The nightmare scenario of Atlantic Ocean currents collapsing, with weather running amok and putting Europe in a deep freeze, looks unlikely this century, a new study concludes.
In recent years, studies have raised the alarm about the slowing and potential abrupt shutdown of the Atlantic end of the ocean conveyor belt system. It transports rising warm water north and sinking cool water south and is a key factor in global weather systems. A possible climate change -triggered shutdown of what’s called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation or AMOC could play havoc with global rain patterns, dramatically cool Europe while warming the rest of the world and goose sea levels on America’s East Coast, scientists predict.
It’s the scenario behind the 2004 fictionalized disaster movie The Day After Tomorrow, which portrays a world where climate change sparks massive storms, flooding and an ice age.
Scientists at the United Kingdom’s Met Office and the University of Exeter used simulations from 34 different computer models of extreme climate change scenarios to see if the AMOC would collapse this century, according to a study in Wednesday’s journal Nature. No simulation showed a total shutdown before 2100, said lead author Jonathan Baker, an oceanographer at the Met Office.
It could happen later, though, he said. The currents have collapsed in the distant past.
Still, the computer simulations should be reassuring” to people, Baker said.
But this is no greenlight for complacency, Baker warned. The AMOC is very likely to weaken this century and that brings its own major climate impacts.
The Atlantic current flows because warm water cools as it reaches the Arctic, forming sea ice. That leaves salt behind, causing the remaining water to become more dense, sinking and pulled southward. But as climate change warms the world and more fresh water flows into the Arctic from the melting Greenland ice sheet, the Arctic engine behind the ocean conveyor belt slows down. Previous studies predict it stopping altogether with one of them saying it could happen within a few decades.
But Baker said the computer models and basic physics predict that a second motor kicks in along the Southern Ocean that surrounds Antarctica. The winds there pull the water back up to the surface, called upwelling, where it warms, Baker said. It’s not as strong, but it will likely keep the current system alive, but weakened, through the year 2100, he said.
Baker’s focus on the pulling up of water from the deep instead of just concentrating on the sinking is new and makes sense, providing a counterpoint to the studies saying collapse is imminent, said Oregon State University climate scientist Andreas Schmittner, who wasn’t part of the research.
Those Southern Ocean winds pulling the deep water up act like a powerful pump keeps the AMOC running even in the extreme climate change scenarios, Baker said.
As the AMOC weakens, a weak Pacific version of it will likely develop to compensate a bit, the computer models predicted.
If the AMOC weakens but not fully collapses, many of the same impacts including crop losses and changes in fish stock likely will still happen, but not the big headline one of Europe going into a deep freeze, Baker said.
Scientists measure the AMOC strength in a unit called Sverdrups. The AMOC is now around 17 Sverdrups, down two from about 2004 with a trend of about 0.8 decline per decade, scientists said.
One of the debates in the scientific world is the definition of an AMOC shutdown. Baker uses zero, but other scientists who have been warning about the shutdown implications, use about 5 Sverdrups. Three of Baker’s 34 computer models went below 5 Sverdrups, but not to zero.
That’s why Levke Caesar and Stefan Rahmstorf, physicists at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research and authors of an alarming 2018 study about potential shutdown, said this new work doesn’t contradict theirs. It’s more a matter of definitions.
An AMOC collapse does not have to mean 0 (Sverdrups) overturning and even if you would want to follow that definition one has to say that such a strong AMOC weakening comes with a lot (of) impacts, Caesar wrote in an email. The models show a severe AMOC weakening that would come with severe consequences.
The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
Seth Borenstein, AP science writer
Kerry Doyle sat in an immigration courtroom observing a fellow judge finish a hearing in an asylum case late on a recent Friday afternoon when she received an email with an attachment titled terminated.
Doyle had been a judge for only about two months and was in training to begin hearing cases soon at a recently opened Massachusetts court. Her colleagues helped her pack up her office before the afternoon was over, she said.
This doesnt make sense for an administration that is prioritizing removals, Doyle said, using the legal word for deportation. You need the judges to hear the cases to order the person removed so that you can then carry out the removal order. Its a vital part of the system.
So far, the administration of President Donald Trump has fired 22 immigration judges, including a group that worked as managers of their respective courts, according to the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, the union that represents immigration judges. The administration has also fired five senior managers of the immigration court system, the union said.
As part of its efforts to reduce the size of the government workforce, the Trump administration has been firing federal employees on probationary status, meaning that they had recently been hired for their positions. Immigration judges are on probationary status for their first two years, according to the union, except for military veterans who have probationary status for only a year.
