COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Denmark’s foreign minister had the top U.S. diplomat in the country summoned for talks after the main national broadcaster reported Wednesday that at least three people with connections to President Donald Trump have been carrying out covert influence operations in Greenland.

Trump has repeatedly said he seeks U.S. jurisdiction over Greenland, a vast, semi-autonomous territory of Denmark. He has not ruled out military force to take control of the mineral-rich, strategically located Arctic island.

Denmark, a NATO ally of the U.S., and Greenland have said the island is not for sale and condemned reports of the U.S. gathering intelligence there.

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Danish public broadcaster DR reported Wednesday that government and security sources which it didn’t name, as well as unidentified sources in Greenland and the U.S., believe that at least three Americans with connections to Trump have been carrying out covert influence operations in the territory.

One of those people allegedly compiled a list of U.S.-friendly Greenlanders, collected names of people opposed to Trump and got locals to point out cases that could be used to cast Denmark in a bad light in American media. Two others have tried to nurture contacts with politicians, businesspeople and locals, according to the report.

An influence operation is an organized effort to shape how people in a society think in order to achieve certain political, military or other objectives.

DR said its story was based on information from a total of eight sources, who believe the goal is to weaken relations with Denmark from within Greenlandic society.

DR said it had been unable to clarify whether the Americans were working at their own initiative or on orders from someone else. It said it knows their names but chose not to publish them in order to protect its sources. The Associated Press could not independently confirm the report.

“We are aware that foreign actors continue to show an interest in Greenland and its position in the Kingdom of Denmark,” Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said in a statement emailed by his ministry. “It is therefore not surprising if we experience outside attempts to influence the future of the Kingdom in the time ahead.”

“Any attempt to interfere in the internal affairs of the Kingdom will of course be unacceptable,” Løkke Rasmussen said. “In that light, I have asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to summon the U.S. chargé d’affaires for a meeting at the Ministry.”

Cooperation between the governments of Denmark and Greenland “is close and based on mutual trust,” he added.

The U.S. Embassy in Copenhagen did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Danish Security and Intelligence Service responded to a request for comment by saying it believes that “particularly in the current situation, Greenland is a target for influence campaigns of various kinds” that could aim to create divisions in the relationship between Denmark and Greenland.

It said it “assesses that this could be done by exploiting existing or fabricated disagreements, for example in connection with well-known individual cases, or by promoting or amplifying certain viewpoints in Greenland regarding the Kingdom, the United States, or other countries with a particular interest in Greenland.”

The service, known by its Danish acronym PET, said that in recent years it has “continuously strengthened” its efforts and presence in Greenland in cooperation with authorities there, and will continue to do so.

By JILL COLVIN and LINLEY SANDERS, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — As armed National Guard troops patrol the nation’s capital as part of an unprecedented federal takeover of Washington’s police department, handling crime is now a relative strength for President Donald Trump, according to the latest AP-NORC poll.

Americans are generally not happy about the Republican president’s handling of issues like immigration and the economy but are more positive about his tough-on-crime approach, according to the survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Indeed, the vast majority of Americans, 81%, see crime as a “major problem” in large cities — a concern Trump has seized on as he has deployed the National Guard to the District of Columbia and threatened to expand that model to cities across the country. And his overall approval rating has increased slightly, from 40% in July to 45% now.

President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting, Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2025, at the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

But the poll shows there is less public support for federal takeovers of local police departments, suggesting opinions could shift over the coming weeks or months, depending on how aggressively Trump pursues his threats.

For now, many Republicans in particular feel extreme action needs to be taken, even as statistics show violent crime is down in Washington and across the nation following a coronavirus pandemic-era spike.

“About damn time that somebody did something,” said Charles Arnold, 87, a lifelong Republican who lives in San Diego.

Arnold, a retired electronics technician and veteran who served in the Navy, said that it had been jarring to see the National Guard being used for domestic law enforcement on U.S. soil but that the action seemed to be necessary.

“That’s not what the armed forces are for. They shouldn’t be there. They shouldn’t have to be there. The police should be allowed to police,” he said. “I detest the thought that it needs to be done.”

Handling crime is a strength for Trump

About half of U.S. adults, 53%, say they approve of Trump’s handling of crime, the poll finds.

That’s higher than his approval rating on the economy, immigration and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine — which are in line with his overall approval rating.

