Independent: More than half of Americans tell Trump to stay away from colleges and disapprove of his higher education attacks

A new AP-NORC poll finds that the majority of Americans disapprove of President Donald Trump’s stance on colleges and universities as he intensifies threats to cut federal funding unless schools comply with his political agenda.

More than half of Americans, 56 percent, disapprove of the Trump administration’s approach to higher education, while about four in 10 approve, reflecting his overall job approval ratings.

This targeting of universities appears out of step with the wider American public, which sees such institutions as key to scientific research, new ideas, and innovation.

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-harvard-university-funding-poll-b2748586.html

Moneywise: Trump wants to ‘abolish’ the IRS and replace federal income tax revenue with tariffs on imports — how would such a move affect middle-class Americans?

“Donald Trump announced the External Revenue Service, and his goal is very simple: to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and let all the outsiders pay,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Fox News on Feb. 19. The idea is that once the budget is balanced, taxes will be waived for Americans earning less than $150,000 a year.

However, the flaw in this plan is that tariffs are not paid by “outsiders.” Rather, tariffs are a tax placed on imported goods and services.

“When the U.S. imposes tariffs on imports, businesses in the United States directly pay import taxes to the U.S. government on their purchases from abroad,” according to the Tax Foundation. During Trump’s first term, “the economic evidence shows American firms and consumers were hardest hit by the Trump tariffs.”

At the same time, it would be hard to replace the revenue collected from income taxes with revenue from the planned tariffs. According to a study by the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE), a non-partisan research group, the U.S. imported $3.1 trillion in goods in 2023 while raising about $2 trillion through individual and corporate income taxes.

This means it would be nearly impossible to replace income taxes with tariffs, since the tariff rate would have to be “implausibly high,” according to PIIE. The institute determined that even at a “revenue-maximizing tariff rate,” the U.S. could raise only a fraction of what it raises with income taxes.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/taxes/trump-wants-to-abolish-the-irs-and-replace-federal-income-tax-revenue-with-tariffs-on-imports-how-would-such-a-move-affect-middle-class-americans/ar-AA1Et0kV

Independent: Backstabbed US auto companies blast Trump’s trade deal with Britain

America’s automakers have strafed President Donald Trump’s “big beautiful” tentative trade deal with the U.K.

Ford, GM and Stallantis complained the “deal,” which hasn’t yet been officially agreed to, will actually hurt U.S. automakers by putting them at a competitive disadvantage with British companies.

Under the deal, Britain can send a quota of 100,000 cars annually to the U.S. with a 10 percent tariffs (amounts over that level will face 27.5 percent tariffs). Steel exports will be tariff free.

The U.S. carmakers said their vehicles produced in Canada and Mexico, or produced with parts from those countries or with steel from those countries, continue to face devastating 25 percent tariffs.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/backstabbed-us-auto-companies-blast-trump-s-trade-deal-with-britain/ar-AA1Evtyt

Dallas Morning News: 2 US citizen children deported to Mexico along with their mother, attorney says

Two U.S. citizen children were deported Wednesday morning to Mexico along with their mother, according to an attorney who has consulted with the family.

Cori Hash, a senior staff attorney with Immigrant Legal Resource Center, told The Dallas Morning News on Wednesday that the family was detained last week near the campus of Dobie Middle School in North Austin.

Texas Department of Public Safety Troopers stopped the family on the morning of Wednesday, April 30, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained the man. The woman was not detained but was informed to go to an ICE facility in San Antonio the next day. It’s not clear how many of their children were in the car, Hash said.

The man and woman are not married, Hash said, but have been together several years and have three children together. The children are 8, 5 and 4 years old and the two youngest are U.S. citizens, Hash said. The man was deported on Tuesday. The woman and her three children were deported Wednesday morning, Hash said.

Hash asked that the man and woman not be identified to avoid putting them at risk.

“They had no due process whatsoever,” Hash said. “It just goes to show that this administration feels that it can deport U.S. citizens whenever it wishes and however it wishes.”

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/immigration/2025/05/07/two-us-citizen-children-deported-to-mexico-along-with-their-mother-attorney-says

Bloomberg: Trump Has Been Stopped By Courts More Than 200 Times

President Donald Trump’s expansive use of executive power faced at least 328 lawsuits as of May 1 — with judges halting his policies far more often than they allowed them.

Courts entered more than 200 orders stopping the administration’s actions in 128 cases, with judges sometimes ruling at multiple stages of the legal fights. Judges had allowed contested policies to go ahead in 43 cases, and hadn’t ruled yet in more than 140 others. Most cases are in the early stages, and new ones are being filed daily.

https://archive.is/zZ9zU#selection-1251.0-1258.0

Latin Times: Trump Admin Laying Groundwork For Unilateral U.S. Military Action Against Cartels In Mexico: Report

Throughout the campaign trail, President Donald Trump promised to crack down drug trafficking operations in Mexican territory, a plan that caused concern among experts and diplomats who warned would be illegal and dangerous. Now, an organization believes Washington is laying the groundwork for military actions anyway.