When the administration sent federal employees its Fork in the Road email calling for voluntary resignations, it was supposed to exclude people who worked in immigration enforcement and national defense and for the Postal Service, according to the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers. But the letters went to immigration judges anyway.
Look up the definition of hypocrisy, its when someone says one thing but does another. The firing of immigration judges when we need more judges to enforce our immigration laws by this administration is a perfect example of hypocrisy, said Matt Biggs, president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, in an emailed statement to Beyond the Border.
This outrageous move to fire immigration judges will only make the backlog of cases worse. This is the opposite of the administrations stated goals, Biggs said.
The Trump administration and the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which operates the courts, did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.
Biggs estimated that the fired judges would have held 10,000 hearings this year. The courts currently have a backlog of more than 3.7 million cases, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which monitors government data on immigration through public records requests.
Days after the firings, immigration Judge Samuel B. Cole, who has been hearing cases in Chicago since 2016 and has served as executive vice president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, said that he would be stepping down. He declined to say more on the subject at this time.
The firings affected courts across the United States, with California and Texas losing the most, according to the union. Five of the judges were based in Texas with three in Houston, one in Laredo, and one in El Paso. Four of the judges were based in California with one in San Diego and three in Concord.
Rhana Ishimoto, the assistant chief immigration judge who managed the downtown San Diego court, disappeared from the immigration court website at the end of last week and was replaced with Anne Kristina Perry, who already served as assistant chief at the Imperial and Otay Mesa courts in Southern California. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Ishimoto was appointed to her position in May 2023 and previously worked as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement attorney representing the government in immigration court cases.
Ishimoto did not respond to a message on social media.
On Wednesday morning, the downtown San Diego court, which operates on the fourth floor of the Edward J. Schwartz Federal Building, seemed largely business as usual. People with stacks of documents and plastic folders lined up in the courts lobby to file paperwork and check in for court hearings.
In one courtroom, Judge Rico Bartolomei, who once served as assistant chief immigration judge in San Diego before stepping down from the managerial role to hear cases full time again, worked his way through a full docket of people from Venezuela, El Salvador, Haiti, Russia and Brazil. Almost all had recently crossed the border, mostly through the now defunct CBP One phone application that allowed people to schedule appointments to request asylum.
Bartolomei greeted each person brightly, almost cooing, Hi Kaleb! at a toddler who approached the judge a few strides in front of his parents and older brother.
He carefully explained their rights in court and offered them time to find attorneys. In the case of Kalebs parents, whom the government alleged were from Venezuela, he learned that they had moved to Arkansas.
He asked how they had arrived in court that day.
By bus, the family responded.
How long did that take? he asked empathetically.
About 36 hours, the family said.
He moved their case to a court closer to them.
He transferred three of the cases that he heard that morning to the court in Concord, California, which is now short three judges.
Kate Morrissey, Capital & Main
This piece was originally published by Capital & Main, which reports from California on economic, political, and social issues.
Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Companys weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. You can sign up to receive this newsletter every week here.
Will native-AI operating systems run our computers in the near future?
Samantha, the AI that Theodore falls in love with in the 2013 movie Her is actually an OS. Thats how he meets her: He buys a new OS called OS1 (its not just an operating system, its a consciousness) and she is its persona. Samantha becomes his intuitive and personalized companion to all his digital stuff, from email to video games.
ChatGPT set off the generative AI boom in part because consumers (not just academics and developers) saw shades of Her. Two years later, the chatbot is a major consumer destination and is the AI interface with which people are most comfortable and familiar. More than 400 million people around the world now use ChatGPT every week, OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap recently told CNBC. For comparison, Apples iOS operates on more than 2 billion active devices worldwide, including more than 1.5 billion iPhones. Those are impressive numbers, but iOS is standing relatively still while ChatGPT is steadily moving up the adoption curve.
Historically, Apples superpower has been its uncanny understanding of the user interfacethe technology that acts as the mediator between a human user and their digital tools and content. Apples user interfaces rely mainly on older input technologies, such as mouse-clicking and touchscreen-tapping (though Siri remains a problem child). ChatGPT feels more and more like a new generation of user interface, one thats powered by a very advanced mastery of language and the ability to intuit the intent behind a users input. Increasingly, it can act as a personal assistant with the ability to reason through problems. It can reason about things a user says with their voice or shows to the AI via their phone cam. Now OpenAI (and Anthropic) are rapidly developing the AIs ability to control computer functions and apps.
