Trump news at a glance: Comey says he knew there would be cost ‘to standing up’ to president, as he is indicted

Ex-FBI director James Comey indicted on two charges as Trump pushes to prosecute political enemies

Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, said in a statement on Thursday that “no one is above the law. Today’s indictment reflects this Department of Justice’s commitment to holding those who abuse positions of power accountable for misleading the American people.”

The indictment of Comey came shortly after Trump instructed Bondi to “move now” to prosecute him and other officials he considers political foes, in an extraordinarily direct social media post trampling on the justice department’s tradition of independence.

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Texas authorities brief on Dallas Ice shooting suspect as Trump blames ‘radical left terrorists’

Authorities said on Thursday that the words of the suspect in the shooting on Wednesday at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention facility in Texas were “definitively anti-Ice” but said that they did not find evidence that the suspect was a member of “any specific group or entity, nor did he mention any specific government agency other than Ice”.

The shooting, described by the FBI as coming after a “high degree of planning”, occurred early on Wednesday at a facility in Dallas, with a spray of bullets fired from a rooftop hitting a building and an Ice transportation van, killing one Ice detainee who was inside the vehicle and badly injuring two others.

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George Soros foundation hits back at Trump after report that DoJ plans to target group

The Open Society Foundations (OSF), the major philanthropic group funded by George Soros, criticized the Trump administration for “politically motivated attacks on civil society” after a report that the justice department had instructed federal prosecutors to come up with plans to investigate the charity.

The New York Times reported that a lawyer in the office of Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, sent a memo to several federal prosecutors in attorney’s offices in California, New York, Washington DC, Chicago, and Detroit, offering a range of charges to consider against OSF. Those charges included racketeering, arson, wire fraud and material support for terrorism, the Times reported.

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Trump signs memo targeting ‘domestic terrorism’ amid fears of crackdown on the left

Donald Trump issued a presidential memorandum on Thursday aimed at reining in what he has called a radical leftwing domestic “terror network” but which seemed likely to meet fierce legal pushback from critics depicting it as a licence for a broad crackdown on his political opponents.

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Trump says US will impose new tariffs on heavy trucks, drugs and kitchen cabinets

Donald Trump on Thursday announced a new round of punishing tariffs, saying the United States will impose a 100% tariffs on imported branded drugs, 25% tariff on imports of all heavy-duty trucks and 50% tariffs on kitchen cabinets.

The US president also said he would start charging a 30% tariff on upholstered furniture next week.

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Trump signs executive order to transfer TikTok to US owners

Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday outlining the terms of a deal to transfer TikTok to a US owner.

Trump said he and China’s president Xi Jinping had come to an agreement to allow TikTok to continue operating in the US, separating the social media platform from its Chinese owner ByteDance. Trump said the deal complies with a law that would have forced the shutdown of the app for American users had it not been divested and sold to a US owner.

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Disney investors demand details into company’s Jimmy Kimmel suspension

A group of Disney investors is asking the company to turn over documents related to the company’s decision to temporarily suspend Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show, amid charges the media company may have been “complicit in succumbing” to media censorship.

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