Latest news with #AprilFool'sDay
ITV News
2 days ago
- Automotive
- ITV News
An April fool? Trump trade war backfires as court blocks US president's tariffs
President Trump waited until April 2 to unveil his tariff policy, avoiding April Fool's Day. But the US Court of International Trade has left him looking foolish. It turns out that 'liberation day' was an exercise in overreach; the tariff scheme Trump unveiled to great fanfare in the Rose Garden in Washington is illegal. The panel of judges have decided the president did not have the authority to use the emergency powers legislation he used as justification. So where does this leave Trump's trade war? Well, he has marched his troops to the top of the hill, now he faces the prospect of a forced march down again. As things stand, the levies the president imposed on April 2, including the 10% baseline on all US imports and the 'reciprocal' tariffs of many countries, will have to be wound back. The legal ruling could disarm Trump of the tariff stick he's used to try to beat concessions out of China and the EU. But it's not over yet, the Trump administration says it will launch an appeal, and a higher court may take a different view. And, as the UK car industry is pointing out, this judgment doesn't affect them. 'Our initial understanding is that this does not apply to Section 232 tariffs, so the additional 25% levied on cars, steel and aluminium still applies,' says Mike Hawes, Chief Executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. Hawes adds: 'The importance of confirming and implementing urgently the UK's deal on these products, therefore, still applies.' This is an important point. The trade deal between the UK and the US was announced on 9th May. Three weeks on, and we have the outline of an agreement but not much more in the way of detail and nothing resembling a legal document, ready to be signed. For now, every car that is shipped from the UK to the US attracts the extra 25% tax as soon as it hits dry land. As for the UK economy as a whole, economists aren't scrambling to revise their forecasts this morning. 'The US tariffs were never a game-changer for the UK economy in the first place, although they weren't helpful, so any cancellation of the tariffs or the deal with the US to limit them isn't going to be a game-changer either,' writes Paul Dales of Capital Economics. 'The one thing that remains constant when everything else is changing is the heightened uncertainty.' President Trump's trade policy has always looked chaotic. Today, it looks more ragged still and less under his control. Until now, the only person in the world who knew what would happen next was Donald Trump, and now not even he can be sure.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Opinion - How to bring down a storied think-tank? Humiliation works.
On April Fool's Day, which feels like a century ago, someone who answered to Elon Musk reportedly gave the CEO of the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars an ultimatum: quit or be fired. A loyal Republican, the CEO had served several terms in Congress and as an American ambassador abroad before heading USAID in the first Trump administration. Yet, in a moment, this man of considerable stature was reduced to ignominy. Neither of us was a direct witness to the Wilson Center drama, but the emotions and the signals colleagues at the center took from this power play evoked communist Poland and resonated with our long combined experience in that country. Authoritarian regimes use humiliation, intimidation and fear as a cudgel, tools of social control. The specific ways these blows are administered differ according to time and circumstances. In this case, it sufficed to humiliate the most powerful person in the organization. Wilson Center staff went proactively silent, even when approached by the press. This was not a lack of courage. Indeed, we believe it was a collective act of kindness. No one wanted to put their more vulnerable colleagues at greater risk while sensitive negotiations were underway to secure severance and health care for people who needed to buy groceries and pay rent. Silence seemed to be a virtue. And that is precisely what authoritarians count on. Uncertainty about the present and the future is what they exploit. Intimidation need not be explicit; indeed, it is often more powerful when victims must guess how far their tormentors are willing to go and are forced to act on limited knowledge. Here is the Polish, 1980s version of how it happens, as one of us, then a Fulbright Scholar in martial law Poland, witnessed. From the street sweeper to the head of a hospital, university, theater or government agency, everyone was forced to navigate a steady state of insecurity, uncertain what provocations could happen in the next day or hour. All of society was made aware that nothing was firmly guaranteed, neither jobs nor status, and especially not human