
NBA YoungBoy pens emotional note for Trump after pardon: ‘I am fully prepared…'
Rapper NBA YoungBoy penned an emotional note for President Donald Trump after he issued a pardon.
'I want to thank President Trump for granting me a pardon and giving me the opportunity to keep building - as a man, as a father, and as an artist. This moment means a lot. It opens the door to a future I've worked hard for and I am fully prepared to step into this,' the rapper wrote on social media.
'Big thanks to the Pardon Czar, Ms. Alice Marie Johnson, for fighting for second chances for so many people, and to my lawyer, Brittany K. Barnett, for being in my corner and all your hard work to make this possible. And thank you to everyone who believed in me. I'm grateful. I'm Focused. I'm Ready,' he added.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Economic Times
12 minutes ago
- Economic Times
Trump summons Fed's Jerome Powell, tells him he's making a mistake on rates
Reuters FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump looks on as Jerome Powell, his nominee to lead the U.S. Federal Reserve moves to the podium at the White House in Washington, U.S., November 2, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo U.S. President Donald Trump called Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to the White House on Thursday for their first face-to-face meeting since he took office in January and told the central bank chief he was making a "mistake" by not lowering interest rates. Both the White House and Fed confirmed the two met at the president's invitation, renewing a fractious relationship in which Trump has repeatedly berated Powell for not cutting rates as the president desires. "Chair Powell did not discuss his expectations for monetary policy," the Fed said in a statement after the meeting, "except to stress that the path of policy will depend entirely on incoming economic information and what that means for the outlook." He told Trump that he and his colleagues at the Fed "will set monetary policy, as required by law, to support maximum employment and stable prices and will make those decisions based solely on careful, objective, and non-political analysis," the statement said. White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said she and the president had seen the Fed's statement and that it was correct. However, she added, "the President did say that he believes the Fed chair is making a mistake by not lowering interest rates, which is putting us at an economic disadvantage to China and other countries." The Fed earlier this month left the policy rate in the 4.25%-4.50% range, where it has been since December, and policymakers have since signaled they may leave it there for another few months as they wait for more clarity on tariff policy. Policymakers are worried the tariffs and policy uncertainty could slow the economy, but even more so are concerned that they could lead to persistently higher inflation, minutes from the Fed's May meeting released on Wednesday show. Financial markets currently are pricing in a Fed interest-rate cut in September, with a second one to follow in December. Trump elevated Powell to the post of Fed Chair during his first term but quickly fell out with him over his interest-rate decisions. He has said he wants to see him gone from the central bank, though he has also said he has no intention of trying to fire Powell. But the possibility of a firing has unsettled financial markets that bank on an independent Fed's ability to do its job without political interference. Those fears were partly alleviated last week after a Supreme Court ruling, in a pair of cases testing Trump's ability to fire the leadership of other independent government agencies, signaled the central bank may be treated as a special case whose chair cannot be terminated at will. Powell last met with Trump in November 2019, during Trump's first term, in a 30-minute meeting also attended by then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. It is Powell's first presidential visit in three years - the last one was with Joe Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen at the White House. Powell has said that such meetings are always at the request of the president and never the other way.
&w=3840&q=100)

Business Standard
12 minutes ago
- Business Standard
US, allies accuse N Korea, Russia of violating UN sanctions in arms deals
The United States and 10 allies on Thursday said the military cooperation between Russia and North Korea flagrantly violates UN sanctions and has helped Moscow increase its missile strikes on Ukrainian cities. They made the accusations in their first report since joining forces to monitor sanctions against North Korea after Russia vetoed a resolution in March 2024 to continue the monitoring by a UN Security Council panel of experts. It had been issuing reports of Pyongyang's sanctions violations since 2010. The 29-page report produced by the Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team -- comprising the US, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Korea and the United Kingdom -- said the evidence it gathered demonstrates that North Korea and Russia have engaged in myriad unlawful activities explicitly prohibited by UN sanctions resolutions. It said North Korea has transferred arms and related materiel by sea, air and rail, including artillery, ballistic missiles and combat vehicles, for Russia's use in the war in Ukraine. Russia has transferred air defence systems to North Korea, and its forces trained the North's troops deployed to support Russia's war, the team said. And Moscow also has supplied refined petroleum products to Pyongyang in far excess of the yearly cap under UN sanctions, and has maintained corresponding banking relations with the North in violation of sanctions. The 11 countries said this unlawful cooperation has contributed to Moscow's ability to increase its missile attacks against Ukrainian cities including targeted strikes against critical civilian infrastructure". The cooperation has also provided resources for North Korea to fund its military and banned ballistic missile programmes, and it allowed the more than 11,000 troops Pyongyang has deployed to Russia since October 2024 to gain first-hand military experience, the team said. There was no immediate