Trump’s approach on crime is similarly popular among white and Hispanic adults, with roughly half in each group saying they approve of the way he’s handling the issue. Black adults, however, are substantially less likely to say they’re on board with Trump’s approach to crime, with just 27% in favor.

Armed National Guard soldiers from West Virginia patrol the Mall near the Labor Department in Washington, where a poster of President Donald Trump is displayed, Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Trump also garners much stronger support from independents on crime than on other issues. Roughly half of independents approve of his handling of crime, compared with about 3 in 10 who approve of his handling of the economy, immigration and the Russia-Ukraine war.

Most think crime is a ‘major problem’ for large cities

There’s broad agreement among Americans that crime is a significant issue in large cities, even with incident numbers in decline.

That belief is especially pronounced among Republicans, nearly all of whom see crime as a significant problem in large cities. Roughly 7 in 10 independents and Democrats agree.

Americans who live in urban areas are also more likely to say crime is a “major problem” in their own communities.

A man has his car searched by multiple federal agencies including Department of Homeland Security investigations, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and the Washington Metro Police Department in Washington, Monday, Aug. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)

They include Tiana Parker, 30, a liberal Democrat who lives in the suburbs of Seattle. Parker is dismayed by what Trump is doing in Washington, D.C. — and his presidency overall — but nonetheless calls crime “a major problem.”

“I don’t feel safe going to Seattle, especially as a woman, at least not by myself,” said Parker, who said she was sexually assaulted on the train several years ago. There was a deadly shooting at a strip mall near where she lives last year, and there have been several times she said she has been followed while walking down the street.

While she thinks crime needs to be addressed, she believes Trump’s approach is misguided and dangerous.

“What he is doing is a waste of resources, and he’s not really attacking the real problem. It’s creating a real divide,” she said. “I think that it is a gross lack of respect and trust towards his citizens.”

That sentiment is shared by Mark Hackl, 49, an information technology director who lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and was a lifelong conservative Republican until 2016, when he left the party because he was dismayed by Trump. He is now a registered independent.

“I think crime is always an issue that needs to be addressed,” he said. “I’m always pro-law and order, so to speak.” But he said there comes a point where the ends don’t justify the means.

“My raw emotion is I’m horrified by it,” he said. “We’re not supposed to allow the active military to function in the borders of the United States.”

More think federal government should support police, rather than taking over

Still, there are limits to what the public may accept. The poll finds 55% of U.S. adults believe it is “completely” or “somewhat” unacceptable for the federal government to take control of local police departments, as Trump has effectively done in Washington.

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Republicans are overwhelmingly in favor of the federal government using the military and the National Guard to assist local police, but even they are more hesitant about the federal government taking control of local police departments.

About half of Republicans find this to be acceptable, while about one-third say it’s not. Democrats are broadly opposed to both.

For Republican David Gehret, 62, a maintenance technician who lives in rural Narvon, Pennsylvania, what Trump is doing is spot on.

“Bring it on,” he said. “Protect us.”

The AP-NORC poll of 1,182 adults was conducted Aug. 21-25, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.

Colvin reported from New York.

By RAJESH ROY, Associated Press

NEW DELHI (AP) — Steep U.S. tariffs on a range of Indian products took effect Wednesday, threatening a serious blow to India’s overseas trade in its largest export market.

President Donald Trump had initially announced a 25% tariff on Indian goods. But earlier this month he signed an executive order imposing an additional 25% tariff due to India’s purchases of Russian oil, bringing the combined tariffs imposed by the U.S. on its ally to 50%.

The Indian government estimates the tariffs will impact $48.2 billion worth of exports. Officials have warned the new duties could make shipments to the U.S. commercially unviable, triggering job losses and slower economic growth.

Workers at a manufacturing unit make leather footwear in Agra, India, Monday, Aug. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

India–U.S. trade relations have expanded in recent years but remain vulnerable to disputes over market access and domestic political pressures. India is one of the fastest-growing major global economies and it may face a slowdown as a result.

Sectors to be impacted by US tariffs

Estimates by New Delhi-based think tank Global Trade Research Initiative suggest labor-intensive sectors such as textiles, gems and jewelry, leather goods, food and automobiles will be hit hardest.

