Washington, United States:

US President Donald Trump has threatened to open new fronts in his tariffs war by announcing reciprocal levies on other countries as soon as Tuesday, branding this “the only fair way” to trade.

Trump’s fresh salvo could bring a broad tariff hike to emerging market economies like India and take aim at European Union value-added taxes, fanning tensions with the bloc, analysts warn.

What are reciprocal tariffs?

Tariffs are taxes imposed on goods imported from another country.

As for reciprocal tariffs — during election campaigning, Trump promised: “An eye for an eye, a tariff for a tariff, same exact amount.”

And on Sunday, he said he would make a detailed announcement on the tariffs on Tuesday or Wednesday, adding that “every country will be reciprocal.”

One approach is to hike tariff rates on imports to match the rate that other countries apply to US products, said Goldman Sachs analysts in a note.

Matching this based on different products would raise the United States’ average tariff rate by around two percentage points. Doing so to match the average tariff imposed by countries raises the US rate by a smaller amount.

But taking a product-focused approach has complexities.

While Washington has relatively low average tariffs at a 2.7 percent rate in 2022, it has higher rates in “very politically sensitive” areas such as apparel, sugar and pick-up trucks, said Cato Institute vice president of general economics Scott Lincicome.

Similarly, including non-tariff barriers like regulations in the calculus would add to complications.

Who will be impacted?

Reciprocal tariffs may open the door to “a broad tariff hike” on emerging market economies who have high duties on US products, JPMorgan analysts expect.

If officials go by average tariff rates applied on all products, countries like India or Thailand — which tax imports at higher average rates than the United States does — could be affected.

Trump has previously slammed India as a “very big abuser” on trade and this week, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett told CNBC that India had high tariffs that lock out imports.

Lincicome cautioned that high tariffs are often also imposed by poorer countries, who use them as a tool for revenue and protection as they have fewer resources to impose non-tariff barriers like regulatory protectionism.

Goldman Sachs estimates that “there should be no effect on countries with free trade agreements like Mexico, Canada, and Korea, limiting the overall impact” if Washington took a country-based approach to reciprocal tariffs.

What are the complications?

It remains unclear if Trump views the policy of reciprocal tariffs as an alternative to a 10-20 percent universal tariff he floated on the campaign trail — or a separate policy.

One risk is that the Trump administration “could attempt to equalize non-tariff barriers to trade,” said Goldman Sachs in a note. In particular, he could consider value-added taxes (VATs) when deciding how much to adjust tariffs.

Doing so stands to raise the average effective tariff rate by another 10 percentage points, Goldman analysts added.

Such a move might also be a response to high European Union VATs, JPMorgan said.

What is the goal?

“One of the objectives is to create uncertainty as a negotiating tactic, but uncertainty is a tax on doing business,” Jeffrey Schott, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told AFP.

Unpredictability surrounding tariffs, retaliation and non-trade issues all contribute to a situation that weighs on American and foreign firms, he said.

In the case of allies like Europe, Schott said, US objectives in negotiation could involve “economic and geopolitical priorities, including Ukraine.”

They could include finding a better resolution of the situation in Ukraine, which has been fighting off a Russian invasion since 2022, but also to expand US exports in key sectors like LNG.

Two-way street?

The United States, however, does not have the lowest tariffs in the world and stands around the middle when it comes to wealthy, industrialized countries, said Cato’s Lincicome.

“Should Trump’s system be based on average tariff rates, then ‘true’ reciprocity would require US tariff rate reductions on goods from dozens of countries,” he added in a recent report.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

Zaya Perysian, a US-based Transgender influencer, has alleged that she has been forced to identify as male under the Donald Trump administration. Zaya claims that the gender on her passport has been changed to male while all her other documents identify her as female. This comes after Trump, during his inaugural address, announced that there will only be two genders in the US – male and female.

In an executive order titled “Defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the federal government” signed on January 20, it was clarified that “sex” shall refer to an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female. “Sex” is not a synonym for and does not include the concept of “gender identity.”

The executive categorically states that gender identity cannot be recognised as a replacement for sex.

In a recent video posted on Instagram, Zaya shared what it is “like being a transgender under this new administration.” Sharing evidence, Zaya showed a passport with her picture and “a big ugly M” written under the header “sex”.

