NEW DELHI – The United States and India have finalized a trade agreement, President Donald Trump said in a Truth Social post Monday, putting an end to rancorous, months-long negotiations and steadying a relationship that had plummeted to its lowest point in decades.
The agreement calls for Washington to lower its 25 percent tariff on goods imported from India to 18 percent, with India reducing its tariffs on U.S. goods to zero, according to Trump. It is unclear whether the additional 25 percent tariff Trump levied on New Delhi for its purchases of Russian oil in August will remain, though the president wrote that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also agreed to “stop buying Russian Oil.”
“Our amazing relationship with India will be even stronger going forward,” Trump said.
In a post on X, Modi thanked Trump “for this wonderful announcement” and said that “when two large economies and the world’s largest democracies work together, it benefits our people and unlocks immense opportunities for mutually beneficial cooperation.”
The long-sought agreement between Washington and New Delhi was reached just days after India signed a sweeping trade deal with the European Union, part of the country’s efforts to diversity its global partnerships amid tensions with the White House.
Trump, in his Truth Social post, said India would also purchase more than $500 billion of U.S. energy, technology, agriculture and coal products.
(c) 2026, The Washington Post
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Top Justice Department officials have stripped Ed Martin of the bulk of his expansive responsibilities, leaving the staunch ally of President Donald Trump on the sidelines of many of the controversial investigations he has championed, according to two people familiar with the personnel move.
As a result of the changes, Martin will no longer chair the department’s Weaponization Working Group, which was tasked with reviewing special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecutions of Trump and other perceived examples of “prosecutorial abuse,” according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a personnel move that has not been made public.
Martin will continue to serve as the Justice Department’s pardon attorney but will no longer work at Justice Department headquarters. Instead, his office will be located in another DOJ building in Northeast Washington, pulling him away from the attorney general and the most powerful figures in the department, according to a person familiar with the move. The pardon office is in that Northeast Washington building.
“President Trump appointed Ed Martin as pardon attorney, and Ed continues to do a great job in that role,” a Justice Department spokesperson said.
Martin is a longtime antiabortion activist who helped plan and finance the rally that preceded the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Trump first named Martin to serve as the U.S. attorney for D.C.
Martin, who had no previous trial or prosecutorial experience, served in that role for 15 weeks on an interim basis, with his tenure marked by his threats to investigate Trump’s perceived political adversaries and firings and demotions of career prosecutors who handled cases involving the president and the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Trump pulled the nomination because Martin did not have enough Senate support and instead gave him a senior Justice Department role, which did not require Senate confirmation.
As leader of the Weaponization Working Group, Martin has played an important role in the largely unsuccessful prosecutions of Trump’s political foes, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, former FBI director James B. Comey and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-California).
In November, The Washington Post reported that federal prosecutors appeared to be questioning a witness in the Schiff mortgage fraud investigation about her contact with Martin and Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte.
The questioning suggested that investigators were looking at whether Martin and Pulte used inappropriate tactics to launch probes of Schiff and others, questioning whether the two Trump officials divulged information about the Schiff investigation to people who were not authorized to be a part of it.
(c) 2026, The Washington Post
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A classified internal memo circulated by Hamas leadership to its senior administrators in the Gaza Strip, ahead of the expected arrival of a technocratic government, lays out a strategy for maintaining Hamas’s rule over the territory even after the new administration formally takes office, according to a report by Kan News.
The document reportedly provides specific guidance to Hamas’s administrative officials on how they are expected to conduct themselves on a daily basis in relation to the incoming technocratic government.
Under the instructions outlined in the memo, officials are told to carry on with their regular responsibilities without alteration, effectively behaving as though no transition has taken place and ensuring that existing control structures remain intact.
The document also warns officials against criticizing members of the technocratic government or its leader on social media platforms, a move intended to prevent visible clashes or public disputes.
At the same time, the memo explicitly orders officials not to form any direct personal relationships with government representatives and not to transfer information or reports to them, except via the “relevant authority,” which, in practice, refers to Hamas itself.
Through these directives, the document describes an arrangement in which the technocratic government appears to function outwardly, while actual authority over administrative systems, information channels, and bureaucratic operations continues to rest firmly with Hamas.
Alongside these political maneuvers, the terror group is reportedly advancing its military capabilities under the protection of the ceasefire. Channel 13 News reported that the Israel Defense Forces recently placed a formal warning document on the desk of Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, alerting him to a marked increase in Hamas’s military buildup in Gaza.
According to that assessment, the IDF believes Hamas is actively working to safeguard its strength and preserve both its civilian authority and military dominance in the Strip.
The core concern raised in the warning is that even within a “technocratic government” framework, Hamas will be able to retain effective control over Gaza unless the organization is fully disarmed.
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Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei released a string of statements alleging that recent unrest in Iran was not spontaneous but rather a coordinated operation directed by foreign actors, which he labeled a “sedition” aimed at destabilizing the Islamic Republic.
In his remarks, Khamenei asserted that the disturbances were engineered by external forces, specifically blaming “Zionists & the US.” He said he had learned “through a certain channel that the CIA & Mossad deployed all of their resources into the field,” but maintained that despite those efforts, “they were defeated.” According to him, the sedition’s plan “was developed abroad, and it was managed from abroad.”