At the moment, OpenAI is packaging all this stuff inside ChatGPT. But how long before a chatbot app no longer contains it? Throughout the day, I call up the ChatGPT desktop app (by hitting <Option> and <Space Bar>) to run quick research lookups. For $200 per month, it can conduct deep research projects and control my mouse as it uses the web. Its not a far leap from there to the AI using an app on my computer or printing something. Soon enough, Ill likely have a running voice dialog with my AI OS throughout the day. Like Samantha (presumably) did for Theodore, the OS will learn my workflows, habits, and preferences. (In fact, many people in the field of natural language are working hard to build EI, or emotional intelligence into these systems, so that your AI operating system can be your friend tooas Sam was to Theodore.)
The analyst Ben Thompson said in a recent Stratechery newsletter that OpenAI itself has realized that ChatGPT (and everything contained in it) is taking over the focus of the company. Consumer tech companies . . . require a completely different culture and value chain than a research organization with an API on the side, he wrote. That is the fundamental reality that I suspect has driven much of the OpenAI upheaval over the last two-and-a-half years . . .
In short, OpenAI started out as an AI research lab, then became a provider of one-size-fits-all foundation models to enterprises and developers, then watched as ChatGPT stole the show and became its main source of revenue and fame. The question is, where does ChatGPT go from here? I think it’s the OS.
LLMs could help solve the glacial change of government systems
Jen Pahlka has a big idea: She says we should use large language models (LLMs) to eat through the government red tape that often stymies badly needed change to bureaucratic systems. She should know. She served as deputy chief technology officer (DCTO) under the Obama administration and helped found the United States Digital Service (USDS). Pahlka says that change agents like the USDS often encounter thousands of pages of policy and regulations that may or may not apply to a proposed change to a government website or system.
Those pages pile up administration by administration, often creating overlapping and conflicting rules or a tangle of ambiguities. And agency bureaucrats often use that ambiguity to put new proposals into a state of perpetual review, saying neither yes nor no, effectively freezing attempts at change that they dont really want anyway. Thats why interagency organizations like USDS need lawyers as much as they need top-notch designers and coders.
LLMs could be another tool to cut through the ambiguity and shorten timelines. You can use an LLM to figure out why there are 7,719 pages [of rules and regulations around a proposed system change] and what of that could get reduced, Pahlka told Robert Safian in a recent Rapid Response podcast. You can pretty quickly get to this stuff is conflicting, this stuff is vestigial, this stuff is really controversial but you’ve got to deal with it.
Pahlka has done work with Stanfords Regulation, Evaluation, and Governance Lab (RegLab), which is studying the development of LLMs that specialize in swimming through years of policies, guidelines, and regulations. Its still pretty early days, but its starting to get used that way, Pahlka says. I want to see somebody like the labor commissioner in a state saying, Oh yeah, we actually now have a regulatory environment that allows us to serve the needs of our state.
Nvidia earnings: Good enough to keep the Boom booming
Nvidias fiscal fourth-quarter earnings report on Wednesday marked the companys first since the Chinese company DeepSeek showed the world that it could train a world-class AI model with far fewer Nvidia GPUs than anyone thought possible. If any big AI companies ran to the phone to cancel their orders of Nvidias new Blackwell processors it wasnt apparent in the numbers the company reported. Revenues came in at $39.3 billion (35.6% from data center sales), up 78% from a year ago and up 12% from the previous quarter. Analysts had expected $38.04 billion.
The company also said the good times would continue at least through the current quarter, in which it expects $43 billion in revenues. Analysts on the earnings call did, however zero in on the one weak point in the report: Nvidias profit margin, which remained flat for the second quarter in a row. But that metric is indicative of overall demand fo GPUs only in an indirect way. Also, the companys stock sagged somewhat in after-hours trading Wednesday, which is very dependent on the (mysterious) assumptions that institutional investors had already baked into the value of the stock.
The bottom line is that the tech companies betting big on AIthink Google, Meta, OpenAI, and Microsoftare not hedging on their infrastructure spending. Not yet, anyway. Blackwell generating billions in sales validates Nvidias top position just as the market is expanding on the agentic and physical AI fronts, wrote eMarketers Jacob Bourne in a research note published Tuesday. Short-term volatility is still on the horizon, but Nvidias market command remains unmatched.”