“All of my other documents are updated to female and I have been fully, surgically updated to female,” she said.

Zaya read the government letter elaborating an update to her passport: “The sex was corrected on your passport application. The changes were made for one of the following reasons – to match our record.”

Zaya was born male but later underwent a sex reassignment surgery and now identifies as female. She says she had a passport as a kid and used it once. “If you have had a passport in the past that displays the opposite sex then they will not honour your gender change. Now obviously I will be seeking legal action,” she added.

The digital video creator reiterated that there is nothing about her anymore that represents “male”. But the Trump administration’s denying to put “female” on her passport put her in “danger while travelling.”

“I am in danger now,” she claimed.

Zaya believes this is to scare people like her as the government doesn’t want them in public life. “They want us to hide in fear and be scared of them. But trust me, I am not going anywhere. Trans people have been here and are staying here and I will fight this. I am not scared. I am not gonna cry.”

The trans creator said it is a “direct violation” of her rights as an American citizen under the Equal Rights Amendment.

“I submitted a passport application that was intended to update my gender marker to female. That exact application is still available on the website to update your gender,” she said, adding that this is just the beginning.

The White House on Tuesday justified a sweeping freeze in US overseas assistance by citing a $50 million condom distribution program in the Gaza Strip, without offering evidence to back up the claim.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the expenditure was discovered in Trump’s first week including by the new Department of Government Efficiency led by tech billionaire Elon Musk.

Musk’s initiative and the budget office “found that there was about to be 50 million taxpayer dollars that went out the door to fund condoms in Gaza,” Leavitt told her debut press conference.

“That is a preposterous waste of taxpayer money,” she said.

She did not provide more details and it was not immediately possible to verify the account independently.

Condoms generally cost less than one dollar each in the United States and much less in bulk. Just over two million people live in Gaza, nearly all of which has been heavily damaged in the 15-month war with Israel.

Leavitt also said that the United States was about to dispense $37 million to the World Health Organization before Trump announced a pullout from the UN body.

Quickly after taking office, Trump ordered a 90-day freeze in foreign assistance.

He has vowed a review to ensure that aid conforms with policies of his administration, which opposes abortion, transgender rights and diversity programs.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a memo Friday said that the United States was freezing nearly all aid disbursement except for emergency food and military aid to Egypt and Israel.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres voiced concern about the aid freeze by the United States, long the world’s largest provider of development assistance in absolute dollar terms.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Donald Trump has shaken up America and the world in an extraordinary first week back in the White House that saw him remake the US political universe in his own image.

On his first day, Trump signed more executive orders than any president in history, consolidating his power over every lever of the US government.

Since then, he has seemingly been everywhere, doing everything all at once to further impose his will — and his conservative, nationalist version of a “golden age” — on the country.

The theme has been “promises made, promises kept”: starting with his mass pardons for the 2021 US Capitol rioters and a slew of executive orders from immigration to gender.

From Trump and his supporters, the theme has been one of regal, even divine, power.

The 78-year-old claimed he was “saved by God” from an assassination attempt to make America great again — and danced with a sword at an inaugural ball. His ally Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, simply hailed the “return of the king.”

Trump’s influence on the world stage is outsized too, as he flaunts mass tariffs and threats of American territorial expansion.

“Early in his new term, emboldened by his astonishing resurrection, Trump appears to be Godzilla domestically and abroad,” Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, told AFP.

‘We are so back’

If Trump’s supporters — and critics — had any doubts about what his second coming would bring, they were dispelled with a few squeaky strokes of a black marker in the Oval Office on Monday.

Hours after his inauguration at the US Capitol, Trump signed a pardon of 1,500 rioters who had stormed the same building four years earlier to try to overturn his election loss to Joe Biden.

But it was just the start of an avalanche of dizzying changes.

The Republican’s orders launched a long-promised immigration crackdown, eliminated birthright citizenship, and said the US government would only recognize two genders.

He purged the government of diversity efforts and employees — and then got rid of the internal watchdogs who might challenge his rulings.

He yanked the United States out of the Paris climate agreement and the World Health Organization.

“We are so back,” was the repeated refrain heard in the corridors of the White House.

His spokeswoman insisted Trump had delivered “more in 100 hours than any president in 100 days.”

