By PAN PYLAS

LONDON (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump will make an unprecedented second state visit to the U.K. between Sept. 17 and 19 when he will be hosted by King Charles II and Queen Camilla at Windsor Castle, Buckingham Palace said Monday.

Trump, who is a big supporter of the royal family, particularly of the monarch, will be accompanied by his wife, Melania Trump during the three-day visit, the palace confirmed.

No U.S. president has been invited for a second state visit. Trump previously enjoyed the pomp and pageantry of the state visit in 2019 during his first term when he was hosted by Charles’ late mother, Queen Elizabeth II.

The invitation for the second state visit from the king was hand-delivered by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in February during a meeting at the White House.

After reading it, Trump said it was a “great, great honor” and appeared particularly pleased by the fact he will be staying at Windsor Castle, to the west of the capital. “That’s really something,” he said.

Precedent for second-term U.S. presidents who have already made a state visit is usually tea or lunch with the monarch at Windsor Castle, as was the case for George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

State visits are ceremonial meetings between heads of state that are used to honor friendly nations and sometimes smooth relations between rivals. While the king formally issues the invitation for a state visit, he does so on the advice of the elected government.

The visit is seen as part of Starmer’s effort to keep Trump close and lessen the impact of some of his polices on the U.K. The relationship between the two appears amicable, and has helped the U.K. from facing the sort of hefty U.S. tariffs that other nations are seeing.

But like Trump’s previous visit, it’s unlikely he will be welcomed by all. Last time, a day of protests saw the flying of a giant blimp depicting Trump as an angry orange baby from outside Parliament.

Lawmakers from Starmer’s Labour Party have also questioned whether the honor should be extended to Trump at a time that he is supporting Israel’s war in Gaza and threatening the sovereignty of allies such as Canada and Greenland.

Charles could also face some challenges during the visit because he is head of state of both the United Kingdom and Canada, which Trump has suggested should become the 51st U.S. state. During a speech to the Canadian parliament in May the king highlighted Canada’s “unique identity” and “sovereignty,” while echoing the words of the country’s national anthem when he said “The True North is indeed strong and free.”

State visits to Britain are particularly prized by heads of state because they come with a full complement of royal pomp and circumstance, including military reviews, carriage rides and a glittering state banquet hosted by the monarch.

The events normally take place in and around Buckingham Palace in central London. But like last week’s state visit from French President Emmanual Macron and his wife Brigitte, the Trumps will stay at Windsor Castle. Buckingham Palace is undergoing extensive remodeling.

Getting a daily caffeine fix could become more expensive.

President Donald Trump’s plan to impose a 50% tariff on all imports from Brazil starting next month would drive up the price of coffee, whether it’s served in cafes or brewed in the kitchen.

Such a tariff would put more pressure on the coffee industry as prices have peaked globally this year. Droughts in Brazil and Vietnam, two of the biggest coffee exporters to the United States, have resulted in smaller harvests in recent seasons, driving up prices.

Consumers are already paying more at the grocery store. At the end of May, the average price of 1 pound of ground roast coffee in the U.S. was $7.93, up from $5.99 at the same time last year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Trump’s pledge to place tariffs on imports from Brazil is partly in retaliation for what he considers a “witch hunt” against his political ally, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who is facing trial for attempting a coup.

More than 99% of the coffee Americans consume is imported from South America, Africa and Asia. Last year, the United States imported 1.6 million metric tons of both unroasted and roasted coffee, according to the Agriculture Department.

Brazil accounted last year for more than 8.1 million bags, each with 60 kilograms of coffee, that came into the United States. Any sudden shift would be a “lose-lose situation,” said Guilherme Morya, a coffee analyst for Rabobank based in São Paulo.

Brazilian suppliers, he said, are holding tight and waiting to see if any negotiations will save them from needing to find buyers in other countries.

Should the new 50% tariffs take effect, “we’re going to see a reshape in the coffee flow in the world,” Morya said. “Especially Brazil to other regions.”

If wholesale costs — what restaurant chains or grocery stores pay — for coffee rise by 50%, that could translate to an increase of 25 cents a cup within three months, said Ryan Cummings, the chief of staff for the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.

It would take about three months after the tariff goes into effect for consumers to see higher prices at stores, he said.