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California Democrat Rep. Sam Liccardo, a freshman congressman who represents Silicon Valley, said he’s surprised the first piece of legislation he’s sponsoring takes aim at President Donald Trump’s meme coin.“That wasn’t my plan when I ran for office, I can assure you,” said Liccardo, the former mayor of San Jose.But the president’s launch of a meme coin just before taking office last month needed some kind of response, said Liccardo. Those who bought the meme coin right after launch made out, but the price quickly dropped leaving others with big losses. Even Trump-supporting crypto enthusiasts found the launch distasteful.“That behavior is so self-evidently unethical that it raises the question why isn’t there a clear enough prohibition,” he said, adding that Trump’s meme coin raises concerns about transparency, insider trading and improper foreign influence.The bill is set to be called the Modern Emoluments and Malfeasance Enforcement, or MEME act. According to a draft of the legislation, it would block the president, members of Congress, and other senior officials, as well as their spouses and children, from issuing or sponsoring securities, commodities, and cryptocurrencies like meme coins. It would also force Trump to disgorge any profits he’s made from the sale of his meme coins.Liccardo’s bill, which he plans to introduce Thursday, has no chance of passing in this Republican-controlled Congress. But the freshman lawmaker said it would serve as a placeholder if Democrats come to power as well an important symbolic gesture against what he called obvious corruption. His bill comes amid a fractured Democratic Party struggling to find its footing in the early weeks of the Trump presidency.Meme coins are a strange and highly volatile corner of the crypto industry that often start as a joke with no real value but can surge in price if enough people are willing to buy them. Critics view them as nothing more than Ponzi schemes that enrich insiders and unethical celebrities. Supporters say meme coins could be early indicators of ways in which the internet could revolutionize financial and other transactions.Trump has long defied presidential norms when it comes to endorsing and promoting products like branded Bibles and perfume. But he’s leaned in particularly hard with cryptocurrency-related projects that could significantly boost his personal wealth.The Trump meme coin quickly soared in price to nearly $70 shortly after it was launched but has since fallen to about $12. Researchers have estimated that trading fees have generated tens of millions of dollars for entities that launched the coin, including a company owned by Trump.Trump and his sons also helped launch a decentralized finance cryptocurrency platform last year, and the president has backed online stores that sell crypto-themed sneakers and $100,000 watches.The Trump family business recently released an ethics agreement that prohibits Trump from “day-to-day” decision-making involving outside business deals and limits financial information shared with him.Once a skeptic of cryptocurrencies, Trump changed course and promised last year to make the U.S. the world capital of digital assets. The cryptocurrency industry, which felt unfairly targeted by the Biden administration, embraced Trump and spent heavily to help him win last year’s election.First Lady Melania Trump also launched a meme coin that spiked in value around the inauguration but has since cratered. A crypto developer who said he helped launch that meme coin was also involved in a disastrous meme coin launch that’s led to Argentine President Javier Milei facing a corruption probe.That developer, Hayden Davis, has said meme coins are essentially a rigged game that benefit a small group of people at the expense of retail investors.“It is an insiders’ game. This is an unregulated casino,” Davis said.Besides a criminal prohibition, Liccardo’s bill would also allow private investors who lose money on a meme coin backed by a public official to sue. Liccardo said that’s a key part of the legislation, given what he sees as a lack of independence in the current Justice Department.“You need to have some enforcement mechanism and a private right of action helps to keep everybody honest,” Liccardo said.
Alan Suderman, AP Business Writer
Vietnam is revising its energy plans to focus more on large solar farms and less on reliance on coal and natural gas. The fast-growing economy now aims to get 16% of its energy from the sunmore than triple its earlier target of just 5%.A draft of the new policy outline, likely to be finalized in coming weeks, scraps plans to build offshore wind turbines, instead building more onshore wind capacity, rooftop solar and energy storage.Offshore wind and new gas projects have proven expensive and difficult. Large solar farms are cheaper and easier to build.But Vietnam also is emphasizing expansion of large solar farms to meet soaring demand for power generation. It forecasts it will need more than 211 gigawatts of energy by 2030 as its economy grows, 40% more than its previous estimate and more than Germany’s current total capacity.“This reflects both an overall increase in potential power demand by 2030 and the fact that LNG (or liquefied natural gas) projects are not on track to be completed by 2030,” said Giles Cooper, a partner at the international law firm Allens based in Hanoi who specializes in energy policy.Solar power expanded rapidly in Vietnam from 2018 to 2020, helped by generous government policies, as it leaped past its neighbors and some richer nations like the United Kingdom. But construction of new solar capacity stalled in 2020 as the Southeast Asian nation realized that its creaky electricity grid was getting overloaded since electricity was only available when the sun shone.“It was like the market almost stopped,” said Dimitri Pescia, of Berlin-based thinktank Agora Energiewende.Use of polluting coal, which releases earth-warming gases into the atmosphere, has surged and Vietnam is set to become of the world’s top five coal importers, displacing Taiwan, according to the International Energy Agency.Like many other countries, Vietnam still needs to upgrade its rickety grid, which has failed to keep up with rapid growth of clean power generation. However, it has made improvements and gained experience dealing with energy sources that aren’t always availables, Cooper said.Last year, authorities allowed electricity-guzzling factories to buy power directly from energy producers, aiming to ease pressure on the overstrained power grid and help big manufacturers like Samsung Electronics meet their climate targets. But that was hindered by a lack of space to build clean energy projects close to factories.Solar energy is “seen as the most promising technology to kick-start” those direct purchases, Cooper said.But while it’s building clean power capacity, Vietnam is also ramping up use of coal. That’s partly to make up for lost hydropower capacity due to drought, and also to meet soaring demand as businesses shift factories from China to Vietnam.Vietnam is Southeast Asia’s second-biggest coal producer after Indonesia. It also imported 50 million ton of coal in the first three quarters of 2024a 31% increase, according to government data.Pescia noted that Vietnam’s coal-fired power plants aren’t very old and operators have yet to recoup their investments.“Phasing out coal in a country like Vietnam will take more time,” he said.