And the contrast with Trump’s own first term could not have been greater.

Instead of chaos and fights, the first days of Trump 2.0 have been marked by what appears to be careful planning, steely discipline and intense messaging.

Internationally, Trump appeared at the Davos forum on a huge screen where he towered over the gathered global elite.

Trump has told other countries to either make products in America or face tariffs.

All week, he has repeated his territorial threats against Greenland and Panama — calling their sovereignty into question even as he asserted America’s.

“Trump is saying: I’m in control,” said Peter Loge, the director of George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs.

‘Imperial presidency’

But the return of the Trump show has also brought back some old habits — and challenges.

Trump still can’t resist rehashing grievances against opponents — including a bishop at his inaugural service who urged him to show “mercy” — and continues to deploy falsehoods and exaggerations.

Nor can the former reality TV star resist a microphone, holding a series of freewheeling encounters with the press since his return. At one point Trump asked reporters: “Does Biden ever do news conferences like this?”

Key promises remain unfulfilled: US grocery prices remain high despite Trump’s pledge that they would come down, and the war in Ukraine that he vowed to end within 24 hours of his return grinds on.

But as billionaire Trump promises a golden age, his critics fear it will come with a dark side.

For instance, the freed leader of one far-right militia toured the Capitol two days after the January 6 pardons.

And a neo-Nazi group paraded at an anti-abortion march in Washington that Trump himself addressed by video message.

Trump’s message praised “every child as a beautiful gift from the hand of our Creator” — the same God from whom Trump had claimed a divine mandate in his inaugural address on Monday.

“Trump would love to restore the so-called imperial presidency” that existed from Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s until Richard Nixon’s fall in 1974, said Sabato.

However, Sabato added that “era was long gone and Trump lacks the strong public support necessary to sustain the tough image he’s projecting.”

While Democrats and the anti-Trump “resistance” that opposed his 2016 victory have largely fallen silent for now, there is already legal action against key parts of his agenda.

“We all know Trump. He can’t change and won’t change, so over time much of the public will tire of his antics, just as they did in his first term,” said Sabato.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

U.S. President Donald Trump signed a number of executive orders and actions into force in the early days of his second term in office, which began when he was sworn in on January 20. Following multiple promises made on the campaign trail leading up to the 2024 presidential election, Mr. Trump controversially issued a spree of executive orders in the first week itself.

What are some of the orders issued?

Mr. Trump issued over 1,500 pardons to individuals prosecuted for their role in the riot at the U.S. Capitol in 2021, alongside orders mandating the U.S.’s exit from the Paris Climate Agreement and the World Health Organization (WHO). He also signed an order ending birthright citizenship, protected under the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, for children of undocumented migrants and those on temporary visas. He proposed a 100% conditional tariff on BRICS nations and a 25% tariff on Canada and Mexico, from February 1, while declaring a national emergency on the U.S.’s southern border with Mexico.

He also reversed 78 executive orders and memoranda of his predecessor, Joe Biden. While each of these decrees will likely impact the governance paradigm of the U.S., some, if not most, of these executive orders will face legal challenges and may ultimately be reversed. The broader Trump political agenda is nevertheless expected to significantly change the status quo in the U.S. over the coming four years, in the realms of domestic and foreign policy.

Why did Trump pardon the rioters?

Speaking at a news conference regarding his “blanket pardon that effectively freed all the rioters and erased the work of the largest criminal investigation in U.S. history”, Mr. Trump said, “These people have already served years in prison, and they have served them viciously. It’s a disgusting prison. It’s been horrible. It’s inhumane. It’s been a terrible, terrible thing.”

The grant of clemency came despite the January 6 Congressional investigation running for two years, between 2021-23, and its committee interviewing over 1,000 people and reviewing more than a million documents. At the end of the enquiry, the courts charged more than 1,500 people associated with the attack on the U.S. Capitol, including former leaders of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, convicted of seditious conspiracy and violent acts.

Lawyers for these defendants were themselves said to be “pleasantly surprised” by Mr. Trump’s pardons given that Vice President J.D. Vance had recently said that only non-violent offenders would get relief, and Mr. Trump’s Attorney General pick Pam Bondi noted in Congress earlier that she did not believe that violent rioters ought to be pardoned.

What are the implications of the immigration crackdown?

