By STAN CHOE AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are leaping Monday after China and the United States announced a 90-day truce in their trade war. They agreed to take down most of their tariffs that economists warned could start a recession and create shortages on U.S. store shelves.

The S&P 500 was 2.6% higher in early trading and back within 5.5% of its all-time high set in February. Since falling nearly 20% below that mark last month, the index has been roaring higher on hopes that President Donald Trump will lower his tariffs after reaching trade deals with other countries. The index, which sits at the heart of many 401(k) accounts, is back above where it was on April 2, Trump’s “Liberation Day,” when he announced stiff worldwide tariffs that caused worries to spike about a potentially self-inflicted recession.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 957 points, or 2.3%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 3.6% higher.

It wasn’t just stocks surging following what one analyst called a “best case scenario” for US-China tariff talks. Crude oil prices jumped more than 3% because a global economy less weakened by tariffs would be hungrier for fuel. The value of the dollar climbed against everything from the euro to the Japanese yen to the Swiss franc. And Treasury yields jumped on expectations that the Federal Reserve won’t have to cut interest rates so deeply this year in order to protect the economy from the damage of tariffs.

Of course, conditions could change quickly again, as Wall Street has seen all too often in Trump’s on-again-off-again rollout of tariffs. Plus, the reduction in U.S. and China tariffs will last only 90 days. That’s to give the world’s two largest economies time for more talks followed last weekend’s negotiations in Geneva, Switzerland, that the U.S. side said had made “ substantial progress.”

Until then, a joint statement said the United States will cut tariffs on Chinese goods to 30% from as high as 145%. China said its tariffs on U.S. goods will fall to 10% from 125%. That follows a deal the United States announced last week with the United Kingdom that will bring down tariffs on many U.K. imports to 10%.

Big challenges remain in the negotiations between China and the United States, but the mood nevertheless was ebullient across Wall Street on Monday, and gains were widespread.

Apparel companies jumped to some of the biggest gains because much of their production is often in China and elsewhere in Asia. Lululemon leaped 10%, and Nike rose 7.3%.

Travel companies jumped on hopes that lower tariffs would encourage more customers to fly and feel comfortable enough to spend on trips. Carnival rose 8.9% and Norwegian Cruise Line rose 8%.

Retailers like Best Buy and Amazon jumped because they won’t have to pass on high costs caused by tariffs to their own customers. Both rose at least 7%.

In stock markets abroad, indexes rose across most of Europe and Asia, though often by less than the U.S. market.

India’s Sensex shot up 3.7% after India and Pakistan agreed to a truce after talks to defuse their most serious military confrontation in decades. The two armies have exchanged gunfire, artillery strikes, missiles and drones that killed dozens of people.

Pakistan’s KSE 100 surged more than 9% and trading was halted for one hour following a spike driven by the ceasefire and an International Monetary Fund decision Friday to disburse about $1 billion of a bailout package for its battered economy.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury jumped to 4.45% from 4.37% late Friday. The two-year yield, which more closely tracks expectations for what the Fed will do with interest rates, jumped even more. It rose to 3.99% from 3.88% as traders ratchet back expectations for how many cuts to rates the Fed may deliver this year. Many now see just two cuts this year, according to data from CME Group.

AP Business Writers Matt Ott, Jiang Junzhe and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.

A driver was killed Sunday night in St. Paul when another driver sped through a red light and struck his vehicle, police said.

Preliminary information is that alcohol may have been a factor in the crash, said St. Paul Police Sgt. Toy Vixayvong, a department spokesman.

Police responded shortly after 7:30 p.m. Sunday at Arlington Avenue and Dale Street. A man driving a sedan west on Arlington ran a red light light at Dale and hit a sport-utility vehicle that was heading south on Dale, Vixayvong said.

The SUV was pushed about 40 yards and St. Paul firefighters extricated the driver from the vehicle. Fire department medics transported the man to Regions Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The suspect was taken to Regions Hospital with apparent non-life threatening injuries. Information was not immediately available Monday morning about whether he’s in custody.

The investigation is ongoing.

