic. While officials are open to lowering rates if inflation proves lower than expected or the job market weakens, Powell said there is nothing in the data so far indicating a need to move fast or soon.
CNA
an hour ago
- CNA
US Senate strikes AI regulation ban passage from Trump megabill
WASHINGTON: The Republican-led US Senate voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday (July 1) to remove a 10-year federal moratorium on state regulation of artificial intelligence from President Trump's sweeping tax-cut and spending bill. Lawmakers voted 99-1 to strike the ban from the bill by adopting an amendment offered by Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn. The action came during a marathon session known as a "vote-a-rama," in which lawmakers offered numerous amendments to the legislation that has now passed through the upper chamber of Congress. The Senate version of Trump's legislation would have only restricted states regulating AI from tapping a new $500 million fund to support AI infrastructure. The AI clause is part of the wide-ranging tax-cut and spending bill sought by President Donald Trump, which would cut Medicaid healthcare and food assistance programs for the poor and disabled. Vice President JD Vance cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate to pass the bill, which now moves back to the House for consideration. Major AI companies, including Alphabet's Google and OpenAI, have expressed support for Congress taking AI regulation out of the hands of states to free innovation from a panoply of differing requirements. Blackburn presented her amendment to strike the provision a day after agreeing to compromise language with Senate Commerce Committee chair Ted Cruz that would have cut the ban to five years and allowed states to regulate issues such as protecting artists' voices or child online safety if they did not impose an "undue or disproportionate burden" on AI. But Blackburn withdrew her support for the compromise before the amendment vote. "The current language is not acceptable to those who need these protections the most," the Tennessee Republican said in a statement.
