Business Matters US and German talks
The new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is expected to meet with US President Donald Trump on Thursday to discuss tariffs and the war in Ukraine.
A report by the US Congressional Budget Office in Washington found Wednesday that President Donald Trump's tax bill adds $2.4 trillion to US debt.
Also, Rahul Tandon looks at the impact that hackers are having on some of the world's best-known retailers and other brands – North Face, Cartier and Victoria Secret are the latest companies being targeted.
Throughout the programme, Rahul Tandon will be joined by two guests on opposite sides of the world: Karen Percy, a senior freelance reporter in Melbourne, Australia, and Walter Todd, President & Chief Investment Officer, Greenwood Capital, based in South Carolina, US.
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Daily Mail
33 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
'Victory for American people' as Fauci phone and hard drives seized in Covid probe
Hard drives and a cell phone seized from Dr Anthony Fauci could shed light on key decisions during the Covid pandemic - including lockdowns and mask edicts. FBI director Kash Patel revealed Thursday the Trump administration had recovered the devices, calling it a 'great breakthrough' and a 'victory for the American people.' Fauci was chief medical adviser during the pandemic but flip-flopped on crucial Covid safety information - such as mask-wearing - and sought to silence scientists whose views, including the lab-leak theory, clashed with received wisdom. Speaking Thursday on the Joe Rogan Experience, Patel outlined the government's continuing investigation into the origins of the pandemic and the federal response. Patel said investigators had long struggled to locate the devices Fauci used while serving as White House medical adviser - records that could shed light on key decisions surrounding lockdowns, mask mandates, and ties between Fauci's former agency and the Wuhan laboratory central to the lab leak theory. During the episode - where Patel shared a cigar with Rogan and touched on topics ranging from Covid to UFOs - he revealed the FBI had recovered the phone and hard drives just days before the interview was recorded. Patel did not clarify when the phone was in use, how investigators verified its connection to Fauci, or how the devices were obtained. Nor did he disclose what the FBI's 'multiple investigations' into the pandemic's origin have uncovered so far. It is unclear exactly when the phone was used and how they verified it belonged to Fauci. He also warned against drawing premature conclusions, noting 'everything's not necessarily in there' and that potentially relevant data may have been erased. Still, Patel called the discovery 'a victory for the American people' and said his team is actively reviewing the contents of the devices. Patel said: 'We found it [the devices], and at least we can tell the American people we've been looking because it is of public importance to figure out, did that guy lie? 'Did he intentionally mislead the world and cause countless deaths? 'We owe those answers to the American people, and the best evidence ever is always the people's evidence who created it. So now we're going to go and exploit those hard drives.' 'We did find it [the cell phone], we're not done, we're still looking and we're on the case.' Patel did not specify how his team got the old phone or how they verified it was Fauci's. Generally, a warrant is required to seize a cell phone, even for a government official. There are no publicly available warrants out against Fauci. The FBI and CIA have both asserted they think Covid most likely originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China, which was conducting risky experiments on coronaviruses in the years leading up to the pandemic. Some of those experiments were funded by U.S. taxpayer money through grants awarded by Fauci's old department, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). Fauci, once seen as an 'adult in the room' amid a chaotic and confusing government response to the initial 2020 outbreak, has seen his sparkling public image take a hit in recent years. Leaked emails show that in early 2020 he commissioned a paper denouncing the lab-leak theory as a conspiracy, then publicized the study at a White House news conference weeks later without disclosing his involvement. He and other public health experts also publicly dismissed the lab leak - with Fauci saying in June 2021 that it was 'a very, very, very, very remote possibility.' It later emerged that, as the head of the NIAID, he presided over the allocation of taxpayer-funded grants for virus-enhancing research at the WIV years before the pandemic began. A federal watchdog found the NIH 'did not effectively monitor' those experiments or check whether they involved pathogens with pandemic risk. Fauci also privately expressed concern the virus may have been the product of a research accident. Internationally, other intelligence agencies have also supported the lab-leak theory. The German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) carried out a secret investigation into the origins of Covid nicknamed Project Saaremaa during the pandemic, sharing the findings with the U.S. in December 2024. Investigators found unpublished dissertations from 2019 and 2020 that allegedly discussed the effects of coronaviruses on the human body. Additionally, uncovered materials revealed Chinese scientists had 