dignity. One day, university presidents were fired. The next day, the regime demanded that professors sign loyalty oaths or surrender their jobs. A respected journalist who dared, in guarded language, to report facts suddenly found himself a taxi driver to support his family. The regime honored the law when it was convenient, flouted it when inconvenient. Poles called it 'uncertain tomorrow.' This is a lesson. Humiliation can be imposed in a variety of ways: required oaths, a shocking fall from grace and position, a strip search, a searched apartment, being forced to stand in line for hours for basic food staples or watching any of that happen to family, friends and colleagues. Whole books have been written seeking to understand how human beings respond to such conditions, whether they accept dependence or take the tougher road of refusal. We do not think our country is Poland under communism yet. At the moment, humiliation is not a feature of every contact with the formal organs of our government, as it was there. On the other hand, this is a new phenomenon for Americans who have, until now, been spared these specific systematic cruelties, hurled from official positions. Now, in a time that could be a turning point, we need to school ourselves to understand and resist techniques that Trump instinctively grasps, but most Americans may not. In this strange new world of unrecognizable features, societal slides can happen rapidly, facilitated by naivety born of inexperience and denial. It took days to reduce the Wilson Center from an internationally respected think-tank that reveled in its independence and intellectual leadership to a smoldering wreck, soon to be nonexistent. The pace of repeated indignities meant that, within days of April 1, new outrages relegated the Wilson Center putsch to obscurity. As we write, public attention has moved on. In this reality, what is at first unthinkable soon becomes routine. The struggles of the Polish people also offer an alternative of resistance and hope. What Poles sought from the Solidarity movement that coalesced in 1980 and set the stage for the new democracy that began to emerge in 1989 was, first among others, dignity — the antithesis of humiliation. The Poles had to dig themselves out of a deeper hole than is currently our challenge; first the Nazi, and then the Communist regime supported by a powerful, armed neighbor. Even so, they took to the streets. They pursued every possible means of peaceful opposition to confront oppression. At this momentous historical juncture, our assignment as Americans is to find ways to turn our humiliation into action, to reclaim our dignity. Ruth Greenspan Bell, according to her dismissal letter, is, until May 31, a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Janine R. Wedel, a social anthropologist in the Schar School at George Mason University, is the author of 'The Private Poland' and 'UNACCOUNTABLE: How the Establishment Corrupted Our Finances, Freedom, and Politics and Created an Outsider Class.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
New York Post
2 days ago
- Politics
- New York Post
Sen. Cory Booker mocked for cashing in on record-breaking anti-Trump Senate floor speech for new book: ‘It was a grift all along'
New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker is parlaying his marathon 25-hour speech from the Senate floor last month into a new book set to be published in November, sparking widespread mockery online. Booker's 'filibuster' oration — appropriately made on April Fool's Day — was the longest continuous speech ever given on the floor of the upper chamber, eclipsing a record set by late South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond in 1957. Now, less than two months later, St. Martin's Press will be publishing the book 'Stand,' intended as a companion piece to the Senate floor bloviation. 'This book is about the virtues vital to our success as a nation and lessons we can draw from generations of Americans who fought for them,' the 56-year-old lawmaker said in a statement touting his forthcoming treatise. Social media immediately erupted with scorn after the announcement, with hundreds of comments ripping Booker and questioning his motives in attempting to profit from the record-breaking monologue. 'It was a grift all along,' one observer wrote. 'I can't wait not to read this,' an X commenter quipped. 'Those poor trees,' said another. 'Rebel without a cause. Or a clue,' another user chimed in. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker railed against the Trump administration in a record-breaking 25-hour Senate floor speech last month. AP The former Newark mayor's day-long screed was little more than a protracted airing of grievances against Trump, in which he railed against virtually every policy position of the administration, from Social Security and Medicaid to free speech, public education, Elon Musk and even the president's tongue-in-cheek musings about Canada becoming the 51st US state. He compared the moment in the country under Trump's second term to the battle for women's suffrage and the civil rights movement and fanned the flames of the left-wing talking point that Trump's decisive election victory — including the first popular vote win by the GOP in 20 years — was beyond the pale. 