The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
Aniruddha Ghosal, Associated Press
Unwanted phone calls are out of control. Whether it’s a robocall trying to sell you something or spam calls from scammers trying to rip you off, it’s enough to make you want to stop answering your phone. So what can you do to stop them?The scourge of unwanted phone calls has been branded an epidemic by consumer groups, while the Federal Communications Commission says it’s the top consumer complaint. The calls are a nuisance to many ordinary people, some of whom have complained to the Associated Press.“I need help on getting spam calls to stop,” one reader said in an email. She’s getting up to 14 calls a day despite the countermeasures she’s employed.As the name implies, robocalls are automated calls to deliver recorded messages to a large number of phones. A robocall purely to deliver a message or collect a debt is allowed under U.S. regulations, but the Federal Trade Commission says robocalls with a recorded voice trying to sell you something are illegal unless you’ve given explicit written permission to receive them. Many robocalls are also probably scams, the FTC warns.If you’re flooded by unsolicited calls, here are some ways to fight back.
Phone settings
Smartphone users can turn on some built-in settings to combat unknown calls.Apple advises iPhone users to turn on the Silence Unknown Callers feature. Go to your “Settings,” then scroll down to “Apps,” and then to “Phone,” where you’ll see it under the “Calls” section. When you turn this on, any calls from numbers that you’ve never been in touch with and aren’t saved in your contacts list will not ring through. Instead, they’ll be sent to voicemail and show up in your list of recent calls.Android has a similar setting that allows you to block calls from private or unidentified numbers, although you will still receive calls from numbers that aren’t stored in your contact list.Just keep in mind that you could also end up not getting important calls, which sometimes come from unknown numbers.If an unwanted call does get through, both Android and iPhone users can block the individual phone number by tapping on it in the recent callers or call history list. You can also enter numbers directly into your phone’s block list.
Do not call
Sign up for the national Do Not Call registry, which is a list of numbers that have opted out of most telemarketing calls. The Federal Trade Commission, which runs the registry, says it only contains phone numbers and holds no other personally identifiable information, nor does the registry know whether the number is for a landline or a cellphone.The FTC says there are some exemptions, including political calls, calls from nonprofit groups and charities, and legitimate survey groups that aren’t selling anything. Also allowed are calls from companies up to 18 months after you’ve doneor sought to dobusiness with them.But it also warns that while having your number on the registry will cut down on unwanted sales calls, it won’t stop scammers from making illegal calls.Other countries have similar registries. Canada has its own Do Not Call list while the U.K. has the Telephone Preference Service.
Carrier filters
Check whether your wireless carrier has a call-blocking service. Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T, three of the biggest U.S. networks, all have their own call filters for customers to block robocalls and report spam. There’s typically a free basic version and an advanced version that requires a subscription fee.
Try an app
If your phone company’s filters aren’t good enough, try third-party apps to weed out unwanted callers.There are a host of smartphone apps available that promise to block spam calls, like Nomorobo, YouMail, Hiya, RoboKiller, TrueCaller, and others. Many charge a monthly or annual subscription fee but some offer a free basic option. Some also can be installed on landline phones, but only if they use VOIP technology, not copper cables.The Associated Press hasn’t tested any of these apps and isn’t making specific recommendations. We recommend you read user reviews and try some out for yourself.Apple says the apps work by comparing a caller’s number with a list of known numbers and labeling them, for example, spam or telemarketing. Then it might automatically block the call. “Incoming calls are never sent to third-party developers,” the company says.