Large coffee buyers, like Starbucks, source their coffee from all over the world, and often sign contracts months or years in advance for beans, somewhat insulating them from immediate price shocks. Still, some analysts said, there could be a scramble as some customers try to shift their supply chains to avoid the tariffs on coffee from Brazil.

“With Trump doing this Whac-a-Mole tariff strategy, it’s going to cause you, as a coffee manufacturer, a lot of uncertainty,” Cummings said.

But even changing suppliers comes with issues. Should manufacturers pivot more of their buying to Vietnam, another large coffee producer, they would be reliant on a smaller output.

And in addition to a possible disruption in quantity, the quality of the coffee coming into the United States could change. Much of the coffee produced in Brazil is arabica, a higher quality than the more bitter robusta mostly produced in Vietnam and the rest of Asia.

Other suppliers would be unlikely to match Brazil’s robust output, including Vietnam, which has seen a recent decline in its coffee production. The country would not be able, in the short- or medium term, “to stem the flow,” said David Gantz, an economist at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.

In Brazil, “some of the exports will probably cease entirely,” Gantz added. “Others will continue, but the consumer will end up paying a higher price.”

Coffee must be grown under the right conditions. It grows best at higher altitudes, in places with tropical temperatures and heavy rainfall. In the United States and its territories, that’s limited to Hawaii and Puerto Rico.

The United States last year produced a small fraction of the coffee consumed by Americans — 11,462 metric tons — and nearly all of it in Hawaii. Hawaii’s coffee is mostly a specialty product, and costs two or three times more than even high quality imported beans.

Labor costs are much higher in Hawaii, as are commodities like water and energy, so there is little chance the state can meaningfully produce more coffee for the American market, even if tariffs drive up the costs of its competitors.

“We can’t grow enough coffee,” said Shawn Steiman, the owner of Coffea Consulting in Honolulu. “The Hawaiian coffee market isn’t tied to the global industry.”

Some consumers — especially those who view coffee not as a luxury but a daily necessity — may just pay a higher price, while others may trade down to cheaper coffee products or to other caffeine products like tea or energy drinks.

Consumers do notice when the price of coffee drinks rises. Starbucks recently began charging a flat fee of 80 cents if customers added one or more pumps of flavored syrups to their beverages. Starbucks played down the change, saying it was done simply to standardize pricing across its stores and on its app.

“They sure did raise prices,” said Brandon Taylor, a video producer in Orlando, Florida, who was unhappy when his regular order of a tall iced coffee with cream and caramel syrup jumped to $5.35 because of the new 80-cent charge for the syrup. He canceled his order. “I don’t plan on going back.”

The tariffs could also threaten another morning staple. About 90% of the fresh orange juice and 55% of the frozen orange juice the United States imports comes from Brazil, according to Agriculture Department data.

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Brazil also exports large quantities of concentrated orange pulp, what is then turned into orange juice. And Florida, a major domestic producer of the fruit, has faced recent growing difficulties partly because of a citrus disease.

“There would be a huge impact on people who drink orange juice because Florida can’t possibly make up the slack,” Gantz said.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Last week President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice delivered a blow to one of the foundational beliefs of the MAGA movement, one that helped carry him back to the White House.

In an unsigned memorandum, the department declared that there was no evidence that Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced deceased convicted sexual predator, maintained a client list or that he blackmailed prominent individuals for various misdeeds. The memorandum also declared that Epstein committed suicide.

Most Americans saw this news (if they saw it at all) and barely raised an eyebrow. The Epstein story was part of the past; he died in 2019. But it detonated like a bomb in the MAGA universe. Pro-Trump influencers with vast audiences couldn’t believe what they were reading.

After all, they’d been told for years that there was an Epstein client list. Pam Bondi, Trump’s attorney general, told Fox News in February that the client list was “sitting on my desk right now to review.” (She later claimed that she was referring to the Epstein case file, not a specific client list.)

In October 2024, JD Vance, then a candidate for vice president, said, “Seriously, we need to release the Epstein list. That is an important thing.”

Before he was Trump’s director of the FBI, Kash Patel told Glenn Beck, a right-wing radio host, that the FBI had Epstein’s “black book” and that it was “under direct control of the director of the FBI.” In 2023, Patel told Benny Johnson, a MAGA podcaster, that members of Congress should “put on your big-boy pants and let us know who the pedophiles are.”