On the one hand, the attempted reading down of the 14th Amendment has already been challenged in court by 22 States, and is likely to fail, according to legal experts. A federal judge in Seattle, Washington, has already described Mr. Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship as “blatantly unconstitutional” and issued a temporary restraining order to block it for at least two weeks while awaiting further briefings on the overall legal challenge.

However, the immigration raids that Mr. Trump promised vociferously during his campaign have begun in earnest. With over 21 actions issued towards overhauling the immigration system, and “mass deportations” and arrests promised, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement has already deported 1,000 individuals and detained 5,000 in the State of Texas, in some cases flying them out on military aircraft with the cooperation of the Department of Defense.

Mr. Trump has said on several occasions that he is in favour of legal migration even if he intends to close the U.S. border to undocumented migrants. While the President and his billionaire supporter Elon Musk have often spoken out in favour of temporary work visas for skilled migrants, including the H-1B visa, which applicants from India are most frequently granted, some members of the more conservative wing of the Republican Party have opposed any expansion in the H-1B quotas and have argued for bringing back jobs for American workers.

What could the impact of the U.S. exit from global pacts be?

Under the first Trump term, from 2016-20, the U.S. exited the Paris Climate Agreement — a move that was reversed by Mr. Biden on his first day in office with the implication that the U.S. had once again committed itself to cutting carbon emissions and pursuing clean energy sources, including by setting limits on pollution by motor vehicle emissions, methane from industrial processes, and coal-fired power plants. On his first day in office, Mr. Trump again exited the Paris pact, describing it as an “unfair, one-sided… rip-off”, and pointing out that “the U.S. will not sabotage our own industries while China pollutes with impunity.”

With the war cry of “Drill, baby, drill!”, Mr. Trump has gone further to declare a “national energy emergency”, which is not only a signal of Mr. Trump’s promise of energy expansion but specifically opens the door to the “federal use of eminent domain and the Defense Production Act,” which would allow the government to take charge of private lands and other resources to produce goods that might be deemed to be a national necessity.

However, not only does this mean that the U.S. will officially halt all contributions towards limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, but it also does so at the peril of ever more climatic events with a profound impact on the country. This has already been happening with increasing frequency, including 2024 being the U.S.’s hottest year on record, major wildfires burning in Los Angeles, and hurricanes devastating communities from North Carolina to Florida.

Why do Trump’s early orders matter for bipartisan prospects in the U.S.?

The tenor of the second Trump administration in terms of its early policy agenda appears to be fundamentally hostile to the progressive agenda of the Democrats. To an extent, that is expected, as the two major parties have always diverged considerably on policy subjects such as the economy, immigration and reproductive rights. However, previous Republican governments would regularly seek to build bridges with Democratic lawmakers in Congress and in States to build bipartisan consensus across critical political issues rather than risk stalemates and fruitless conflicts over policy priorities and funding.

What is significant about Mr. Trump’s second victory, however, is the fact that he now enjoys a federal government trifecta and a sympathetic Supreme Court stacked 6-3 in favour of conservatives. This implies that Mr. Trump and his administration need to rely even less on support from across the aisle than they did during their first term. Further, he has clearly been emboldened by the fact that he won such a wide election victory encompassing most demographic cohorts of voters, to the point where even unconventional policy priorities have started to enter the proposed policy agenda. He has announced plans to take over the Panama Canal, de-recognise transgender rights, and Washington has threatened Denmark with its intention to take over Greenland, and the possibility of a ban on travellers from certain countries entering the U.S.

Washington:

President Donald Trump’s foreign aid pause has forced a suspension of flights for more than 40,000 Afghans approved for special US visas and at risk of Taliban retribution, a leading advocate and a US official said on Saturday.

The stoppage was triggered by Trump’s order to halt foreign development aid for 90 days pending a review of efficiencies and consistency with his “America First” foreign policy.

Experts and advocacy groups say the foreign aid pause has led to chaos in US and international aid operations and halted nutrition, health, vaccination and other programs.

The order also triggered a suspension by the State Department of funds for groups that help Afghans with Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs) to find housing, schools and jobs in the US.

Trump promised an immigration crackdown during his victorious 2024 reelection campaign.