Report calls
Did you know you can file a complaint with the FCC about specific spam calls? You can do so easily through an online form. It might not give you immediate satisfaction, but the National Consumer Law Center says data on complaints is the best tool federal agencies have for determining how big a problem robocalls are.
Just say no
While companies you’ve done business with can make robocalls to you, the National Consumer Law Center says it’s probably because you gave consentpossibly hidden in fine print. But you can also revoke your consent at any time.Just tell the company representative that you want to “revoke consent,” and if that doesn’t stop them, contact customer service and tell them that you don’t consent to receive calls and want your number added to the company’s “do not call” list, the center says.
Hang up
You might be tempted to try to engage with the call in an attempt to get your number off the call list or be put through to a real person. The FTC warns against doing this and recommends that you just hang up.“Pressing numbers to speak to someone or remove you from the list will probably only lead to more robocalls,” the agency says on its advice page. “And the number on your caller ID probably isn’t real. Caller ID is easy to fake” and can’t be trusted, it says.Cybersecurity company Kaspersky advises not even saying anything when you receive what you think is a robocall. We’ve all received scammy calls that start with something like “Hello, can you hear me?” to which you’ve probably replied “yes” without thinking.Scammers “can then store the recording of your confirmation and use it for fraudulent activities,” Kaspersky says. “So, avoid saying yes where possible.”
Is there a tech topic that you think needs explaining? Write to us at onetechtip@ap.org with your suggestions for future editions of One Tech Tip.
Kelvin Chan, Associated Press
The European Union on Thursday pushed back hard against allegations by U.S. President Donald Trump that the 27-nation bloc was out to get the United States, and warned that it would vigorously fight any wholesale tariff of 25% on all EU products.The tit-for-tat dispute following the vitriolic comments of Trump aimed at an age-old ally and its main postwar economic partner further deepened the trans-Atlantic rift that was already widened by Trump’s warnings that Washington would drop security guarantees for its European allies.Thursday’s EU pushback came after Trump told reporters that “the European Union was formed in order to screw the United States. That’s the purpose of it, and they’ve done a good job of it,” adding that it would stop immediately under his presidency.Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency, went on a counteroffensive.“The EU wasn’t formed to screw anyone,” Tusk said in an X post. “Quite the opposite. It was formed to maintain peace, to build respect among our nations, to create free and fair trade, and to strengthen our transatlantic friendship. As simple as that.”And Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez added fiery fuel to the debate.“We will stand up to those who attack us with unfair tariffs and veiled threats to our sovereignty. We are committed and prepared to do so,” he said in northern Spain.The EU also warned that the moment that tariffs are announced, it would trigger tough countermeasures on iconic U.S. industries like bourbon, jeans, and motorcycles.“Spain and the EU have been together working for months, and we will adopt measures to respond firmly. We will do so as a bloc,” Sánchez said.European Commission trade spokesman Olof Gill also said that the EU would stand up to the Trump administration if tariffs are announced.“The EU will react firmly and immediately against unjustified barriers to free and fair trade,” Gill said in a statement. “We will also protect our consumers and businesses at every turn. They expect no less from us.”Trump said in comments late Wednesday that the United States stood ready.“We are the pot of gold. We’re the one that everybody wants. And they can retaliate. But it cannot be a successful retaliation, because we just go cold turkey. We don’t buy any more. And if that happens, we win.”Gill also countered Trump’s caustic comments on the inception of the EU and its development as an economic powerhouse.“The European Union is the world’s largest free market. And it has been a boon for the United States,” he said, adding that the EU has “facilitated trade, reduced costs for U.S. exporters, and harmonized standards and regulations,” which makes it easier for U.S. exporters.The EU estimates that the trade volume between both sides stands at about $1.5 trillion, representing around 30% of global trade. Trump has complained about a trade deficit, but while the bloc has a substantial export surplus in goods, the EU says that is partly offset by the U.S. surplus in the trade of services.The EU says that trade in goods reached 851 billion euros ($878 billion) in 2023, with a trade surplus of 156 billion euros ($161 billion) for the EU. Trade in services was worth 688 billion euros ($710 billion) with a trade deficit of 104 billion euros ($107 billion) for the EU.The figures are so big that it remained essential to avoid a trade war, the EU has said.“We should work together to preserve these opportunities for our people and businesses. Not against each other,” Gill said. “Europe stands for dialogue, openness and reciprocity. We’re ready to partner if you play by the rules.”