In September 2024, Dan Bongino, now the deputy director of the FBI, told his listeners, “Folks, the Epstein client list is a huge deal” that would “rock the Democrat Party.”

These quotations are a small fraction of the right-wing discourse about Epstein. During the Trump era, references to Epstein have been ubiquitous in MAGA circles. And the statement “Epstein didn’t kill himself” was so popular that it leaked out into the wider American culture.

The Epstein story mattered so much in MAGA circles because it was a key element in their indictment of America’s so-called ruling class. Trump’s appeal to the Republican base isn’t just rooted in his supporters’ extraordinary affection for the man; it’s also rooted in their almost indescribably dark view of the American government.

Why are they so keen to burn it all down? Well, if you believe your government is populated by people so depraved that they’d participate in and cover up the systematic sexual abuse of children, then you wouldn’t just want them out of office; you’d want them prosecuted, imprisoned and maybe even executed. And you’d want all the power you’d need to make that happen.

And if you believe that the ruling elites would abuse children, then they’d certainly be the kind of people who’d gin up a Russia hoax or try to steal an election in 2020. People who are that terrible are capable of anything. And if you wonder why MAGA turned on the FBI and the Department of Justice, well, it’s not just about the Russia investigation or the FBI search of Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago. MAGA America also believed the FBI was protecting pedophiles to preserve the status quo.

On the right, the Epstein story became the thinking man’s version of the QAnon conspiracy theory — the idea that American society was led by a gang of cannibalistic pedophiles. Whereas QAnon was rooted in the imaginary revelations of a shadowy figure who claimed Q security clearance, at least the Epstein story was rooted in some very grim, very real facts.

Epstein was a monstrous and grotesque sexual predator. Along with his convicted confederate, Ghislaine Maxwell, he systematically groomed and sexually abused (and enabled the sexual abuse of) hundreds and hundreds of young women and girls.

He was also one of the most well-connected people in the world. A host of powerful people attended his parties and rode on his jet.

Oddly enough — considering MAGA’s obsession with Epstein — one of his most powerful friends was Trump. They flew together, they partied together, and in 2002, Trump told New York magazine: “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy.” But Trump also made this ominous observation, “It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.” After Maxwell’s arrest, Trump said: “I haven’t really been following it too much. I just wish her well, frankly.”

This was the man that MAGA trusted to fully expose Epstein and all his misdeeds?

Make no mistake: MAGA is very angry. After the Department of Justice released its memo, MAGA influencers exploded. Tucker Carlson was furious. “The whole thing that this tape shows that he didn’t kill himself is, like, a joke, but worse than that, it’s a joke that we all get,” he said. “I feel like we’re at a dangerous point now.”

Alex Jones said the Trump administration was now “part of the cover-up.” On the social platform X, Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote, “RELEASE THE EPSTEIN CLIENT LIST!!!!”

This moment is significant for another reason: It allows us to peer into the future of MAGA and see its potential crackup. After Trump is gone, this movement could tear itself apart. Its very existence is premised on a series of fantastical assertions about America and American government.

This means that MAGA influencers are constantly deceiving themselves, one another and the right-wing public. It’s an ecosystem that operates in a constant state of crisis and grievance, and MAGA supporters are so convinced that the worst possible stories are real that they’ll turn on anyone not named Donald Trump who dares to tell them the truth — or who deviates in the slightest bit from the stories they tell themselves.

Once Trump leaves office, there will be no one left to end the internal arguments and direct everyone to fall in line. If the Democrats have a problem of too many purity tests, Republicans will soon experience the consequences of putting together a coalition that may have too few. In red America, you can believe anything so long as you support Trump.

Remove that man, and only the grievances remain, and many of MAGA’s grievances are against other Republicans. The GOP coalition contains pro-vaccine and anti-vaccine factions, internationalists and isolationists, normie Republicans and wild conspiracy theorists.

Republican ideological diversity is its temporary strength. It could build a tent big enough to win very close to a majority of the popular vote. But by pulling a critical mass of disgruntled Americans into one party, Republicans have created a culture of constant conflict, and those conflicts are often rooted in completely false beliefs about American life.