“The new tariff regime is a strategic shock that threatens to wipe out India’s long-established presence in the U.S., causing unemployment in export-driven hubs and weakening its role in the industrial value chain,” said Ajay Srivastava, the think tank’s founder and a former Indian trade official.

The U.S. has for now exempted some sectors such as pharmaceuticals and electronic goods from additional tariffs, bringing some relief for India as its exposure in these sectors is significant.

Exporters fear losses

Puran Dawar, a leather footwear exporter in northern India’s Agra city, says the industry would take a substantial hit in the near term unless domestic demand strengthens and other overseas markets buy more Indian goods.

Puran Dawar, Chairman, Dawar group, ań exporter of leather footwear talks to The Associated Press, in Agra, India, Monday, Aug. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

“This is an absolute shock,” said Dawar, whose business with the U.S. has grown in recent years. Dawar’s clients include the major fashion retailer Zara.

Dawar, who is also the regional chairman of the Council for Leather Exports — an export promotion body — said the U.S. should understand that the steep tariffs will hurt its own consumers.

Groups representing exporters warn that new import tariffs could hurt India’s small and medium enterprises that are heavily reliant on the American market.

“It’s a tricky situation. Some product lines will simply become unviable overnight,” said Ajay Sahai, director general of the Federation of Indian Export Organizations.

Modi vows not to yield to US pressure

The tariffs come as the U.S. administration continues to push for greater access to India’s agriculture and dairy sectors.

India and the U.S. have held five rounds of negotiations for a bilateral trade agreement, but have yet to reach a deal. That’s largely because New Delhi has resisted opening these sectors to cheaper American imports, citing concerns that doing so would endanger the jobs of millions of Indians.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has vowed not to yield to the pressure.

“For me, the interests of farmers, small businesses and dairy are topmost. My government will ensure they aren’t impacted,” Modi said at a rally this week in his home state of Gujarat.

Modi said the world was witnessing a “politics of economic selfishness.”

A U.S. delegation canceled plans to visit New Delhi this week for a sixth round of trade talks.

India plans local reforms to cushion the blow from tariffs

The Indian government has begun working on reforms to boost local consumption and insulate the economy.

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It has moved to change the goods and services tax, or consumption tax, to lower costs for insurance, cars and appliances ahead of the major Hindu festival of Diwali in October.

The government council will meet early next month to decide whether to cut taxes.

The Trade Ministry and Finance Ministry are discussing financial incentives that would include favorable bank loan rates for exporters.

The Trade Ministry is also weighing steps to expand exports to other regions, particularly Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia. Trade negotiations underway with the European Union could gain renewed urgency as India works to reduce its dependence on the U.S. market.

Associated Press video journalist Rishi Lekhi contributed to this report.

I will leave it to historians to debate whether Israel is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip. But what is absolutely clear to me right now is that this Israeli government is committing suicide, homicide and fratricide.

It is destroying Israel’s standing in the world, it is killing civilians in Gaza with seemingly no regard for innocent human life, and it is tearing apart Israeli society and world Jewry, between those Jews who want to still stand with Israel no matter what and those who can no longer tolerate, explain or justify where this Israeli government is taking the Jewish state and now want to distance themselves from it.

I was struck by this paragraph in The New York Times’ story from Israel on Monday about the Israeli strikes on a hospital in southern Gaza, killing at least 20 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry — including five journalists who worked for international media outlets, plus medics and several others: “The Israeli military said it had carried out a strike in the area of Nasser Hospital, without saying what the target was. The statement said the military regretted ‘any harm to uninvolved individuals,’ adding that its chief of staff had ordered an immediate inquiry.”

Obviously sensing that many around the world were appalled by this explanation — I mean, how many times have we heard this? — the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a rare statement of contrition, saying that “Israel deeply regrets the tragic mishap.”

The truth is, though, what Netanyahu called a “tragic mishap” is the inevitable byproduct of his policy of stringing out the war in Gaza in order to stay in power, to avoid his criminal trials and to avoid any Israeli inquiry commission into his profound complicity in the failure to prevent the surprise attack by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023. For Netanyahu to stay in power, he needs the support of far-right ministers, such as Bezalel Smotrich, who is engaged in an effort to carpet the West Bank with as many Jewish settlements as he can to prevent any Palestinian state from emerging there. Smotrich is also encouraging the eviction of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza, to pave the way for Israel to absorb both.

