Attorney General Pam Bondi begins dismantling Biden-era gun policies
Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Monday that she would rescind a Biden-era gun policy that yanked licenses from federally licensed firearm dealers if they intentionally falsified records or sold weapons without running a background check.
The policy — known as the 'zero-tolerance' policy — was viewed by conservatives as a punitive rule that stripped law-abiding gun sellers of their licenses for making simple mistakes on forms. But Biden administration officials said the rule was intended to crack down on 'rogue gun dealers.' They said it specifies that officials would only revoke licenses if sellers committed willful violations of the federal Gun Control Act, not for paperwork errors.
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Miami Herald
an hour ago
- Miami Herald
China and US holding second day of trade talks in London
The U.S. and China resumed talks into a second day in London, with financial markets on edge as the world's largest economies try to agree to allow exports of key tech and industrial goods and avoid escalating their trade war. The teams led by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng were reconvening Tuesday just after 10:40 a.m. at Lancaster House. The Georgian-era mansion near Buckingham Palace has hosted major addresses by U.K. prime ministers, speeches by central bank governors and parties for Britain's royal family. Speaking to reporters as officials arrived, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said talks are going well and are expected to go all day Tuesday. President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday that 'we are doing well with China. China's not easy,' adding that he was 'only getting good reports' from the nearly seven-hour session Monday. Bessent said after day one they had a 'good meeting.' Bond and currency markets are closely monitoring the talks for clues on the potential economic impact. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index, which has fallen sharply this year as trade tensions undermine confidence in U.S. assets, is around its lowest levels since 2023. The key issue this week is re-establishing terms of an agreement reached in Geneva last month, in which the U.S. understood that China would allow more rare earth shipments to reach American customers. The Trump administration accused Beijing of moving too slowly, which threatened shortages in domestic manufacturing sectors. In return, the Trump administration is prepared to remove a recent spate of measures targeting chip design software, jet engine parts, chemicals and nuclear materials, people familiar with the matter said. Many of those actions were taken in the past few weeks as tensions flared between the U.S. and China. 'Win by China' 'A U.S. decision to rollback some portion of the technology controls would very much be viewed as a win by China,' said Dexter Roberts, nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Global China Hub. 'If we think back to the last administration, the possibility of the U.S. unwinding any controls was pretty much unthinkable.' A month ago Beijing and Washington agreed to a 90-day truce through mid-August in their crippling tariffs to allow time to resolve many of their trade disagreements - from tariffs to export controls. At the same time, Trump's trade team is scrambling to secure bilateral deals with India, Japan, South Korea and several other countries that are racing to do so before July 9, when the U.S. president's so-called reciprocal tariffs rise from the current 10% baseline to much higher levels customized for each trading partner. Meanwhile, Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday held his first phone conversation with South Korea's newly elected President Lee Jae-myung and called for cooperation to safeguard multilateralism and free trade. 'We should strengthen bilateral cooperation and multilateral coordination, jointly safeguard multilateralism and free trade, and ensure the stability and smoothness of global and regional industrial chains and supply chains,' Xi said, according to the CCTV report. With assistance from Colum Murphy and Annmarie Hordern. Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
DoJ urged to investigate US group accused of working as Modi-backed ‘foreign agent'
One of the largest Sikh houses of worship in the US is calling on the Trump administration to investigate a non-profit it has alleged is working as a 'foreign agent' on behalf of the the Indian government and prime minister Narendra Modi. The Fremont Gurdwara Sahib, which said it draws 5,000 Sikh worshippers every week and is a 'fulcrum' of the Sikh community in the US and around the world, has asked the Department of Justice to launch a national security investigation into the Hindu American Foundation (HAF), to determine whether the Pennsylvania-based non-profit should be required to file as an Indian foreign agent. Under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, any such determination by the DoJ would require the HAF to publicly disclose details of its activities, including meetings with lawmakers, and any contracts and financial arrangements it has with the Indian government. 'The HAF has facilitated meetings between foreign principals and US lawmakers, platformed foreign principals at their own events, and consistently and unequivocally advocated for the interests of the BJP on both domestic and foreign policy matters,' a representative for the Gurdwara wrote in a letter last week to Pam Bondi, the US attorney general. The HAF denied the claims. In a statement the group said it was a non-partisan tax-exempt charity that is wholly independent and American and has 'absolutely no affiliation or ties to any organization or political parties in the US or abroad'. It also hit out against what it called 'coordinated campaigns' against the HAF by the Khalistan separatist movement, which is seeking to establish an independent Sikh state. 'To discuss these dangerous and false accusations against us from activists supporting transnational violent separatist movements focused on India, [the] HAF welcomes the opportunity to meet with attorney general Pam Bondi, FBI director Kash Patel, director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, as well as all homeland security officials,' the HAF said. The allegations and counter-claims come at a tense time between Sikhs who support an independent state and the Indian government. Individuals connected to the Indian government have been accused in both Canada and the US of waging a campaign of transnational repression against Sikhs outside of India after the 2023 assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Canadian advocate for Khalistan. The Canadian government has said there were 'credible allegations' that 'agents of the Indian government' were behind Nijjar's death. In the US, prosecutors have alleged that at agent of the Indian government directed the attempted assassination of an American citizen who is also a Sikh activist. A recent investigation by Al Jazeera, the news outlet, reported that when the HAF emerged two decades ago it was a voice for the Hindu community in the US, and not a 'champion' of the Indian government. That, Al Jazeera reported, changed since Modi became prime minister in 2014, when HAF is alleged to have 'ramped up its political activities in favour of the Indian government'. The HAF has not faced accusations that it is involved in violent campaigns against Sikhs. In its letter to Bondi, the Gurdwara said the HAF 'has facilitated meetings between foreign principals and US lawmakers, platformed foreign principals at their own events, and consistently and unequivocally advocated for the interests of the Bharatiya Janata party on both domestic and foreign policy matters'. Any determination by the DoJ that the HAF was in fact working on behalf of the Indian government would require the HAF to publicly disclose details of its activities, including meetings with lawmakers, and any contracts with the Indian government. The Indian embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.