response from the Russian Mission to the United Nations to a request for comment on the report. The report covers the period between January 1, 2024, and April 30, 2025, and points to evidence that Russia and North Korea intend to further deepen their military cooperation for at least the foreseeable future. It cites an unnamed country in the team reporting that Russian-flagged cargo vessels delivered as many as 9 million rounds of ammunition for artillery and multiple rocket launchers from North Korea to Russia in 2024. The report includes images of containers, which the team says were from North Korean and Russian ports, and an ammunition dump in Russia. Citing an unnamed team member, the report says North Korea last year transferred at least 100 ballistic missiles to Russia, which were launched into Ukraine to destroy civilian infrastructure and terrorize populated areas such as Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia". It also transferred elements of three brigade sets of heavy artillery", the report said. It includes images of a North Korean 170 mm self-propelled gun that it said was being transported through Russia, and North Korean multiple rocket launcher ammunition and an anti-tank missile it said were found in Ukraine. The team said in a joint statement that it will continue to monitor implementation of UN resolutions and raise awareness of ongoing attempts to violate and evade UN sanctions". It urged North Korea to engage in meaningful diplomacy". The Security Council imposed sanctions after North Korea's first nuclear test explosion in 2006 and tightened them over the years in a total of 10 resolutions seeking -- so far unsuccessfully -- to cut funds and curb its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. The last sanctions resolution was adopted by the council in December 2017. China and Russia vetoed a US-sponsored resolution in May 2022 that would have imposed new sanctions over a spate of intercontinental ballistic missile launches, and have blocked all other UN action against North Korea.
&w=3840&q=100)

Business Standard
12 minutes ago
- Business Standard
Macron, Hegseth to address China, Ukraine war at Singapore security forum
French President Emmanuel Macron and US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth are among the world leaders, diplomats and top defence officials in Singapore this weekend for a security forum that will focus on China's growing assertiveness, the global impact of Russia's war on Ukraine and the flare-up of conflicts in Asia. Macron opens the conference with a keynote address Friday night that is expected to touch on all of those issues, as well as the pressure the hefty tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump's administration is putting on Asian allies. It's Hegseth's first time to the Shangri-La dialogue, hosted by the International Institute for Security Studies, which is taking place against the backdrop of heightened rhetoric between Beijing and Washington due to the Trump administration's threat of triple digit tariffs on China, and some uncertainty in the region over how committed the US is to the defence of Taiwan, which also faces possible 32 per cent American tariffs. China claims the self-governing democracy as its own, and Chinese President Xi Jinping has not ruled out taking it by force. China sends military aircraft, ships and spy balloons near Taiwan as part of a campaign of daily harassment, and currently has an aircraft carrier in the waters southeast of the island. Hegseth told reporters before he boarded his plane for Singapore that Washington's policies were meant to deter a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. We seek no conflict with anybody, including the Communist Chinese, he said. "We will stay strong for our interests. And that's a big part of what this trip is all about. China, which usually sends its defence minister to the Shangri-La forum, appears to be sending a lower-level delegation this year but has not said why. Hegseth's trip to Singapore is his second to the region since becoming defence secretary, following a March visit to the Philippines, which has seen escalating confrontations with China over competing territorial claims in the South China Sea. That trip, which also included a stop in Japan, brought a degree of relief over growing concerns from the Philippines and others in the region about US support from a president who has taken more of a transactional approach to diplomacy and seems wary of foreign engagements. The US has been pursuing a free and open Indo-Pacific policy, which includes regularly sailing warships through the Taiwan Strait and in the South China Sea, which is claimed almost in its entirety by China. The European Union has adopted a more economics-driven approach, but several European nations have also regularly taken part in the freedom of navigation exercises, including France, which sent a carrier strike group on a five-month mission through the Indo-Pacific that concluded in April. In its published Indo-Pacific strategy, France has underscored the need to preserve a rules-based international order in the face of China's increasing power and territorial claims and its global competition with the United States. France's own ties to the Indo-Pacific are strong, with more than 1.6 million of its citizens living in the region in French overseas territories. In his speech, Macron is expected also to stress that the war in Ukraine is having a worldwide impact and that Russia seeks to destabilise Asia, the French president's office said. While democracies from the region, including Australia, South Korea and Japan, have been aiding Ukraine, China has been growingly supportive of Russia and North Korea has sent troops to fight for Moscow. The conference comes as civil war continues to rage in Myanmar, creating a massive humanitarian crisis that has only been compounded by the effects of a devastating earthquake that hit in March. It also follows the outbreak of violence this week on the Thai-Cambodian border, in which a Cambodian soldier was killed in a brief exchange of fire between the two sides. Thailand and Cambodia have a long history of land disputes, though Thailand said after the short skirmish that the situation had been resolved. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)