'These are not normal times in our nation, and they should not be treated as such in the United States Senate,' Booker said. 'The threats to the American people and American democracy are grave and urgent, and we all must do more to stand against them.' Booker's upcoming book, 'Stand,' promises to be 'about the virtues vital to our success as a nation and lessons we can draw from generations of Americans who fought for them.' AP 'This is not right or left. It is right or wrong. This is not a partisan moment. It is a moral moment,' Booker said. 'Where do you stand?' The senator — who at times cried while speaking and reportedly abstained from food and water leading up to the speech to ensure he wouldn't need a bathroom break — was lauded by left-wing media outlets like the New York Times, which called the interminable anti-Trump homily 'an act of astonishing stamina.' Democratic Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) breathlessly praised his colleague's soliloquy as a 'tour de force.' 'It's not only the amount of time that you have spent on the floor, what strength,' Schumer said, 'but the brilliance of your indictment of this awful administration that is so destroying our democracy, that is taking so much away from working people.' Ironically, as the Garden State lawmaker railed about the decline of America under Trump, one of his staffers, Kevin A. Batts, was arrested outside the Senate Galleries for carrying a gun without a license. 'Stand' will hit bookshelves on Nov. 11.
The Hill
2 days ago
- Politics
- The Hill
How to bring down a storied think-tank? Humilation works.
On April Fool's Day, which feels like a century ago, someone who answered to Elon Musk reportedly gave the CEO of the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars an ultimatum: quit or be fired. A loyal Republican, the CEO had served several terms in Congress and as an American ambassador abroad before heading USAID in the first Trump administration. Yet, in a moment, this man of considerable stature was reduced to ignominy. Neither of us was a direct witness to the Wilson Center drama, but the emotions and the signals colleagues at the center took from this power play evoked communist Poland and resonated with our long combined experience in that country. Authoritarian regimes use humiliation, intimidation and fear as a cudgel, tools of social control. The specific ways these blows are administered differ according to time and circumstances. In this case, it sufficed to humiliate the most powerful person in the organization. Wilson Center staff went proactively silent, even when approached by the press. This was not a lack of courage. Indeed, we believe it was a collective act of kindness. No one wanted to put their more vulnerable colleagues at greater risk while sensitive negotiations were underway to secure severance and health care for people who needed to buy groceries and pay rent. Silence seemed to be a virtue. And that is precisely what authoritarians count on. Uncertainty about the present and the future is what they exploit. Intimidation need not be explicit; indeed, it is often more powerful when victims must guess how far their tormentors are willing to go and are forced to act on limited knowledge. Here is the Polish, 1980s version of how it happens, as one of us, then a Fulbright Scholar in martial law Poland, witnessed. From the street sweeper to the head of a hospital, university, theater or government agency, everyone was forced to navigate a steady state of insecurity, uncertain what provocations could happen in the next day or hour. All of society was made aware that nothing was firmly guaranteed, neither jobs nor status, and especially not human dignity. One day, university presidents were fired. The next day, the regime demanded that professors sign loyalty oaths or surrender their jobs. A respected journalist who dared, in guarded language, to report facts suddenly found himself a taxi driver to support his family. The regime honored the law when it was convenient, flouted it when inconvenient. Poles called it 'uncertain tomorrow.' This is a lesson. Humiliation can be imposed in a variety of ways: required oaths, a shocking fall from grace and position, a strip search, a searched apartment, being forced to stand in line for hours for basic food staples or watching any of that happen to family, friends and colleagues. Whole books have been written seeking to understand how human beings respond to such conditions, whether they accept dependence or take the tougher road of refusal. We