The Hill
2 hours ago
- The Hill
Trump's immigration restrictions are pushing Corporate America into remote work faster
It is a fascinating and contradictory scenario: a president championing a full-scale return to the traditional office while simultaneously enacting policies that restrict new immigrants and deport existing ones. This apparent contradiction — a drive for centralized workplaces alongside a potential restriction on talent flow — might not yield the expected results. Instead, these combined pressures could dramatically accelerate the adoption of remote work, fundamentally reshaping our understanding of where and how vital work gets done. This isn't mere speculation — it's a trend with precedent. Harvard's Prithwiraj Choudhury documented how losing H-1B peers after 2017 denials reshaped team performance and nudged firms toward fully distributed structures. His broader research in his new book, 'The World Is Your Office: How Work from Anywhere Boosts Talent, Productivity, and Innovation,' showed that even during the Biden administration, existing immigration restrictions prompted companies to more readily embrace remote work. Moreover, he also shows that work-from-anywhere boosts productivity and widens talent pools, making geographic flexibility a durable competitive edge. At the heart of every dynamic economy lies its talent pool — the skilled individuals who drive innovation, solve complex problems and fuel growth. Companies are in a perpetual quest for this expertise. When national policies create significant hurdles to recruiting talent from abroad, businesses do not simply resign themselves to a diminished workforce. They innovate their hiring strategies. An anti-immigration stance, therefore, becomes an unintended catalyst, pushing companies to aggressively explore and expand remote work as a primary means to access the global reservoir of skills. This strategic pivot allows them to transcend geographical limitations and tap into a broader spectrum of expertise, a necessity when local talent pools are strained. Take the technology sector, for example, an industry renowned for its reliance on a global workforce to maintain its cutting edge. Immigrants have long been pivotal to American innovation; a 2023 report from the National Foundation for American Policy highlighted that immigrants founded over half of America's billion-dollar startup companies. If new immigration restrictions were to make it substantially harder to bring these vital minds to the U.S., tech companies would face an intensified scramble for essential skills. Faced with a potential constriction of the domestic talent pipeline for highly specialized roles, these firms will inevitably look outward — not by navigating complex visa processes for every hire, but by seamlessly integrating talent virtually. The imperative to innovate and lead will compel businesses to strengthen their remote infrastructures, turning a talent challenge into a distributed work opportunity. Consider how former President Biden inherited Donald Trump's June 2020 visa freeze and let it run until March 31 2021, extending a ban on issuing new H-1B, H-2B, J-1 and L-1 visas and leaving thousands of recruits abroad. Human-resources teams refused to lose that brainpower. Envoy Global's 2023 Immigration Trends survey reports that '81 percent of U.S. employers transferred foreign employees to offices overseas because visa barriers blocked on-shore options' and '86 percent outsourced roles originally meant for American desks for the same reason.' When one engineer keeps writing clean code from São Paulo, suddenly the whole team asks why relocation ever mattered. Other data confirm the shift. Revelio Labs analyzed millions of LinkedIn profiles and payroll records and found that 'highly remote-suitable roles have grown 42 percent faster outside the United States than inside it since 2019.' Software engineering, data analysis and legal research now migrate through cables rather than airports. Employers tap deeper candidate pools, pay lower salaries, and still gain round-the-clock productivity as teams baton-pass work across hemispheres. Rising immigration costs push the flywheel harder. Envoy's recent survey shows that '58 percent of companies plan to hire, transfer, or relocate foreign talent abroad this year' to dodge climbing filing fees and processing delays. Finance chiefs cheer because employer-of-record subscriptions undercut relocation stipends, while human resources heads welcome a talent pool unbound by ZIP codes. Employees benefit, too — remote veterans keep family roots, skip uprooted spouses, and pocket metropolitan housing savings. Cost arithmetic, cultural continuity and innovation gains reinforce one another. A dispersed marketing squad can test Spanish-language campaigns overnight in Bogotá, roll out Mandarin versions at dawn from Taipei, and ship a polished English release before New York's lunch. What began as a compliance workaround has become a competitive edge. Consulting firm INS-Global already advises multinationals to 'capitalize on sustained interest in remote work in the U.S.,' precisely because the federal sector is heading back into the cubicles. History rhymes: restricting visas without expanding domestic talent supply drives companies to distribute work virtually. Investors grasp the leverage. Each thousand dollars denied to moving costs drops straight to the bottom line. Client win-rates jump because geographically diverse teams localize products faster. Lobbyists still fight for higher visa quotas, yet chief financial officers quietly model scenarios around a fully remote future. The harder Washington squeezes physical entry, the wider corporate America swings open its digital door. Gleb Tsipursky, PhD, serves as the CEO of the hybrid work consultancy Disaster Avoidance Experts and authored the best-seller'Returning to the Office and Leading Hybrid and Remote Teams.'