'an unusually large amount of knowledge about the supposedly novel virus available at an unusually early stage.' Based on the materials BND agents found and analyzed, they used a 'Probability Index' to measure the reliability of information, which determined the lab-leak theory was 'probable' with an '80 to 95 per cent' certainty. Robert Redfield, former CDC director when the pandemic erupted, also accused American and British health agencies of shutting down concerns over potential lab leaks. He has previously told he is '100 per cent' convinced Covid was the result of scientists becoming infected while carrying out high-risk experiments to boost the infectivity of bat viruses amid low biosecurity in Wuhan labs. Fauci has denied all accusations of Covid being 'covered up' or originating from a lab. Last year he told a U.S. House panel that he had not suppressed lab leak theories or influenced research to discredit it. He has also called accusations that he covered it up 'preposterous.' Patel said: 'My mission has always been to put out the truth, whatever the consequences, whoever it's against. What did Fauci get wrong? From telling people not to wear masks to claiming vaccines stopped infections Don't wear masks, do wear masks As global concern for Covid was surfacing in March 2020, Fauci told Americans that there was 'no need' to wear a face mask. He said they may only help people 'feel a little better', and 'might even block a droplet' — but would not provide good protection. Less than a month later, he was forced into an embarrassing climbdown after it emerged the virus spread via droplets in the air. Fauci later insisted he advised people not to wear masks to ensure there were enough available for hospitals and healthcare centers. Covid did not come from a lab Fauci has repeatedly insisted that Covid did not leak from a lab in China. He called the theory a 'shiny object that will go away,' and brushed aside claims from other top experts as an 'opinion.' Fauci has now backpedaled, saying instead he keeps an 'open mind' although insisting it remains 'most likely' that the virus spilled over from animals to humans. Two shots will stop you catching Covid When the Covid vaccine roll-out was in full swing, Fauci said the immunity from shots made doubly-vaccinated people a 'dead end' for the virus, and even suggested they may no longer need to wear masks. Schools shutdown Schools were closed from March through to August 2020, something Fauci later expressed regret about. He has since admitted he 'should have realized' there would be 'deleterious collateral consequences'.
NBC News
41 minutes ago
- NBC News
Breaking down 20 years of election data that shows how the two parties have evolved in the Trump era
President Donald Trump's second election win was different from his first in one big, important way: He won the popular vote, just the second time in the last two decades that Republicans had done so. And in the time between those two victories, from 2004 to 2024, there have been dramatic shifts in the nation's politics along geographic, racial, educational and economic lines. Trump is operating in a very different Republican Party than George W. Bush was 20 years earlier. A look at where the vote has shifted most in that time tells an eye-catching story. Over the last 20 years, the counties where Republicans have improved their presidential vote share by the largest margins are predominately centered in Appalachia and the surrounding areas. The 100 counties that saw the largest shifts include: 11 of West Virginia's 55 counties, 27 of Tennessee's 95 counties, 18 of Arkansas' 75 counties and 17 of Kentucky's 120 counties. These counties, on the whole, are much more heavily white than average, according to census data, with white residents making up at least 90% of the total population in about two-thirds of these counties. All but 12 of those counties are at least 75% white. The unemployment rate across these counties is about twice the national average. Residents are more likely to be reliant on food stamps and less likely to have moved in the last year. Residents of these counties, on average, also are significantly less likely to have a bachelor's degree or higher. While the national average in the American Community Survey's most recent five-year estimate is that 35% of Americans have a bachelor's degree or higher, the average in these counties is just 14%. In short, the shifts show how Trump has brought more white working-class voters into the GOP, causing spectacular changes in some localities. Elliott County, Kentucky, with about 7,300 people, shifted the most over this time period. While Democrat John Kerry carried the county over Bush 70%-29%, the county shifted significantly to the right by Democrat Barack Obama's 2012 re-election, when Obama narrowly outran Republican Mitt Romney 49%-47%. The county continued to shift with Trump on the ballot, ultimately with Trump winning a higher vote share in 2024 (80%) than Kerry did in 2004. It's a similar story in many of these other counties — particularly those in states like West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee, where rural voters that once voted Democratic have been leaving the party, especially at the presidential level. In the Trump era, heavily Hispanic counties shifted right A different look — at the counties with the largest pro-Republican shifts between Trump's three elections, from 2016 to 2024 — shows some major differences in the types of places that have moved to the