Some in the Trump administration are reportedly considering launching drone strikes on drug cartels in Mexico as part of an effort to combat the criminal gangs operating across the southern border.

In those discussions, the White House, Defense Department and intelligence officials were still at the early stages of sketching out potential plans. The administration has not made a final decision or reached a definitive agreement about countering cartels. Nonetheless, a unilateral covert action, without Mexico’s consent, had not been ruled out and could be an option of last resort, NBC News reported.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/trump-admin-laying-groundwork-for-unilateral-u-s-military-action-against-cartels-in-mexico-report/ar-AA1E4leJ

The Atlantic: Airport Detentions Have Travelers ‘Freaked Out’

Fears of being detained are in overdrive, even if the Trump administration insists that they’re overblown.

Jeff Joseph, a 53-year-old immigration attorney in Colorado, has recently started taking precautions while traveling abroad that, at another time, he would have considered a little paranoid. He leaves his phone at home. Instead, he carries a “burner’’—a device scrubbed of his contact list and communications—in case U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers send him to secondary inspection or seize his electronics when he returns home. Joseph told me his knowledge of immigration law has left him with less confidence, not more, about the risks of crossing U.S. borders during the second Trump administration.

“Among immigration lawyers who are well versed in this, and who know what happens in secondary, there’s a level of anxiety and panic that we’ve never seen before,” said Joseph, the president-elect of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “Myself included.”

Immigration attorneys also note Trump has curbed CBP officers’ ability to allow the entry of migrants or visitors using an authority known as “parole.” So travelers who do not qualify for admission to the United States are more likely to be handed over to ICE for detention and deportation. Although U.S. citizens cannot be denied entry to the United States, all other categories of noncitizens—even, in some cases, legal permanent residents with green cards—are at risk of being denied entry or deemed inadmissible by a CBP officer.

https://archive.is/47W6S#selection-745.0-748.0

BBC: Tariffs on car parts entering the US come into force

A 25% import tax on engines, transmissions and other key car parts has come into force in the US, raising pressure on an industry finding its way through a thicket of policy changes.

The US president has said the new tariff, along with a 25% import tax on cars that went into effect last month, is intended to push carmakers to do more manufacturing in the US.

But analysts said any immediate expansions in the US were likely to come at the expense of production elsewhere, while also leading to higher costs for the businesses – and ultimately higher prices for customers.

“American made” cars still rely on foreign-made parts — we’re screwed by these tariffs either way.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/tariffs-on-car-parts-entering-the-us-come-into-force/ar-AA1E5k8b

More here:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/the-white-house-says-tariffs-won-t-make-car-buying-more-expensive-top-automakers-don-t-sound-as-sure/ar-AA1E3BLQ

Financial Times: Donald Trump’s ‘Marie Antoinette moment’: call for national sacrifice falls flat

President faces backlash after warning Americans they will have to make do with fewer toys at Christmas

Here was the president acknowledging his trade war might cause real hardship for voters — many of whom elected him to bring down the cost of living and boost growth.

Trump’s enemies could hardly believe their luck. They mocked him on social media as a modern-day “Grinch who stole Christmas” and “Scrooge McTrump”. One television presenter, channelling the Sopranos, called him “Donny 2 Dolls”.

“‘Your family will have less, but it’ll be more expensive’ is definitely a solid economic pitch,” the stand-up comic Mike Drucker wrote on X.

Isaac Larian, chief executive of MGA Entertainment, the largest toymaker in the US, said the tariffs will be “disastrous”, predicting a “30-40 per cent drop in sales”.

The company gets 65 per cent of its products from Chinese factories, and the tariffs will force them to massively raise prices — from $15 to $29-$30 for a Bratz doll, one of its most popular items.

“If the tariffs are not reduced we’re going to be forced to lay off people, including people in our factory here actually manufacturing toys in the US,” said Larian, who said he voted for Trump last November.

https://archive.is/W4xe1#selection-2295.0-2302.0

LA Times: ‘The truckers are scrambling’: Trump’s tariffs hit drivers, L.A. port workers hard

Amid a wave of unprecedented tariffs, anxiety is running high for truck drivers like Helen, who makes her living delivering cargo containers from the Los Angeles and Long Beach harbors to warehouses and other customers around Southern California.

After a strong start to the year, the number of jobs has started to slip in recent days and truck drivers have heard reports predicting a sharp decline in incoming cargo for May and June.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/the-truckers-are-scrambling-trump-s-tariffs-hit-drivers-l-a-port-workers-hard/ar-AA1E63Gd