Shawn VanDiver, head of #AfghanEvac, the main coalition of veterans and advocacy groups working with the U.S. government to evacuate and resettle those SIV holders, said he does not believe that the flight suspension was intentional.

“We think it was a mistake,” VanDiver said.

He said that he hoped the administration would grant exemptions to the orders for Afghans approved for SIVs because they worked for the U.S government during the 20-year war that ended in the final U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021.

“They fought alongside us. They bled alongside us,” said VanDiver, who pointed out that tens of thousands of other Afghans are waiting for SIV applications to be processed.

The White House and State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Reports by the UN mission in Afghanistan say the Taliban have detained, tortured and killed former soldiers and officials of the prior US-backed government. The Taliban issued a general amnesty for former troops and government officials and deny the allegations.

The flight suspension has stranded more than 40,000 Afghans, including SIV holders who have been waiting to fly to the US from visa processing centers in Qatar and Albania, said VanDiver and the US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

That number also includes Afghans approved for SIVs who have been waiting in Afghanistan and Pakistan to be put on US-funded flights to the Doha and Tirana processing centers to receive their visas, they said.

Nearly 200,000 Afghans have been resettled in the US on SIVs or as refugees since the chaotic 2021 US withdrawal.

In a separate executive order that he signed hours after his inauguration on Monday, Trump suspended all US refugee resettlement programs.

That order resulted in hundreds of Afghan refugees losing their seats on flights, including family members of active-duty Afghan American military personnel, former Afghan soldiers and unaccompanied children.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Washington:

President Donald Trump sacked at least a dozen internal government watchdogs late Friday, US media reported, the latest shake-up of the Republican’s second term after less than a week back in office.

Independent inspectors general of at least 12 federal agencies were notified of their immediate dismissals via emails from the White House personnel director, The Washington Post reported, citing unnamed people familiar with the actions.

Inspectors general have an oversight role to detect and deter fraud, waste and abuse by government employees.

They are responsible for investigating violations of laws, regulations and ethical standards by employees, and conducting audits of contracts, finances and staff performance.

Among the federal agencies affected by the ousters were the departments of defense, state, interior and energy, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency and Social Security Administration, the Post said.

“It’s a widespread massacre,” said one of the fired inspectors general, according to the Post. “Whoever Trump puts in now will be viewed as loyalists, and that undermines the entire system.”

Most of those fired were appointed by Trump during his first term, the newspaper added.

The New York Times, citing three unnamed people with knowledge of the dismissals, said 17 inspectors general were fired, and one source said the Justice Department’s watchdog was not affected.

Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts called the firings “a purge… in the middle of the night.”

“Inspectors general are charged with rooting out government waste, fraud, abuse, and preventing misconduct,” she said in a post on social media platform X.

“President Trump is dismantling checks on his power and paving the way for widespread corruption.”

On Tuesday, his first full day in power, Trump announced plans to weed out around 1,000 opponents from the US government.

The 78-year-old Republican began his second term with a flurry of executive actions aimed at overhauling government policies on immigration, citizenship, gender, diversity and climate — some of which are being challenged in the courts.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Washington:

US President Donald Trump has brought on board three Indian-Americans for key roles in his second term. Ricky Gill will take on responsibilities concerning South and Central Asia at the National Security Council (NSC) as the Senior Director. Saurabh Sharma has been appointed to the Presidential Personnel Office, focusing on staffing and appointments.

Former journalist Kush Desai steps in as Deputy Press Secretary for a role in the White House’s communications strategy.

Here’s a closer look at these appointees:

Ricky Gill

Ricky Gill, an expert in international relations, has returned to the National Security Council (NSC), where he previously served as Director for Russia and European Energy Security during Trump’s first term. In addition to his work at the NSC, he served as a Senior Advisor in the State Department’s Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations.

After leaving the administration, Mr Gill led Gill Capital Group as Principal and General Counsel and acted as an adviser on European and Asian energy for TC Energy, the company behind the Keystone XL Pipeline. This project, partially greenlit by Trump, was halted by Joe Biden.

Born in Lodi, New Jersey, Mr Gill holds a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and a law degree from the University of California, Berkeley.

Saurabh Sharma

Bengaluru-born Saurabh Sharma most recently served as the President of American Moment, a conservative organisation focused on personnel development, according to Politico.