right specifically within the Trump era. On average, the 100 counties that shifted most toward Republicans in the Trump era are significantly more Hispanic than the national average. These counties are also wealthier and more educated compared to the counties that moved most from 2004 to 2024, although they are still below the national average. While the biggest Republican-shifting counties from 2004 to 2024 are largely concentrated around Appalachia, the counties that shifted the most to the right in the Trump era are more spread out and predominantly in the South and West. Twenty-nine Texas counties show up in the list of 100 counties that saw the greatest gain in GOP presidential vote margin between 2016 and 2024, and 12 of those are among the 20 that saw the biggest shifts. All of these Texas counties are majority-Hispanic, and some are more than 90% Hispanic, emblematic of Trump's dramatic improvement among Hispanic voters in 2024 as well as his success in heavily Hispanic areas along the border in 2020. Another heavily Hispanic county, Miami-Dade County, saw the 15th-largest shift in margin toward Republicans between 2016 and 2024 out of more than 3,000 counties nationwide. Other major population centers in New York City — including the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens — are in the top 100 too. And the 14 counties in Utah are typical of another trend: Many Republicans initially skeptical of Trump in 2016 (including Mormons, who make up a significant part of the electorate in Utah) largely fell in line eight years later. Where Democrats have made their biggest gains Democrats have seen their own shifts — the flip side of those GOP gains in a country that has remained tightly divided even as the two party coalitions have shifted significantly from 20 years ago. While the counties that saw the largest GOP gains over the last two decades were predominantly rural and small, the counties where Democrats improved the most are much larger, primarily in suburban and urban areas. The 100 counties where the GOP presidential vote margin grew most over the last two decades cast just 782,000 votes in 2024. The 100 counties that saw the most improvement in the Democratic presidential vote margin cast almost 20 million votes all together in 2024. Those Democratic-trending counties include key constituencies that have become more important to the party's coalition in recent years. On average, they are more heavily Black, more wealthy, more educated and more urban, an unsurprising mix of voters mobilized in the Obama era and those who have fled the Republican Party in the Trump era. They're also broadly more likely to have more newer residents — according to census data, those Democratic-trending counties have higher-than-average shares of residents who have recently moved to the county. Many of those major trends intersect in exurban and suburban Georgia, particularly in the Atlanta metro area. Seven Georgia counties are among the top eight that saw the most movement toward Democrats the two decades since 2004: Rockdale, Henry, Douglas, Gwinnett, Newton, Cobb and Fayette counties. All but Newton are in metro Atlanta, all are at least one-quarter Black, and most have higher incomes and education rates than the national average. Extremely wealthy and highly educated areas in northern Virginia, as well as counties like Teton County, Wyoming — home to the ritzy Jackson Hole ski resorts as well as major national parks — and Los Alamos County, New Mexico — home to the Department of Energy laboratory that helped develop the atomic bomb — are also among the counties that swung most toward Democrats over this period. Los Alamos County is particularly symbolic: It has the highest share of Ph.D.s among residents of any county in the country. Two more notable counties included in this list are Sarpy and Douglas counties in Nebraska, which make up the vast majority of the state's 2nd Congressional District — the 'blue dot' that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris carried in the last two presidential elections, securing one electoral vote even as Trump carried the state. Democrats have gained in wealthier, whiter and more educated counties in the Trump era The counties that shifted most toward Democrats between 2016 and 2024, the Trump era, are significantly whiter and slightly older than those that moved most over the last two decades. Twenty are in Colorado and nine are in Utah, but there are a handful of important counties in the Midwest too. The two counties that saw the biggest Democratic shifts in the last eight years are both in Utah: Utah and Davis counties, around Provo and Salt Lake City, respectively. There's an important caveat here: In 2016, independent candidate Evan McMullin won 21% of the vote, deflating both parties' vote shares. Looking at more competitive states, almost one-third of Colorado's counties were among the 100 with the largest Democratic shifts in the Trump era, as were 11 in Georgia. Grand Traverse County, Michigan, and Ozaukee County, Wisconsin, have also seen more recent shifts, emblematic of how some educated, suburban Republican strongholds have been moving toward Democrats with Trump on the ballot. But those gains have been more moderate, an increase of 7 percentage points in the Democratic margin between 2016 and 2024 in Ozaukee, and 8 percentage points in Grand Traverse.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Trump bill set to add trillions to US debt pile – can America stop it climbing?