Khamenei further argued that Washington’s role was evident from comments made by the US President. “When we say the sedition was orchestrated by the US, it isn’t merely a claim,” he wrote, adding that the President’s own words made this clear. He claimed that the US President directly addressed the rioters, telling them, “Keep going, keep going. I’m coming [to help].”
The Iranian leader said such unrest was not an isolated incident, describing Iran as a nation that remains “in friction with the interests of global aggressors.” He posed the question of how long these attempts would persist and answered that they would continue “until the Iranian nation reaches a point where the enemy is left hopeless,” concluding, “And we will reach that point.”
Khamenei praised the actions of Iran’s security forces, stating that law enforcement, the Basij, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps “carried out their duties in full.” At the same time, he emphasized that the decisive factor was public action, saying “it was the people themselves who trampled the fire of sedition into ashes.”
Turning to economic demonstrations, Khamenei acknowledged that some participants had legitimate complaints. He said shopkeepers “did have grievances and their demands were logical and justified,” but alleged that violent elements used those protests as cover. Once merchants understood that the demonstrations were turning into riots, he claimed, “they separated themselves.”
Khamenei likened the events to a coup attempt and explained why he believed that definition applied. He said it was because “the goal was to destroy the centers effective in the country’s governance,” asserting that attackers focused on police units, IRGC bases, government offices, and banks.
He also alleged that certain ringleaders, whom he claimed were trained by the US and Zionists, were responsible for what he described as “engineered killings.” According to Khamenei, these figures even turned on “the foot soldiers whom they themselves had drawn into the field with their propaganda,” attacking them from behind.
According to Khamenei, the central objective of the sedition was to erode internal security. He warned that “when security is gone, nothing is left,” adding that without security there can be “no production, no schools, no research, no scientific knowledge, and no progress.”
He concluded by comparing the violence to that of the Daesh terror organization. “A defining feature of this sedition was its violence; it was like that of the Daesh,” he said. Referring to the origins of ISIS, Khamenei cited a statement he attributed to President Donald Trump, saying, “We created ISIS.” He claimed that, similar to Daesh, those involved in the unrest “burned people alive” and “beheaded people,” carrying out the same kinds of atrocities.
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The United States may be on the brink of its first-ever population decline, potentially as soon as this year, far earlier than long-range forecasts once suggested. New estimates from federal agencies and independent economists indicate that President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement has sharply reduced net migration, pushing the country toward a demographic milestone never before recorded, Bloomberg reported Monday.
For generations, population gains in the U.S. were sustained largely by immigration, which compensated for declining birth rates and a rising number of deaths as the population aged.
That long-standing pattern appears to be breaking faster than expected. Analysts from across the ideological spectrum now say that immigration policies enacted during Trump’s second term are hastening a demographic shift that had previously been projected to occur much later.
As recently as 2023, the U.S. Census Bureau’s long-term outlook estimated that the nation’s population would not begin to contract until 2081.
More recent figures, however, suggest that schedule may have dramatically changed.
According to Census Bureau data released this week, the U.S. population increased by only 0.5%, or about 1.8 million people, in the year ending July 1, 2025. That marked the slowest annual growth rate since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Officials attributed most of that slowdown to a steep decline in net migration, which dropped to 1.3 million from 2.7 million the previous year.
During the same period, births exceeded deaths by 519,000, a margin that continues to shrink each year.
The Congressional Budget Office has warned that by around 2030, deaths are expected to surpass births entirely, meaning immigration would become the only factor preventing population loss.
Census officials now anticipate that net migration will decline even further, to roughly 316,000 in the year ending July 2026, with the United States, in their words, “trending toward negative net migration.”
Independent analysts suggest the shift may already be underway. Economists from the American Enterprise Institute and the Brookings Institution estimate that net migration may have turned negative in 2025, with the immigrant population shrinking by between 10,000 and 295,000 people.
Their projections for this year are even more stark, forecasting outcomes ranging from a modest increase of 185,000 immigrants to a decline of as many as 925,000 — estimates calculated before additional legal immigration restrictions were announced this year.
Should immigration losses outweigh the already diminishing excess of births over deaths, the total U.S. population would begin to fall. Under the most pessimistic scenario outlined by the researchers, the population would shrink by more than 400,000 people this year.
“We could be at around zero or negative on population,” said Tara Watson, director of the Brookings Center for Economic Security and Opportunity and a co-author of the analysis.
Demographers note that since the first national census was conducted in 1790, the United States has never officially recorded a nationwide population decline.
Some historians point to 1918 as a possible exception, when the Spanish flu outbreak combined with the overseas deployment of millions of U.S. troops may have temporarily reduced the number of people living in the country.
Economists caution that the consequences of reduced immigration and potential population decline would likely unfold gradually, affecting labor force growth, economic output, and government finances over time rather than triggering immediate shocks.
The Trump administration maintains that stricter immigration policies will strengthen opportunities for native-born workers and relieve strain on housing markets and public services.
White House officials have also cited expanded workforce training initiatives and broader access to temporary worker visas as measures intended to address potential labor shortages.
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