Related Articles

Fallen Burnsville, Minneapolis officers to be recognized at national law enforcement memorial

MN moves to strengthen DWI laws after fatal St. Louis Park crash

Battle of the Badges to benefit Cottage Grove-area charities

Trump nominates Daniel Rosen as next U.S. Attorney for Minnesota

Florida man gored by bison in year’s first attack by Yellowstone’s most dangerous wild animal

Trump’s decision to halt new permits for offshore wind and pause construction of New York’s Empire Wind project puts thousands of local jobs at risk and jeopardizes the promise of a $12 billion economic boost to the state.

A model wind turbine during a 2022 press conference at the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal, where officials announced plans to transform the site “into one of the largest offshore wind port facilities in the nation.” (Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)

The Empire State is standing up to President Donald Trump’s attacks on the development of offshore wind farms.

“New York is not backing down without a fight,” Gov. Kathy Hochul said on Monday after Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit to stop an executive order that suspended new leasing and permitting for wind projects.

And it may not be the only legal challenge on the horizon. 

Offshore wind developer Equinor is also considering suing the Trump administration after the president halted work in mid-April on its New York based wind farm, Empire Wind 1. Although it took 14 years to secure federal approvals for the venture, the administration claimed the process had been “rushed” and all work needed to stop on site until “further review is completed.”

Trump, who received record donations from fossil fuel industry groups on the campaign trail, has pitted himself against the generation of non-polluting electricity through renewable sources like wind and promised to drill for more oil and gas instead. 

But offshore wind advocates in New York challenge the President’s claims that he is ushering in a “golden age” of economic prosperity. Halting wind projects is actually bad for the economy and threatens local jobs, they say.

If New York makes the five offshore wind solicitations it has in the pipeline a reality, it would generate a “combined economic impact of more than $12.1 billion” across the state, according to state authorities. And it would “support more than 6,800 jobs” with “average salaries of approximately $100,000 per year.”

On the local level, New York City’s South Brooklyn Marine Terminal, an industrial port in Sunset Park, was slated to become an operational and maintenance hub for Empire Wind and other offshore ventures. These plans are part of a larger push to transform the industrial zone, which has long been overlooked for economic investment, into what the city calls “a prime destination for environmentally sustainable industry.”

“The Trump Administration’s stop-work order on the Empire Wind 1 project—and offshore wind generally—is a devastating hit to South Brooklyn’s economy as well as the nation’s,” said New York Congressman Dan Goldman in an email.

The project was set to result in $195 million in income for New Yorkers. On the state level, it would inject $1.6 billion into New York’s economy during the planning and construction phases of the project, the developer Equinor notes. 

“By halting this fully permitted, fully financed, American-made project, President Trump not only hurts working families in Brooklyn, he stalls a major opportunity for long-term economic growth in our region,” Goldman added.

Drone footage of the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal site, which officials planned to turn into “one of the largest offshore wind port facilities in the nation.” Courtesy of Equinor.

Local jobs in limbo

When Christopher Erikson, business manager for Local Union No. 3, which represents employees at the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal (SBMT), heard that a stop work order was issued on Empire Wind, he was sorely disappointed. 

Construction on the SBMT, which has already employed over 1,500 people and sought to power half a million New York homes with clean energy, was more than 50 percent complete.

“We were anticipating this work opportunity for such a long time and to see it almost come to fruition, only to have the rug pulled out from under us, was disappointing to say the least,” Erikson told City Limits. 

The facility was on its way to becoming an assembly and maintenance hub for turbines that would be later ferried out and installed at sea to capture wind and generate electricity.

“But we live to fight another day,” Erickson said, pointing out that while Equinor has halted work offshore to comply with the stop-work order, it continues construction on building out the SBMT facility on land.

The decision to pause offshore construction was given after Trump’s Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum instructed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), which is responsible for issuing the permits, to “cease all construction activities” on the project. Burgum claimed on social media site X that he had received information “that suggests the Biden administration rushed through its approval without sufficient analysis.”

While BOEM didn’t comment on the stop-order, it stated in a letter that Empire Wind may not “resume activities” until the agency has completed its “necessary review” of the approved permits.