Joseph Wilson in Barcelona, Spain, and Vanessa Gera in Warsaw, Poland, contributed to this report.
Raf Casert, Associated Press
An attorney for a Texas pipeline company said Wednesday at trial that he will prove various Greenpeace entities coordinated delays and disruptions of a controversial oil pipeline’s construction in North Dakota, and defamed the company to its lenders.Attorneys for the Greenpeace defendants told a jury there is no evidence to back up the claims by Dallas-based Energy Transfer, which seeks potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in damages from Greenpeace.The case is tied to protests in 2016 and 2017 of the Dakota Access Pipeline and its controversial Missouri River crossing upstream of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s reservation. The tribe has long opposed the pipeline as a risk to its water supply. The pipeline was completed in 2017.Energy Transfer and its subsidiary Dakota Access allege trespass, nuisance, defamation, and other offenses by Netherlands-based Greenpeace International and its American branch, Greenpeace USA. The lawsuit also names the group’s funding arm, Greenpeace Fund Inc.Greenpeace paid professional protesters to come to the area, sent blockade supplies, organized or led protester trainings, passed “critical intel” to the protesters and told untrue things to stop the pipeline from being built, the plaintiffs’ attorney, Trey Cox, told the jury in his opening statement.“They didn’t think that there would ever be a day of reckoning, but that day of reckoning begins today,” Cox said in opening statements.Attorneys for the defendants emphasized what they said are distinctions between the various Greenpeace entities, such as what they do and how they’re organized.They said Greenpeace International and Greenpeace Fund Inc. had zero involvement in the protests, while Greenpeace USA had six employees at Standing Rock for five to 51 days. Greenpeace is committed to nonviolence, and only got involved at Standing Rock because of tribal outreach, the attorneys said.“This was an Indigenous-led movement by the Native tribes, and we wanted them to have the spotlight,” said Greenpeace USA attorney Everett Jack Jr.One of nine alleged defamatory statementsthat Energy Transfer desecrated burial grounds and culturally important sites during constructionwas made many times by the tribe before any of the Greenpeace statements, he said.Cox said that statement was included in a letter sent to Energy Transfer’s banks and signed by the executive directors of Greenpeace International and Greenpeace USA.He added that Energy Transfer made 140 adjustments to its pipeline route in order to respect sacred sites.“Our goal was to be a good corporate citizen in North Dakota,” Cox said.More than 500 organizations from more than 50 countries signed on to that letter, said Greenpeace International attorney Courtney DeThomas, who described it as an act of free expression.No financial institution will testify that it received, read or was influenced by the letter, which was signed after thousands of protesters were already at Standing Rock, DeThomas said.Greenpeace representatives have said the lawsuit is an example of corporations abusing the legal system to go after critics and is a critical test of free speech and protest rights. An Energy Transfer spokesperson said the case is about Greenpeace not following the law, not free speech.Greenpeace says the lawsuit is going after $300 million, citing a figure from a previous federal case. The lawsuit complaint asks for damages in an amount to be proved at trial.Because of Greenpeace, Energy Transfer incurred over $82 million in security, contractor and property costs, and lost $80 million of profits, Cox told jurors. The pipeline was supposed to be completed by January 1, 2017, but wasn’t moving oil until five months later, he said.Greenpeace’s “deceptive narrative scared off lenders” and Energy Transfer lost half its banks, he said. The company suffered over $68 million in lost financing and spent $7.6 million for public relations “to deal with these problems and lies” from the “whisper campaign,” Cox said.But Jack said Greenpeace had nothing to do with the company’s delays in operating or refinancing. He also disputed how Energy Transfer is claiming or calculating its damages. The company also has no expert to back its claim of reputational harm, he said.Jury selection took place earlier in the week and the estimated five-week trial is now underway. Nine jurors and two alternates will hear the case in Mandan, North Dakota.The company filed a similar case in federal court in 2017, which a judge dismissed in 2019. Energy Transfer subsequently filed the lawsuit now at trial in state court.Earlier in February, Greenpeace International filed an anti-intimidation suit in the District Court of Amsterdam against Energy Transfer, saying the company acted wrongfully and should pay costs and damages resulting from its “meritless” litigation.
Jack Dura, Associated Press
In this hectic modern world, it’s natural to feel like your ducks arent in a row, but every so often the planets seem to align. This week, Mercury is joining Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune for a seven-planet parade (although not all of them will be visible to the naked eye). Heres what that all means and how best to see it.
