By TERESA CEROJANO, Associated Press

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Just hours after hitting all-time highs, Wall Street was poised to open with losses on Friday, a possible sign that President Donald Trump’s wave of tariff letters is again raising concern among investors.

Futures for the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq fell 0.5% before the bell, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average futures slid 0.6%.

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Trump said in a letter Thursday that he will raise taxes on many imported goods from Canada to 35%, deepening the rift between the longtime North American allies. The letter to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is an aggressive increase to the top 25% tariff rates that Trump first imposed in March.

“Just as the market was catching its breath at new highs — drunk on Nvidia fumes and blissfully ignoring the dollar’s quiet groan — President Trump tugged the rug again,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary.

“Asian equities, initially hopeful, wilted into flat lines as if someone had pulled the plug on the optimism generator. There’s a growing sense now that risk has become radioactive — tradable, but only in hazmat gloves,” Innes added.

Following weeks of anxiety and wild swings in the market spurred by Trump’s tariff rollouts in the spring, markets have been relatively stable the past couple of months, steadily rising to record levels.

Meanwhile, bitcoin climbed to a new all-time high Friday, briefly eclipsing $118,000 before settling around $117,600.

The token’s price jump came amid bullish momentum across risk assets and coincides with Nvidia’s surge to a $4 trillion valuation. It also comes days before the U.S. Congress’ Crypto Week on July 14, where lawmakers will debate a series of bills that could define the regulatory framework for the industry.

Levi Strauss jumped 6.4% overnight after the jeans maker easily beat Wall Street’s sales and profit targets and raised its full-year forecast, despite including the impact of higher tariffs.

Shares of T-Mobile were largely unchanged after the Justice Department announced Thursday that it would not prevent the company from closing on its proposed $4.4 billion acquisition of U.S. Cellular. That deal, announced more than a year ago, had come under antitrust scrutiny from the Justice Department under President Joe Biden’s administration.

U.S. Cellular shares were up a modest 1.2% in premarket.

In midday European trading, Germany’s DAX and Paris’s CAC 40 each shed 0.8%, while Britain’s FTSE 100 lost 0.4%.

In Asia, shares were mixed. Chinese markets were sharply higher in earlier trading, buoyed by signs of possible additional stimulus measures in China and Goldman Sachs Group’s upgrade of Hong Kong stocks to market-weight. The gains were later trimmed, with the Hang Seng in Hong Kong finishing 0.6% higher to 24,172.50, and the Shanghai Composite up 0.1% to 3,510.18 .

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 closed 0.2% lower to 39,569.68, while South Korea’s Kospi shed 0.2% to 3,173.77.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 slipped 0.1% to 8,580.10, and India’s BSE Sensex fell 0.8% to 82,518.15.

In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude added 77 cents to $67.34 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard for oil prices, gained 68 cents to $69.32 per barrel.

The dollar was trading at 146.95 Japanese yen, up from 146.20 yen. The euro slid to $1.1695 from $1.1704.

LONDON (AP) — Grammy-winning singer Chris Brown on Friday pleaded not guilty to two further charges related to the serious beating of a music producer with a bottle in a London nightclub in 2023.

Brown, 36, denied the more serious charge of attempting to cause grievous bodily harm at a hearing last month.

The singer, wearing a light brown suit, pleaded not guilty to assault causing actual bodily harm to Abraham Diaw at the Tape nightclub in the swanky London neighborhood of Mayfair in February 2023.

He also denied having an offensive weapon — a bottle — in a public place during the short hearing at Southwark Crown Court.

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Around 20 fans sat in the public gallery behind the dock for Friday’s hearing, with several gasping as the singer of “Go Crazy,” “Run It” and “Kiss Kiss” walked into the courtroom.

Co-defendant — Brown’s friend and fellow musician — Omololu Akinlolu, 39, also denied actual bodily harm on Friday.

The 2023 attack was caught on surveillance camera in front of a club full of people, prosecutors said.

Brown was released in May on bail of 5 million pounds ($6.75 million), which allowed him to start his “Breezy Bowl XX” tour. Following a series of dates in Europe, he’s set to return to North America at the end of July to play in Miami, before moving across the U.S. with a two-night stop in Toronto along the way.

Brown, who rose to stardom as a teen in 2005, won his first Grammy for best R&B album in 2011 for “F.A.M.E..” He earned his second in the same category for “11:11 (Deluxe)” earlier this year.

By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Diplomatic Writer

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — The State Department is firing more than 1,300 employees on Friday in line with a dramatic reorganization plan initiated by the Trump administration earlier this year.

The department is sending layoff notices to 1,107 civil servants and 246 foreign service officers with domestic assignments in the United States, said a senior State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters ahead of individual notices being emailed to affected employees.

Foreign service officers affected will be placed immediately on administrative leave for 120 days, after which they will formally lose their jobs, according to an internal notice obtained by The Associated Press. For most affected civil servants, the separation period is 60 days, it said.

“In connection with the departmental reorganization … the department is streamlining domestic operations to focus on diplomatic priorities,” the notice says. “Headcount reductions have been carefully tailored to affect non-core functions, duplicative or redundant offices, and offices where considerable efficiencies may be found from centralization or consolidation of functions and responsibilities.”

While lauded by President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and their Republican allies as overdue and necessary to make the department leaner, more nimble and more efficient, the cuts have been roundly criticized by current and former diplomats who say they will weaken U.S. influence and its ability to counter existing and emerging threats abroad.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio gives a media briefing during the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting at the Convention Centre in Kuala Lumpur Friday, July 11, 2025. (Mandel Ngan/Pool Photo via AP)

The Trump administration has pushed to reshape American diplomacy and worked aggressively to shrink the size of the federal government, including mass dismissals as part of moves to dismantle whole departments like the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Education Department.

A recent ruling by the Supreme Court cleared the way for the layoffs to start, while lawsuits challenging the legality of the cuts continue to play out. The department had formally advised staffers on Thursday that it would be sending layoff notices to some of them soon. The job cuts are large but considerably less than many had feared.

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Rubio said officials took “a very deliberate step to reorganize the State Department to be more efficient and more focused.”

“It’s not a consequence of trying to get rid of people. But if you close the bureau, you don’t need those positions,” he told reporters Thursday in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where he’s attending the annual Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum. “Understand that some of these are positions that are being eliminated, not people.”

He said some of the cuts will be unfilled positions or those that are about to be vacant because an employee took an early retirement.

The American Foreign Service Association, the union that represents diplomats, urged the State Department last month to hold off on job cuts.

Notices for a reduction in force, which would not only lay off employees but eliminate positions altogether, “should be a last resort,” association President Tom Yazdgerdi said. “Disrupting the Foreign Service like this puts national interests at risk — and Americans everywhere will bear the consequences.”