do not think our country is Poland under communism yet. At the moment, humiliation is not a feature of every contact with the formal organs of our government, as it was there. On the other hand, this is a new phenomenon for Americans who have, until now, been spared these specific systematic cruelties, hurled from official positions. Now, in a time that could be a turning point, we need to school ourselves to understand and resist techniques that Trump instinctively grasps, but most Americans may not. In this strange new world of unrecognizable features, societal slides can happen rapidly, facilitated by naivety born of inexperience and denial. It took days to reduce the Wilson Center from an internationally respected think-tank that reveled in its independence and intellectual leadership to a smoldering wreck, soon to be nonexistent. The pace of repeated indignities meant that, within days of April 1, new outrages relegated the Wilson Center putsch to obscurity. As we write, public attention has moved on. In this reality, what is at first unthinkable soon becomes routine. The struggles of the Polish people also offer an alternative of resistance and hope. What Poles sought from the Solidarity movement that coalesced in 1980 and set the stage for the new democracy that began to emerge in 1989 was, first among others, dignity — the antithesis of humiliation. The Poles had to dig themselves out of a deeper hole than is currently our challenge; first the Nazi, and then the Communist regime supported by a powerful, armed neighbor. Even so, they took to the streets. They pursued every possible means of peaceful opposition to confront oppression. At this momentous historical juncture, our assignment as Americans is to find ways to turn our humiliation into action, to reclaim our dignity. Ruth Greenspan Bell, according to her dismissal letter, is, until May 31, a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Janine R. Wedel, a social anthropologist in the Schar School at George Mason University, is the author of 'The Private Poland' and 'UNACCOUNTABLE: How the Establishment Corrupted Our Finances, Freedom, and Politics and Created an Outsider Class.'
Time of India
22-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Meet Ram Chandra Agarwal, the man behind Vishal Mega Mart, the brand that broke the internet with viral memes
The aura of India's social media has found a new obsession, no, it is not a movie star or a political drama, or a Ghibli Studio art, but a security guard. Not just any guard, mind you, one at Vishal Mega Mart. The internet is buzzing with memes, fake coaching centres, and mock motivational reels about cracking the supposedly elite entrance exam for the role. What started as a company assessment on April Fool's Day has now become a full-blown meme movement. But beneath the humour lies the tale of a man who built a brand so influential, it turned into a cultural punchline, and that man is Ram Chandra Agarwal. Vishal Mega Mart Vishal Mega Mart is getting free marketing on the internet and their socials are just posting outfits as need to kick out their marketing manager Who is Ram Chandra Agarwal? The owner of Vishal Mega Mart Born into a middle-class family with no access to prestigious degrees or financial backup, Agarwal's journey began in the garment trade. He supplied clothing to local shops and built his network from the ground up. With an eye for opportunity and unmatched street wisdom, he introduced India's first 'value retail' chain in 2001, Vishal Mega Mart. The idea was simple yet revolutionary: provide quality essentials at affordable prices, especially targeting tier-2 and tier-3 cities. Vishal Mega Mart owner About the success of Vishal Mega Mart The stores grew fast. By the late 2000s, there were over 170 locations across India. Vishal Mega Mart became a household name, a beacon for budget-conscious shoppers looking for clothing and groceries under one roof. However, the dream faltered. Financial mismanagement and ballooning debts hit the business hard during 2008-09, eventually forcing Agarwal to declare bankruptcy. In 2011, the original chain was sold to TPG and Shriram Group. Most thought this was the end of Agarwal's retail journey. But Agarwal was far from done. Learning from his earlier missteps, he launched V2 Retail Limited, a leaner, smarter, and sharper version of his original vision. It focused again on the masses but with tighter control and better financial discipline. As of May 2025, V2 Retail boasts a market capitalisation of ₹6,530 crore. Vishal Mega Mart meme As Vishal Mega Mart enjoys a second life as the internet's favourite meme subject, its origin story deserves the spotlight too. A retail mogul turned meme kingpin, albeit unintentionally, Ram Chandra Agarwal's tale is one of grit, fall, and comeback. He may not be posting memes himself, but Agarwal has built a brand that India cannot stop talking (or laughing) about.