How exactly do planets align?
According to NASA, the term planetary parade isnt really a technical term in astronomy, but it’s cute and paints a fun picture. Additionally, planetary alignment has a few different meanings; it can refer to when the planets line up with each other or when they line up with the moon or stars. For our purposes, we are referring to the latter.
The eight planets in our solar system all orbit the sun on a relatively flat, disc-shaped plane. Almost a metaphor for life, each planet moves at its own speed along the orbit. Because of this, it is inevitable that they occasionally line up from time to time.
How often does this happen?
It all depends on your perspective. According to NASA, this is not a rare occurrence, but it does not happen every year. For Dr. Gerard van Belle, director of science at Lowell Observatory, this is just another day at the office. On the scale of supermoon to death asteroid, this is more a supermoon sort of thing, Dr. van Belle explained to the New York Times.
Both NASA and Dr. van Belle do acknowledge that even though it is not rare, it is still a fun phenomenon to witness.
How to see the planets align in February 2025
This week is prime viewing for stargazers hoping to catch the planets in action. For most places in the world, the evening of Friday, February 28, is the optimal viewing night. Enter your location into the Sky Tonight app to confirm and head outside right after sunset.
Which planets are part of the parade?
You wont need special equipment to see Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, and Mars. For Uranus and Neptune, binoculars or a telescope are a must. Be careful with your eyes when spotting Saturn as it is close to the sun and low in the horizon.
After you take in the wonders of the night sky, you might find yourself inspired to bring more alignment into your own life by, for example, syncing up with your coworkers on a project (even the annoying ones). If the planets can come together, maybe you can, too.
Thousands of U.S. Agency for International Development workers who have been fired or placed on leave as part of the Trump administration’s dismantling of the agency are being given a brief window Thursday and Friday to clear out their workspaces.USAID placed 4,080 staffers who work across the globe on leave Monday. That was joined by a “reduction in force” that will affect another 1,600 employees, a State Department spokesman said in an emailed response to questions.USAID has been one of the biggest targets so far of a broad campaign by President Donald Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency, a project of Trump adviser Elon Musk, to slash the size of the federal government. The actions at USAID leave only a small fraction of its employees on the job.Trump and Musk have moved swiftly to shutter the foreign aid agency, calling its programs out of line with the Republican president’s agenda and asserting without evidence that its work is wasteful. In addition to its scope, their effort is extraordinary because it has not involved Congress, which authorized the agency and has provided its funding.A report from the Congressional Research Service earlier this month said congressional authorization is required “to abolish, move, or consolidate USAID,” but the Republican majorities in the House and the Senate have made no pushback against the administration’s actions. There’s virtually nothing left to fund, anyway: The administration now says it is eliminating more than 90% of USAID’s foreign aid contracts and $60 billion in U.S. assistance around the world.It’s unclear how many of the more than 5,600 USAID employees who have been fired or placed on leave work at the agency’s headquarters building in Washington. A notice on the agency’s website said staff at other locations will have the chance to collect their personal belongings at a later date.The notice laid out instructions for when specific groups of employees should arrive to be screened by security and escorted to their former workspaces. Those being let go must turn in all USAID-issued assets. Workers on administrative leave were told to retain their USAID-issued materials, including diplomatic passports, “until such time that they are separated from the agency.”Many USAID workers saw the administration’s terms for retrieving their belongings as insulting. In the notice, the employees were instructed not to bring weapons, including firearms, “spear guns” and “hand grenades.” Each worker is being given just 15 minutes at their former workstation.The administration’s efforts to slash the federal government are embroiled in various lawsuits, but court challenges to temporarily halt the shutdown of USAID have been unsuccessful.However, a federal judge on Tuesday gave the Trump administration a deadline of this week to release billions of dollars in U.S. foreign aid, saying it had given no sign of complying with his nearly two-week-old court order to ease the funding freeze. Late Wednesday, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked that order, with Chief Justice John Roberts saying it will remain on hold until the high court has a chance to weigh in more fully.That court action resulted from a lawsuit filed by nonprofit organizations over the cutoff of foreign assistance through USAID and the State Department. Trump froze the money through an executive order on his first day in office that targeted what he portrayed as wasteful programs that do not correspond to his foreign policy goals.Virginia Democratic Rep. Gerald Connolly said in a statement that the attack on USAID employees was “unwarranted and unprecedented.” Connolly, whose district includes a sizable federal workforce, called the aid agency workers part of the “world’s premier development and foreign assistance agency” who save “millions of lives every year.”
Gary Fields, Associated Press