But Equinor’s Empire Wind, which Gov. Hochul described as a “fully federally permitted” venture, reportedly underwent a 14-year permitting process. The federal review for setting up in the New York area began in 2011. Equinor then obtained its first lease for the project in 2017 during Trump’s first presidency, and its final federal approval in 2024.

In the end, pausing a project that has been over a decade in the making will have direct implications for workers and the surrounding community relying on the future cash flow. 

Equinor signed a Project Labor Agreement (PLA) for the construction of SBMT that guaranteed “over 1,000 union construction jobs and apprenticeships in local New York communities,” the developer said in a press release. 

The agreement prioritizes hiring union members from the Sunset Park community, and secondarily, union members from New York City.

It also “includes a local hire requirement that gives priority to union members who are Section 3 New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) residents, veterans, and those who live in Sunset Park,” Equinor noted.

Bad for business

Not only were locals counting on job opportunities, but Equinor says about 100 current employees who were responsible for setting up the wind farm’s structure in the sea bed off shore had to stop working immediately and can’t count on a future paycheck.

“This really does affect people’s lives,” said Esther Rosario, executive director of the labor union coalition Climate Jobs NY.

“We can debate science or even the climate crisis but saying no to a project like this that is already underway is just bad for business,” she said. 

And construction at the SBMT isn’t the only part of the industry potentially taking a hit.

A federal grant awarded to the Educational and Cultural Trust Fund administered by Local Union No. 3 last September to build an onshore and offshore wind safety training facility in upstate Walden, NY, may now be at risk too.

The U.S. Economic Development Administration, which issued the grant, told staff at Local Union No. 3—who spoke to City Limits on condition of anonymity—that the decision to give them the money was “sent to Washington for further review.”

The facility would have made it more cost-effective for projects in the northeast to guarantee the Global Wind Organization certificate that employees need to work on a wind farm. Experts say there are only a handful of facilities in the U.S that issue the certificate, which needs to be renewed every two years, forcing employees to travel long distances and spend more to secure the training. 

The bottom line, members of the environmental community say, is that Trump’s interference in the offshore wind industry could scare off future investors and cost the country money on other business transactions.

“This is essentially the government assuming control of privately owned assets. It is the worst thing a leader can do for broader investment or foreign direct investment,” said Vanessa Fajans-Turner, executive director of Environmental Advocates New York.

“It sends out the message to other companies that there is a strong chance that even if they have all of the legal permissions they need on a project, [the government] can still block their ability to follow through and make good on their investments,” she added. 

To reach the reporter behind this story, contact Mariana@citylimits.org. To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org

Want to republish this story? Find City Limits’ reprint policy here.

The post ‘Bad for Business’: What Trump’s Plan to Halt Offshore Wind Means for New York’s Economy appeared first on City Limits.

By SAM MEDNICK, Associated Press

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — The Gaza Strip will likely fall into famine if Israel doesn’t lift its blockade and stop its military campaign, food security experts said in a stark warning on Monday.

Nearly half a million Palestinians are facing possible starvation, living in “catastrophic” levels of hunger, and 1 million others can barely get enough food, according to findings by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a leading international authority on the severity of hunger crises.

The group said “there is a high risk” of outright famine if circumstances don’t change.

Israel has banned all food, shelter, medicine and any other goods from entering the Palestinian territory for the past 10 weeks, even as it carries out waves of airstrikes and ground operations. Gaza’s population of around 2.3 million people relies almost entirely on outside aid to survive, because Israel’s 19-month-old military campaign has wiped away most capacity to produce food inside the territory.

Desperate scenes as food is running out

Food supplies are emptying out dramatically. Communal kitchens handing out cooked meals are virtually the only remaining source of food for most people in Gaza now, but they too are rapidly shutting down for lack of stocks.

Thousands of Palestinians crowd daily outside the public kitchens, pushing and jostling with their pots to receive lentils or pasta.

“We end up waiting in line for four, five hours, in the sun. It is exhausting,” said Riham Sheikh el-Eid, waiting at a kitchen in the southern city of Khan Younis on Sunday. “At the end, we walk away with nothing. It is not enough for everybody.”

