More: There is the case of Greece, where the government faked deficit numbers for years, contributing to a debilitating debt crisis that required multiple rounds of bailouts. The country then criminally prosecuted the head of the statistical agency when he insisted on reporting the true figures, further eroding the country's international standing.

There is the case of China, where earlier this century the local authorities manipulated data to hit growth targets mandated by Beijing, forcing analysts and policymakers to turn to alternative measures to gauge the state of the country's economy.

Perhaps most famously, there is the case of Argentina, which in the 2000s and 2010s systematically understated inflation figures to such a degree that the international community eventually stopped relying on the government's data. That loss of faith drove up the country's borrowing costs, worsening a debt crisis that ultimately led to it defaulting on its international obligations.

It is too soon to know whether the United States is on a similar path. But economists and other experts said that Mr. Trump's decision on Friday to fire Erika McEntarfer, the Senate-confirmed head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, was a troubling step in that direction.

Janet L. Yellen, the former Treasury secretary and chair of the Federal Reserve, said the firing was not what is expected from the most advanced economy in the world.

"This is the kind of thing you would only expect to see in a banana republic," Ms. Yellen said.

You'd think they'd want to get him as far away from their brand as possible.

Womp womp

More: "I can't believe what I just saw," said Peter Mallouk, president and chief investment officer of Creative Planning. Trump's social media post seemed like a parody or satire at first, Mallouk said.

"This is not healthy," he added. "We can't have a set of numbers come out and fire somebody that served under numerous administrations in various roles because you don't like the numbers."

This guy will end up killing someone before he's done.

More: "Today's report adds weight to signs of a slow but persistent cooling trend. While the labor market is not in crisis, hiring momentum continues to soften, and pressures are beginning to build," said Ger Doyle, North America regional president at Manpower Group.

This is true.

Mysterious orange blob? We all knew Trump killed him but I didn't think he'd do it personally.

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.

Recognizing the Palestinian state should have been done decades ago because it's the right thing to do. Threatening to allow a people their right to exist only as a punishment to Israel is barbaric.

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.

"US and EU Reach Trade Deal to Avoid Tariffs"

"EU chief Ursula von der Leyen has managed to negotiate a 15% US tariff."

A 15% tariff doesn't seem like avoiding tariffs at all.

His name must be on every page of the Epstein files.

#5,

Out of the pockets of what used to be called the middle class back when we actually had a middle class.

More of the GOP's famed "small government."

More: In the footage, posted on X by progressive media outlet MeidasTouch, an attorney asked Epstein if he had a "personal relationship" with Trump.

"What do you mean by personal relationship,' sir?" Epstein replied.

"Have you socialized with him?" the attorney asked.

"Yes, sir," Epstein answered.

"Have you ever socialized with Donald Trump in the presence of females under the age of 18?" the attorney asked.

Epstein took a long pause, which included a slight shake of his head, and finally responded: "Though l'd like to answer that question, at least today, l'm going to have to assert my Fifth, Sixth, and 14th Amendment rights, sir."

More: Alongside that change, Cloudflare has launched PayPerCrawl, a new marketplace that allows website owners to charge AI companies per page crawled. If you're running a blog, a digital magazine, a startup product page, or even a knowledge base, you now have the option to set a price for access. AI bots must identify themselves, send payment, and only then can they index your content.

The core issue behind this shift is how AI models are trained. Large language models like OpenAI's GPT or Anthropic's Claude rely on huge amounts of data from the open web. They scrape everything, including articles, FAQs, social posts, documentation, even Reddit threads, to get smarter. But while they benefit, the content creators see none of that upside.

Unlike traditional search engines that drive traffic back to the sites they crawl, generative AI tends to provide full answers directly to users, cutting creators out of the loop.

According to Cloudflare, the data is telling: OpenAI's crawl-to-referral ratio is around 1,700 to 1. Anthropic's is 73,000 to 1. Compare that to Google, which averages about 14 crawls per referral, and the imbalance becomes clear.

Put aside the ridiculousness of Gabbard's claim for a moment and remember that thanks to Trump's SCOTUS we now know presidents and former presidents are immune to prosecution for official acts.

More: When Justice Department officials reviewed what Attorney General Pam Bondi called a "truckload" of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein earlier this year, they discovered that Donald Trump's name appeared multiple times, according to senior administration officials.

In May, Bondi and her deputy informed the president at a meeting in the White House that his name was in the Epstein files, the officials said. Many other high-profile figures were also named, Trump was told.

More: Bondi announced Monday that the Department of Justice has released documents tied to the FBI's investigation into Clinton's use of a private email server during her tenure as Secretary of State. The move comes in response to a long-standing request from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, who has pushed for greater transparency surrounding the probe.

Bondi praised Grassley's efforts, calling his pursuit of accountability "unwavering," and reaffirmed the department's commitment to supporting congressional oversight. The release includes materials related to former FBI Director James Comey's handling of the investigation, which critics say did not thoroughly examine key evidence.

The timing of the disclosure arrives as Bondi faces mounting scrutiny over her office's handling of the Epstein files, adding further pressure on the DOJ's approach to politically sensitive cases.