South Korea's President Yoon Suk Yeol removed from office over declaration of martial law
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s Constitutional Court removed impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol from office on Friday, ending his tumultuous presidency and setting up an election to find a new leader, four months after he threw South Korean politics into turmoil with an ill-fated declaration of martial law.
The unanimous verdict capped a dramatic fall for Yoon, a former star prosecutor who went from political novice to president in 2022, just a year after he entered politics.
In a nationally televised verdict, the court’s acting chief Moon Hyung-bae said the eight-member bench upheld Yoon’s impeachment because his martial law decree seriously violated the constitution and other laws.
“The defendant not only declared martial law, but also violated the constitution and laws by mobilizing military and police forces to obstruct the exercise of legislative authority,” Moon said, “Ultimately, the declaration of martial law in this case violated the substantive requirements for emergency martial law.”
“Given the grave negative impact on constitutional order and the significant ripple effects of the defendant’s violations, we find that the benefits of upholding the constitution by removing the defendant from office far outweigh the national losses from the removal of a president,” the justice concluded.
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Asian stocks slid after Wall Street surrendered to a hit by Trump's tariffs
HONG KONG (AP) — Asian markets retreated Friday after Wall Street shuddered with a level of shock unseen since the COVID-19 impact tore on Trump's latest set of tariffs' damage on the world's economy.
Futures for U.S. stocks and the oil prices declined.
Tokyo's Nikkei 225 lost 2.6% to 33,818.18, and Korea's Kospi fell 0.8% to 2,467.14 after the two countries pivoted to negotiating lower tariffs with Trump's administration.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 dropped 1.9% to 7,713.60. Chinese markets were closed for a holiday.
Trump announced a minimum tariff of 10% on imports, with the tax rate running much higher on products from certain countries like China and those from the European Union. It’s “plausible” the tariffs altogether, which would rival levels unseen in roughly a century, could knock down U.S. economic growth by 2 percentage points this year and raise inflation close to 5%, according to UBS.
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Trump’s tariff push is a race against time, and potential voter backlash
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's expansive new tariffs reverse a decades-long global trend of lower trade barriers and are likely, economists say, to raise prices for Americans by thousands of dollars each year while sharply slowing the U.S. economy.
The White House is gambling that other countries will also suffer enough pain that they will open up their economies to more American exports, leading to negotiations that would reduce the tariffs imposed Wednesday.
Or, the White House hopes, companies will reverse their moves toward global supply chains and bring more production to the United States to avoid higher import taxes.
But a key question for the Trump administration will be how Americans react to the tariffs. If prices rise noticeably and jobs are lost, voters could turn against the duties and make it harder to keep them in place for the time needed to encourage companies to return to the U.S.
The Yale Budget Lab estimates the Trump administration's tariffs would cost the average household $3,800 in higher prices this year. That includes the 10% universal tariff plus much higher tariffs on about 60 countries announced Wednesday, as well as previous import taxes on steel, aluminum and cars. Inflation could top 4% this year, from 2.8% currently, while the economy may barely grow, according to estimates by Nationwide Financial.
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Pentagon watchdog to review Hegseth’s use of Signal app to convey plans for Houthi strike
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon’s acting inspector general announced Thursday that he would review Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of the Signal messaging app to convey plans for a military strike against Houthi militants in Yemen.
The review will also look at other defense officials' use of the publicly available encrypted app, which is not able to handle classified material and is not part of the Defense Department’s secure communications network.
Hegseth’s use of the app came to light when a journalist, Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, was inadvertently added to a Signal text chain by national security adviser Mike Waltz. The chain included Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and others, brought together to discuss March 15 military operations against the Iran-backed Houthis.
“The objective of this evaluation is to determine the extent to which the Secretary of Defense and other DoD personnel complied with DoD policies and procedures for the use of a commercial messaging application for official business," the acting inspector general, Steven Stebbins, said in a notification letter to Hegseth.
The letter also said his office “will review compliance with classification and records retention requirements.”
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Trump fires NSC officials a day after far-right activist raises concerns to him about staff loyalty
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday that he's fired "some" White House National Security Council officials, a move that comes a day after far-right activist Laura Loomer raised concerns directly to him about staff loyalty.
Trump downplayed Loomer's influence on the firings. But Loomer during her Oval Office conversation with Trump urged the president to purge staffers she deemed insufficiently loyal to his “Make America Great Again” agenda, according to several people familiar with the matter. They all spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive personnel manner.
“Always we’re letting go of people,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as he made his way to Miami on Thursday afternoon. “People that we don’t like or people that we don’t think can do the job or people that may have loyalties to somebody else.”
Loomer appeared to take credit for the firings in a post late Thursday on X, writing, “You know how you know the NSC officials I reported to President Trump are disloyal people who have played a role in sabotaging Donald Trump?” She then noted that “the fired officials” were being defended by Trump critics on CNN and MSNBC.
The firings by Trump of NSC staff come at a tumultuous moment for Trump and his national security team. His national security adviser Mike Waltz, continues to fight back calls for his ouster after using the publicly available encrypted Signal app to discuss planning for the sensitive March 15 military operation targeting Houthi militants in Yemen.