The lack of a famine declaration doesn’t mean people aren’t already starving, and a declaration shouldn’t be a precondition for ending the suffering, said Chris Newton, an analyst for the International Crisis Group focusing on starvation as a weapon of war.

“The Israeli government is starving Gaza as part of its attempt to destroy Hamas and transform the strip,” he said.

Israel demands a new aid system

The office of Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, did not respond to a request for comment. The army has said that enough assistance entered Gaza during a two-month ceasefire that Israel shattered in mid-March when it relaunched its military campaign.

Israel says the blockade aims to pressure Hamas to release the hostages it still holds. It says it won’t let aid back in until a new system giving it control over distribution is in place, accusing Hamas of siphoning off supplies. The United States says it is working up a new mechanism that will start deliveries soon, but it has given no timeframe.

The United Nations has so far refused to participate. It denies substantial diversion of aid is taking place and says the new system is unnecessary, will not meet the massive needs of Palestinians and will allow aid to be used as a weapon for political and military goals.

Monday’s report said that any slight gains made during the ceasefire have been reversed. Nearly the entire population of Gaza now faces high levels of hunger, it said, driven by conflict, the collapse of infrastructure, destruction of agriculture, and blockades of aid.

Mahmoud Alsaqqa, food security and livelihoods coordinator for Oxfam, called on governments to press Israel to allow “unimpeded humanitarian access.”

“Silence in the face of this manmade starvation is complicity,” he said.

Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas after the group’s Oct. 7, 2023, surprise attack on Israel, in which militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostage, most of whom have been released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.

Israel’s offensive has killed over 52,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, whose count does not distinguish between civilians or combatants.

Three criteria for declaring famine

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, first set up in 2004 during the famine in Somalia, groups more than a dozen U.N. agencies, aid groups, governments and other bodies.

It has only declared famine a few times — in Somalia in 2011, and South Sudan in 2017 and 2020, and last year in parts of Sudan’s western Darfur region. Tens of thousands are believed to have died in Somalia and South Sudan.

It rates an area as in famine when at least two of three things occur: 20% of households have an extreme lack of food, or are essentially starving; at least 30% of children six months to five years suffer from acute malnutrition or wasting, meaning they’re too thin for their height; and at least two people or four children under five per every 10,000 are dying daily due to starvation or the interaction of malnutrition and disease.

The assessment on Monday found that the first threshold was met in Gaza, saying 477,000 people — or 22% of the population — are classified as in “catastrophic” hunger, the highest level, for the period from May 11 to the end of September.

It said more than 1 million people are at “emergency” levels of hunger, the second highest level, meaning they have “very high gaps” in food and high acute malnutrition.

The other thresholds were not met. The data was gathered in April and up to May 6. Food security experts say it takes time for people to start dying from starvation.

The report said if the blockade and military campaign continues, “the vast majority” in Gaza will not have access to food or water, civil unrest will worsen, health services will “fully collapse,” disease will spread, and levels of malnutrition and death will cross the thresholds into famine.

It had also warned of “imminent” famine in northern Gaza in March 2024, but the following month, Israel allowed an influx of aid under U.S. pressure after an Israeli strike killed seven aid workers.

Aid groups now say the situation is the most dire of the entire war. The U.N. humanitarian office, known as OCHA, said Friday that the number of children seeking treatment at clinics for malnutrition has doubled since February, even as supplies to treat them are quickly running out.

Aid groups have shut down food distribution for lack of stocks. Many foods have disappeared from the markets and what’s left has spiraled in price and is unaffordable to most. Farmland is mostly destroyed or inaccessible. Water distribution is grinding to a halt, largely because of lack of fuel.

Beth Bechdol, deputy director of the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization, said more than 75% of Gaza’s farmland had been damaged or destroyed, and two-thirds of the wells used for irrigation were no longer operating.

The destruction, she said, is “driving these large numbers of people closer towards the famine numbers that we think are possible.”

AP correspondents Wafaa Shurafa in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Samy Magdy in Cairo and Sarah El Deeb in Beirut contributed to this report.