He graduated with a degree in Biochemistry from the University of Texas at Austin in 2019. The same year, during Donald Trump’s first term, Mr Sharma was among 10 student activists invited to the White House as the President signed an executive order addressing free speech on college campuses.

Kush Desai

Kush Desai, an experienced communicator, has held several key roles in Republican campaigns and organisations. Most recently, he was Deputy Communications Director for the 2024 Republican National Convention. Before this, he served as Communications Director for the Republican Party of Iowa.

Mr Desai was also the Deputy Battleground States and Pennsylvania Communications Director at the Republican National Committee. In this position, he was instrumental in shaping the party’s messaging in critical battleground states, including the ever-important Pennsylvania.

President Donald Trump has ordered the release of thousands of classified governmental documents about the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which has fueled conspiracy theories for decades.

The executive order Mr. Trump signed on Thursday (January 23, 2025) also aims to declassify the remaining federal records relating to the assassinations of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The order is among a flurry of executive actions Mr. Trump has quickly taken the first week of his second term.

Speaking to reporters, Mr. Trump said, “everything will be revealed.”

Mr. Trump had promised during his reelection campaign to make public the last batches of still-classified documents surrounding President Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas, which has transfixed people for decades. Mr. Trump made a similar pledge during his first term, but ultimately bent to appeals from the CIA and FBI to withhold some documents.

Mr. Trump has nominated Kennedy’s nephew, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to be the Health Secretary in his new administration. Kennedy’s father, Robert F. Kennedy, was assassinated in 1968 as he sought the Democratic presidential nomination. The younger Kennedy has said he isn’t convinced that a lone gunman was solely responsible for the assassination of his uncle, President Kennedy, in 1963.

The order directs the director of national intelligence and the attorney general to develop a plan within 15 days to release the remaining John F. Kennedy records, and within 45 days for the other two cases. It was not clear when the records would actually be released.

Mr. Trump handed the pen used to sign the order to an aide and directed it to be given to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Only a few thousand of the millions of governmental records related to the assassination of President Kennedy have yet to be fully declassified. And while many who have studied what’s been released so far say the public shouldn’t anticipate any earth-shattering revelations, there is still an intense interest in details related to the assassination and the events surrounding it.

“There’s always the possibility that something would slip through that would be the tiny tip of a much larger iceberg that would be revealing,” said Larry J. Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics and author of “The Kennedy Half-Century.”

“That’s what researchers look for. Now, odds are you won’t find that but it is possible that it’s there,” he said.

Kennedy was fatally shot in downtown Dallas on November 22, 1963, as his motorcade passed in front of the Texas School Book Depository building, where 24-year-old assassin Lee Harvey Oswald had positioned himself from a sniper’s perch on the sixth floor. Two days after Kennedy was killed, nightclub owner Jack Ruby fatally shot Oswald during a jail transfer.

In the early 1990s, the federal government mandated that all assassination-related documents be housed in a single collection in the National Archives and Records Administration. The collection of over 5 million records was required to be opened by 2017, barring any exemptions designated by the president.

The order notes that although no congressional act directs the release of information on the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy or King, those governmental records being made public “is also in the public interest.”

During his first term, Mr. Trump boasted that he’d allow the release of all of the remaining records on the president’s assassination but ended up holding some back because of what he called the potential harm to national security. And while files have continued to be released under President Joe Biden, some still remain unseen.

Sabato, who trains student researchers to comb through the documents, said that most researchers agree that “roughly” 3,000 records have not yet been released, either in whole or in part, and many of those originated with the CIA.

The documents released over the last several years offer details on the way intelligence services operated at the time, and include CIA cables and memos discussing visits by Oswald to the Soviet and Cuban embassies during a trip to Mexico City just weeks before the assassination. The former Marine had previously defected to the Soviet Union before returning home to Texas.

King and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated within two months of each other in 1968.

King was outside a motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, when shots rang out. The civil rights leader, who had been in town to support striking sanitation workers, was set to lead marches and other nonviolent protests there. He died at a hospital less than an hour later.

James Earl Ray pleaded guilty to assassinating King. He later though renounced that plea and maintained his innocence up until his death.

FBI documents released over the years show how the bureau wiretapped King’s telephone lines, bugged his hotel rooms and used informants to get information against him. The agency’s conduct was the subject of the recent documentary film, “ MLK/FBI.”