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Storms kill 7 in the South and Midwest as forecasters warn of catastrophic rains, floods this week
LAKE CITY, Ark. (AP) — Standing alongside the twisted steel tractors on his family farm in northeast Arkansas on Thursday, Danny Qualls looked on while friends and relatives helped him begin cleaning up.
The home where he spent his childhood but no longer lives was flattened by one of many tornadoes that left behind destruction from Oklahoma to Indiana — the first in a round of storms expected to bring historic rains and life-threatening flash floods across the nation’s midsection in the coming days.
“My husband has been extremely tearful and emotional, but he also knows that we have to do the work,” Rhonda Qualls said. “He was in shock last night, cried himself to sleep.”
At least seven people were killed in Tennessee, Missouri and Indiana in the initial wave on Wednesday and early Thursday that spawned powerful tornadoes — one of which launched light debris nearly 5 miles (8 kilometers) into the air above Arkansas.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said it was too early to know whether there were more deaths as searches persisted.
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Republicans moving ahead with Trump's 'big' bill of tax breaks and spending cuts amid tariff uproar
WASHINGTON (AP) — After a long wait, the Senate is launching action on President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill” of tax breaks and spending cuts at a risky moment for the U.S. and global economy.
More than a month after House Republicans surprised Washington by advancing their framework for Trump's $4.5 trillion in tax breaks and $2 trillion in spending cuts, Senate Republicans voted Thursday to start working on their version. The largely party-line vote, 52-48, sets the stage for a potential Senate all-nighter Friday spilling into the weekend.
But work on the multitrillion-dollar package is coming as markets at home and abroad are on edge in the aftermath Trump's vast tariffs scheme, complicating an already difficult political and procedural undertaking on what Republicans hope will become their signature domestic policy package.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., opened the chamber Thursday saying they expected to be ready to begin.
Trump says he's on board with the plan and Republicans, in control of Congress, are eager to show the party is making progress toward delivering on their campaign promises. By nightfall, as voting began, one Republican, the libertarian-leaning Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, voted against, as did all Democrats.
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Brown University to see half a billion in federal funding halted by Trump administration
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is planning to halt more than half a billion dollars in contracts and grants awarded to Brown University, adding to a list of Ivy League colleges that have had their federal money threatened as a result of their responses to antisemitism, a White House official said Thursday.
Nearly $510 million in federal contracts and grants are on the line, said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the plan and spoke on condition of anonymity.
In an email Thursday to campus leaders, Brown Provost Frank Doyle said the university was aware of “troubling rumors” about government action on its research money. “At this moment, we have no information to substantiate any of these rumors,” Doyle said.
Brown would be the fifth Ivy League college targeted by President Donald Trump’s administration, which is using federal money to enforce its agenda at colleges. Dozens of universities — including every Ivy League school except Penn and Dartmouth — are facing federal investigations into antisemitism following a wave of pro-Palestinian protests last year.
Columbia University was the first one targeted, losing $400 million in federal money with threats to terminate more if it didn’t make the campus safer for Jewish students. The school agreed to several demands from the government last month, including an overhaul of student discipline rules and a review of the school’s Middle East studies department.
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Myanmar earthquake death toll rises to 3,145 as more bodies found
BANGKOK (AP) — The death toll from the earthquake that hit Myanmar nearly a week ago rose Thursday to 3,145 as search and rescue teams found more bodies, the military-led government said, and humanitarian aid groups scrambled to provide survivors medical care and shelter.
Information Minister Maung Maung Ohn also announced at a meeting in the capital, Naypyitaw, that 4,589 people were injured and 221 others were missing, state television MRTV reported.
The epicenter of the 7.7 magnitude quake on March 28 was near Mandalay, Myanmar's second-largest city. It brought down thousands of buildings, buckled roads and destroyed bridges in multiple regions.
Local media reports of casualties have been much higher than the official figures. With telecommunications widely out and many places difficult to reach, the numbers could rise sharply as more details come in.
A report issued Thursday by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimated that the earthquake and aftershocks have affected more than 17 million people across 57 of the country’s 330 townships, including more than 9 million who were severely affected.
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Once pariahs, now winners, Final Four coaches Pearl, Sampson a reflection of a changing game
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — A decade ago, Bruce Pearl of Auburn and Kelvin Sampson of Houston were emerging from exile — two coaches who had been handed the harshest sanction imaginable by the NCAA and were looking to resurrect their once-successful careers.
This week, they're both coaching at the Final Four, the “show-cause” penalties that once stood as a scarlet letter in college sports now barely visible in their rearview mirrors.
Their ascension from pariahs to the cusp of a championship — Auburn plays Florida in one semifinal Saturday, while Houston faces Duke in the other — look different, but no less impressive when viewed through the lens of the shifting priorities that have overtaken college sports over the last four years.
The recruiting misdeeds that nearly submarined their careers seem almost quaint now in a cash-saturated world of name, image, likeness endorsement deals for players who can move around as freely as the coaches while the coaches worry as much about what the schools can pay them as the players they recruit.
“I can make a case that it’s easier if you have the funds to compete at the NIL level,” Tennessee coach Rick Barnes told The Associated Press recently. “If you don’t, it makes it really difficult. I think that’s where administrators have to realize: Are we giving coaches what they need to be at the level we want to?’”
