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Thursday, July 31, 2025

Faced with threats of 50 percent tariffs and demands to end a criminal case, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said he wouldn't take orders from President Trump. read more


A fervent Trump supporter who said that he was casting his 2024 vote to fight child trafficking is now being charged with 10 counts of possessing child pornography. Scott Soucek of Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, was arrested on July 24 and accused of accessing hundreds of child pornography images through a file-sharing system. Soucek isn't just a Trump booster himself: he's also the husband of a leading Republican Party operative in the state. His wife, Stephanie Soucek, is the chairwoman of the Door County Republican Party. Last year, she represented Wisconsin as a delegate at the Republican National Convention.


Wednesday, July 30, 2025

The Freedom of the Press Foundation is turning the tables on Brendan Carr, filing a complaint to investigate and potentially disbar the FCC chairman over his moves to punish Donald Trump's media critics. read more


Tuesday, July 29, 2025

A growing numbers of lawmakers in Starmer's Labour Party have asking him to recognise a Palestinian state to put pressure on Israel. read more


Monday, July 28, 2025

US immigration officers made false and misleading statements in their reports about several Los Angeles protesters they arrested during the massive demonstrations that rocked the city in June, according to federal law enforcement files obtained by the Guardian. read more


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More: President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva of Brazil is outraged.

President Trump is trying to push around his nation of 200 million, dangling 50 percent tariffs as a threat, Mr. Lula said in an interview. And yet, he added, the U.S. president is ignoring his government's offers to talk.

"Be sure that we are treating this with the utmost seriousness. But seriousness does not require subservience," the Brazilian president said. "I treat everyone with great respect. But I want to be treated with respect."

Mr. Lula granted his first interview to The New York Times in 13 years on Tuesday, in part because he wanted to speak to the American people about his frustration with Mr. Trump.

Mr. Trump has said that, starting on Friday, he plans to impose 50 percent tariffs on Brazilian goods, in large part because Brazilian authorities have charged former President Jair Bolsonaro with trying to hold on to power after losing the 2022 election.

Mr. Trump has called the case a "witch hunt" and wants it dropped. Mr. Lula said that was not up for negotiation. "Maybe he doesn't know that here in Brazil, the judiciary is independent," he said.

In the interview, Mr. Lula said that the American president is infringing on Brazil's sovereignty.

"At no point will Brazil negotiate as if it were a small country up against a big country," he said. "We know the economic power of the United States, we recognize the military power of the United States, we recognize the technological size of the United States."

"But that doesn't make us afraid," he added. "It makes us concerned."

There is perhaps no world leader defying President Trump as strongly as Mr. Lula.

More: The officers' testimony was cited in at least five cases filed by the US Department of Justice amid the unrest. The justice department has charged at least 26 people with "assaulting" and "impeding" federal officers and other crimes during the protests over immigration raids. Prosecutors, however, have since been forced to dismiss at least eight of those felonies, many of them which relied on officers' inaccurate reports, court records show.

The justice department has also dismissed at least three felony assault cases it brought against Angelenos accused of interfering with arrests during recent immigration raids, the documents show.

The rapid felony dismissals are a major embarrassment for the Trump-appointed US attorney for southern California, Bill Essayli, and appeared to be the result of an unusual series of missteps by the justice department, former federal prosecutors said.

The Guardian's review of records found:

Out of nine "assault" and "impeding" felony cases the justice department filed immediately after the start of the protests and promoted by the attorney general, Pam Bondi, prosecutors dismissed seven of them soon after filing the charges.

In reports that led to the detention and prosecution of at least five demonstrators, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents made false statements about the sequence of events and misrepresented incidents captured on video.

One DHS agent accused a protester of shoving an officer, when footage appeared to show the opposite: the officer forcefully pushed the protester.

One indictment named the wrong defendant, a stunning error that has jeopardized one of the government's most high-profile cases.

"When I see felonies dismissed, that tells me either the federal officers have filed affidavits that are not truthful and that has been uncovered, or US attorneys reviewing the cases realize the evidence does not support the charges," said Cristine Soto DeBerry, a former California state prosecutor who is now director of Prosecutors Alliance Action, a criminal justice reform group.

She said officers often call for charges that prosecutors don't end up filing, but it was uncommon for the justice department to file, then dismiss cases, especially numerous felonies in rapid succession.

"It seems this is a way to detain people, hold them in custody, instill fear and discourage people from exercising their first amendment rights," DeBerry said.

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