Robert F. Kennedy, then a New York senator, was fatally shot on June 5, 1968, at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles moments after giving his victory speech for winning California’s Democratic presidential primary. His assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, was convicted of first-degree murder and is serving life in prison.

There are still some documents in the JFK collection though that researchers don’t believe the President will be able to release. Around 500 documents, including tax returns, weren’t subject to the 2017 disclosure requirement. And, researchers note, documents have also been destroyed over the decades.

Washington, United States:

The gesture was controversial enough, but now come the sub-controversies: Elon Musk is trolling Wikipedia and encouraging its defunding after a description of his recent flourish, seen by some as a Hitler salute, appeared on the encyclopedic website.

The fight pits two of the internet’s best-known tech giants against each other — and highlights the starkly different ethos behind Musk’s X social media site and Wikipedia, founded by American entrepreneur Jimmy Wales.

Musk, as the majority owner of X, is behind recent easing of content moderation rules, which has allowed for rampant disinformation across his social media platform, while simultaneously positioning himself as President Donald Trump’s right-hand man.

While Musk’s animosity towards Wikipedia may focus outwardly on the hand gesture, Wikipedia’s goal of factual neutrality makes it a natural adversary to X, a platform increasingly synonymous with heated culture wars, hate speech and disinformation.

Wikipedia and the media at large — which Musk has increasingly criticized — also pose a threat by holding him accountable as he thrusts himself into the center of US politics.

In a December interview with New York magazine’s Intelligencer, Wales said the aim at Wikipedia is for editors to create content that is “clear and acknowledges the different viewpoints out there” even amid “the rise in divisive feelings, partisanship, culture wars, all of that.”

At present, the site is regarded as generally reliable despite being written by a community of volunteers.

The dustup between Musk and Wales began after the billionaire raised eyebrows Monday with his gesticulation at a Trump inauguration event.

Thanking a crowd for returning Trump to the White House, Musk tapped the left side of his chest with his right hand and then extended his arm with his palm open. He then turned around to the crowd behind him and did it again.

As of Wednesday, both Musk’s biographical Wikipedia page as well as the page on the “Nazi salute” mention the episode.

‘Defund’ Wikipedia

On Tuesday, Musk reposted what appeared to be part of that Wikipedia entry, although the wording found on Wikipedia as of Wednesday was slightly different.

The reposted text read: “In his speech during the second Trump inauguration, Musk twice extended his right arm towards the crowd in an upward angle. The gesture was compared to a Nazi salute or fascist salute. Musk denied any meaning behind the gesture.”

Alongside the repost, Musk attacked both Wikipedia and the news media, another favorite target, suggesting that each is a purveyor of disinformation.

“Since legacy media propaganda is considered a ‘valid’ source by Wikipedia, it naturally simply becomes an extension of legacy media propaganda!” Musk wrote.

He additionally called on his supporters to “defund” Wikipedia.

Trolling Musk for his 2022 purchase of X for $44 billion, Wales shot back that: “I think Elon is unhappy that Wikipedia is not for sale.”

Run by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, Wikipedia is an outlier among today’s internet landscape, dominated by the likes of Google and Meta — instead harking back to the web’s early, idealistic days when the open-source movement harnessed the talents of volunteers to offer free access to tools and knowledge.

Wales asked Musk whether there was “anything you consider inaccurate in that description?” and added that it wasn’t propaganda but “fact. Every element of it.”

‘Trying to be clear’

Founded on January 15, 2001, the Wikipedia website started in English but within two months had already launched in German and Swedish. It is now available in hundreds of languages.

“I would say the decline of trust in journalism and politics is quite severe, which then, in some cases, translates into people feeling more angry and lost,” Wales told Intelligencer.

But among the Wikipedia community, he said, “we just plug away, trying to be neutral, trying to be clear.”

After Musk’s 2022 purchase of Twitter, rebranded as X, he gutted trust and safety teams and introduced Community Notes, a crowd-sourced moderation tool that the platform has promoted as the way for users to add context to posts.

But researchers say the lowering of the guardrails on X, and the reinstatement of once-banned accounts of known misinformation peddlers, has turned the platform into a haven for misinformation.

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