Those internal conflicts are fully underway. CNN’s Kaitlan Collins reported Friday that “it’s hard to overstate the infighting” in MAGA over the Epstein case. Also on Friday, Axios reported that Bongino took the day off work after clashing with Bondi at the White House, and CNN is reporting that he’s considering resigning from the FBI. In fact, we can see a consensus hardening against Bondi: “She’s the culprit. She’s the one who pulled the bait and switch. She told us that the list was on her desk.”

Trump himself isn’t immune from attack. As part of his divorce from the MAGA movement, Elon Musk has claimed that Trump and his longtime ally Steve Bannon are in the Epstein files. “How,” Musk posted Tuesday, “can people be expected to have faith in Trump if he won’t release the Epstein files?”

By Saturday evening, Trump had enough. He posted a long screed on Truth Social that declared his support for Bondi — he said she was doing a “FANTASTIC JOB!” — and then bizarrely claimed that the Epstein files were written by “Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the losers and criminals of the Biden administration.” In a pointed reference to Patel, he said that the FBI should be focused on investigating “Voter Fraud, Political Corruption, ActBlue, the Rigged and Stolen Election of 2020, and arresting thugs and criminals,” rather than “spending month after month looking at nothing but the same old Radical Left inspired Documents on Jeffrey Epstein.”

Judging from the early response online, MAGA is not satisfied. The usually faithful Benny Johnson was shaken. “By admitting that the Epstein Files are real,” he said, “and that you’ve read them, and you don’t like their contents, and they were written by your enemies, it doesn’t make the most compelling case as far as I’m concerned. Holy moly.”

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The Epstein case remains a bit of a black box to most Americans. We still don’t know all the details of Epstein’s relationships with the rich and powerful, and in the absence of knowledge, wild allegations spread unhindered by hard facts.

This much we do know: Some of MAGA’s most trusted voices — including Patel, Bondi, Bongino and Trump himself — are suddenly telling their movement: Move along, there’s nothing to see here. But MAGA does not want to hear what they have to say.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

A ninth inning Pittsburgh Pirates run prevented the Minnesota Twins, once again, from sweeping a series. The Pirates strung together a trio of singles and got a good bounce to push across a late run, winning 2-1 in the final game for both teams before the All-Star break.

It was the third consecutive series where Minnesota won the first two games, then fell in the potential clincher. They stand at 47-49 at the unofficial halfway point of the season.

Twins ace reliever Jhoan Duran took the loss, while Pirates closer allowed a leadoff single by Carlos Correa, then struck out Brooks Lee and Royce Lewis and got a Ty France groundout for the win.

Tommy Pham took the second pitch of the second inning deep, hitting his fourth homer of the season into the foliage beyond the centerfield fence, and giving the Pirates the early 1-0 lead. They recorded two more hits in the inning and loaded the bases with two outs, but starter Simeon Woods Richardson got Andrew McCutchen to fly out to right, ending the threat.

Woods Richardson lasted 4-⅔ innings, allowing six hits and striking out three

Minnesota got a leadoff double from Correa to open its half of the second, but Keller coaxed a strikeout, a groundout and a fly out to keep Correa stranded at second base. But the Twins found the equalizer in the fourth when Harrison Bader singled to start the frame, went to second on a Christian Vasquez groundout, and came home when Byron Buxton dropped a double at the base of the wall in left field.

Pittsburgh starter Mitch Keller, who had won his two previous career starts versus Minnesota, allowed four hits in six innings of work, striking out three with no walks.

Things were still tied in the eighth when the Twins threatened but did not pull ahead. Vasquez and Buxton hit back-to-back one-out singles to get a runner in scoring position, but Willi Castro’s swinging bunt led to a force-out at third, and Trevor Larnach flied out to center to end the inning.

In the ninth, the Pirates responded with three consecutive one-out singles to load the bases off Twins closer Jhoan Duran. Spencer Horwitz slapped a hard-hit bouncer to second base, and the ball appeared to stick in the glove of Twins infielder Brooks Lee, just long enough to negate any possible double play and allow Ke’Bryan Hayes to score from third.

Pirates shortstop Isiah Kiner-Falefa tied a career-best, going 4-for-4 in the game.

The Twins are off until Friday, when they visit MLB-worst Colorado for a trio of games.

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