In this febrile political era, few issues command stronger bipartisan support than the need for fiscal responsibility. Barack Obama and Donald Trump committed to curtail the US national debt on their respective roads to the White House. And yet, no matter the party, Americans have been able to count on one thing above most: the national debt will keep climbing. And here we are again. With Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' threatening to add once more to the US's huge debts, several Republican senators are threatening to block his current spending plans, with Rand Paul of Kentucky among those highly critical. Departing the White House, Elon Musk, the world's richest man, branded the bill a 'disgusting abomination'. But this administration is not alone. For decades, economists have expressed concern about US debt. Politicians have repeatedly pledged to tackle it. All the while, the pile continued to swell. Back in 2008, when Obama declared on the campaign trail it was high time Washington started 'taking responsibility for every dime that it spends', it stood at about $14.46tn. Back in 2015, when Trump promised on the trail to 'bring it down big league and quickly,' it stood at about $24.07tn. Last year, it rose to $35.46tn. On Wall Street, concern has been mounting to the brink of panic. Calling on Trump to reduce the deficit – the gap between what the US federal government spends and the money it raises, mainly via taxes – the billionaire investor Ray Dalio warned in March of a crisis within three years. 'I can't tell you exactly when it'll come,' he told Bloomberg. 'It's like the heart attack.' Trump appears to have paid little attention. While he dispatched the billionaire industrialist Musk to wield the axe across the federal government in the name of efficiency, Trump also pushed for sweeping tax cuts that impartial analysts estimate will add trillions of dollars to the debt pile. The anxiety stepped up a gear last month, when the ratings agency Moody's stripped the US of its last major top-tier credit rating, and cited the size of the debt pile now – and how large it expects it will grow. 'Successive US administrations and Congress have failed to agree on measures to reverse the trend of large annual fiscal deficits and growing interest costs,' said Moody's, predicting that 'current fiscal proposals under consideration' would not lessen spending or reduce deficits. 'Over the next decade, we expect larger deficits as entitlement spending rises while government revenue remains broadly flat.' There is technically a cap – known as the debt ceiling, or limit – on what the federal government can borrow. The first such broad limit, introduced in 1939, was set at a mere $45bn. Time and again, the US treasury department has been forced to ask Congress for the ceiling to be lifted, or suspended. This process has repeatedly sparked legislative battles on Capitol Hill in recent years, drawing in unrelated issues as the US drifted towards default on its debts, and prompting questions over the reliability of US debt as an investment – and calls for the limit to be scrapped altogether. Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion Explaining its downgrade last month, Moody's noted that, as US deficits and debt have swollen, interest rates have risen, and interest payments on US government debt have increased markedly. The ratings agency expects the federal debt burden, equivalent to 98% of US gross domestic product (GDP) last year, to rise to 134% of GDP by 2035. 'Talk is cheap. People can say a lot of things,' said Owen Zidar, professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University. 'It's easier to see what the policies have actually been.' When faced with a choice between prioritizing deficit reduction or an expensive policy, such as Obama's widening of health insurance coverage, 'it's not unreasonable to prioritize health insurance coverage', Zidar suggested. 'The key thing is to avoid big mistakes that are hard to reverse.' The Clinton administration made some 'hard choices' about where, and where not, to spend, he said, adding that tax cuts and the Iraq war under the Bush administration in early noughties were 'a big part of why we have debt and deficit problems today'. Presidents have historically managed to reassure investors, up to a point, that they shared their concern. 'If we stay on the current path', Obama said during a debt ceiling battle in 2011, 'our growing debt could cost us jobs and do serious damage to the economy.' But the volatility of Trump, who called himself the 'king of debt' and once even mooted only paying back half during his first run for the presidency, has added a layer of doubt. 'The Debt Limit should be entirely scrapped to prevent an Economic catastrophe,' he wrote on Truth Social, his social network, this week. 'An erratic administration that generates a lot of uncertainty and calls into question things that have been true for most of the western world, that is a frightening prospect when the fiscal fundamentals aren't as good as they have always been,' said Zidar.