But here’s the problem: Israel has already devastated Hamas as a military force and killed virtually all of its top commanders who planned the Oct. 7 attack. So now, to justify the continued war effort, it must go after lower-level commanders, who are living and hiding among civilians.

It is one thing for a country at war to justify collateral damage when going after the enemy’s top leaders. It is something entirely more sinister when you are killing and wounding dozens of civilians to try to kill, say, the deputy to the deputy commander.

It is also devious and sinister when you use your military to move hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians from one part of Gaza to the other — under the guise of evacuating them from fighting zones — and then deliberately bulldoze the homes they left behind for no real military reason but with the clear ulterior motive of making life so miserable for them that they will leave the area entirely. And it is shameful when you stop and start humanitarian aid, with the hope that people will get hungry enough to leave.

But as I said, this is not just homicide pure and simple; it is also suicide and fratricide. Israel is now well on its way to making itself a pariah state — to the point that Israelis will think twice about speaking Hebrew when traveling abroad.

Consider these recent news items from around the world:

— “The manager of a leisure park in southern France has been detained for alleged religious discrimination after a group of Israeli children were refused access.”

— “Australia has hit back at Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu after he branded the country’s prime minister ‘weak,’ with an Australian minister accusing the Israeli leader of conflating strength with killing people.”

— “When 1,600 Israelis aboard a Mano Maritime cruise were stranded off the Greek island of Syros … as protesters blocked their entry, it was a jarring reminder that Israeli tourists today can face hostility simply because of their passports.”

Unfair, says the Israeli government. The world seems to have forgotten, it argues, that Hamas murdered some 1,200 people; kidnapped some 250, including women, children and elderly; and is still holding some alive in inhumane conditions in tunnels and elsewhere in Gaza. Hamas’ leadership could have ended all of this suffering by agreeing to quit Gaza and release all its hostages. By perpetuating this war, Hamas has also engaged in its own heinous crimes — the murder of Israeli hostages and the human sacrifice of thousands of Palestinians to Hamas’ mad dreams.

It’s all true — and relevant.

So why is the world ganging up only on Israel now? Because it holds Israel to a higher standard than Hamas, because Israel has always held itself to a higher standard.

And because the world can tell the difference now between a war being waged for the survival of the Jewish state and a war being waged for the political survival of its prime minister. And finally, because the world can no longer look the other way, as it did for months, at the loss of Palestinian civilian life in Gaza as the inevitable byproduct of a war in which — it hoped — Israel was trying to expel Hamas from Gaza and replace it with an Arab peacekeeping force in partnership with the Palestinian Authority. The PA has recognized Israel and could, if reformed, be a partner for a two-state solution.

But because Netanyahu has now made it crystal clear that he refuses to let Gaza be ruled by either Hamas or the PA, the war increasingly looks like what it now is: a war to extend Israel’s occupation from the West Bank to Gaza. So it appears to many around the world that Palestinian civilians are being killed by the dozen almost daily as the inevitable spillover not from a just war for Israeli survival and an attempt to produce a better Palestinian partner in Gaza but rather from an effort to ensure that Israel has no Palestinian partner in Gaza.

Is it any wonder Israel is losing so many friends around the world — as well as potential regional partners like Saudi Arabia — for whom this is becoming obvious?

As for fratricide, if this war continues this way, it is going to rip apart many, many synagogues around the world during the Jewish High Holidays this year — between those who feel the need to stand with Israel, right or wrong, and those who simply can’t stand this Israeli government’s awful behavior in Gaza any longer, especially when they see hundreds of thousands of Israelis themselves taking to the streets against this government.

It is also going to rip apart the Democratic Party, between those who are afraid to defy the influential Israeli lobbying group AIPAC, for fear of losing campaign funding to their Republican opponents, and those who just can’t stand it any longer.

Alas, if this is geopolitical suicide, as I believe, it has become assisted suicide. There is one person who could stop it all right now, and that is President Donald Trump. I hope that I am wrong, but I fear that — just as Trump was duped by Russian President Vladimir Putin into giving up on a ceasefire in Ukraine and opting instead for the chimera of total peace — Trump has been duped by Netanyahu into giving up on a ceasefire in Gaza in pursuit of Bibi’s fantasy of “total victory.”

Thomas Friedman writes a column for the New York Times.