The Supreme Court struck down some of Trump’s most sweeping tariffs. Which levies are impacted?

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By WYATTE GRANTHAM-PHILIPS, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — The nation’s highest court struck down some of President Donald Trump’s most sweeping tariffs on Friday, in a 6-3 decision ruling that he overstepped his authority when using an emergency powers law to justify new taxes on goods from nearly every country in the world.

Trump has launched a barrage of new tariffs over the last year. Despite Friday’s ruling, many sectoral levies remain in place — and the president still has plenty of other options to keep taxing imports aggressively. But the Supreme Court decision upends a core set of tariffs that Trump imposed using the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA.

IEEPA authorizes the president to broadly regulate commerce after declaring a national emergency. Over the years, presidents have turned to this law dozens of times, often to impose sanctions on other countries. But Trump was the first to use it to implement tariffs.

Here’s a look at what tariffs Trump imposed using IEEPA — and other levies that still stand today.

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‘Liberation Day’ tariffs

Trump used IEEPA to slap import taxes on nearly every country in the world last spring. On April 2, which Trump called Liberation Day, he imposed “reciprocal” tariffs of up to 50% on goods from dozens of countries — and a baseline 10% tariff on just about everyone else.

The 10% tax kicked in early April. But the bulk of Liberation Day’s higher levies got delayed by several months, and many rates were revised over time (in some cases after new “framework” agreements). Most went into effect on Aug. 7.

The national emergency underlying these tariffs, Trump argued at the time, was the long-running gap between what the U.S. sells and what it buys from the rest of the world. Still, goods from countries with which the U.S. runs a trade surplus also faced taxes.

Major trading partners impacted by Liberation Day tariffs include South Korea, Japan and the European Union — which combined export a range of products to the U.S., like electronics, cars and car parts and pharmaceuticals. Following trade talks, Trump’s rates on most goods stood at 15% for the EU, Japan and South Korea ahead of Friday. But just last month, Trump threatened to hike levies on certain South Korean products to 25% — and countries worldwide still face sector-specific, non-IEEPA tariffs.

‘Trafficking tariffs’ on Canada, China and Mexico

At the start of his second term, Trump used IEEPA to impose new tariffs on America’s three biggest trading partners: Mexico, Canada and China.

To justify these tariffs, Trump declared a national emergency ostensibly over undocumented immigration and the trafficking of drugs like fentanyl and the chemicals made to use it. The levies were first announced at the start of February 2025, but went into effect over time — and were at times delayed, reduced or heightened through further retaliation.

Ahead of Friday’s decision, “trafficking tariffs” on Canadian and Mexican imports were 35% and 25%, respectively, for goods that don’t comply with the 2020 United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. China, meanwhile, faced a 10% fentanyl-related tariff. That’s down from 20% imposed by Trump earlier last year. Chinese goods also once saw sky-high levies after Liberation Day, but rates have since come down during trade talks.

Top U.S. imports from China include mobile phones and other electronics, as well as clothing, toys and household appliances. Meanwhile, Canada and Mexico are both major sources of cars and auto parts. Canada is also the U.S.’s largest supplier of crude oil. And Mexico is a key exporter of fresh produce, beverages and more.

Tariffs on Brazil over Bolsonaro trial

Trump also used IEEPA to slap steep import taxes on Brazilian imports over the summer, citing the country’s policies and criminal prosecution of former President Jair Bolsonaro.

Brazil already faced Trump’s 10% baseline Liberation Day rate. The Bolsonaro-related duties added another 40%, bringing total levies to 50% on many products ahead of Friday.

The U.S. has actually run a consistent trade surplus with Brazil over the years. But top exports from the country include manufactured products, crude oil and agricultural products like soybeans and sugar.

Tariffs on India linked to Russian oil

India has faced additional IEEPA tariffs, too. After Liberation Day, Trump slapped a 25% levy on Indian imports — and later added another 25% for the country’s purchases of Russian oil, while also citing the emergency powers law, bringing the total to 50%.

But earlier this month, the U.S. and India reached a trade framework deal. Trump said Prime Minister Narendra Modi agreed to stop buying Russian oil, and that he planned to lower U.S. tariffs on its ally to 18%. Meanwhile, India said it would “eliminate or reduce tariffs” on all U.S. industrial goods and a range of agricultural products.

Indian’s top exports to the U.S. include pharmaceuticals, precious stones, clothing and textiles.

What are other non-IEEPA tariffs that countries still face today?

Despite the Supreme Court knocking down sweeping import taxes Trump imposed with IEEPA, most countries still face steep tariffs from the U.S. on specific sectors.

Citing national security threats, Trump has used another law — Section 232 of the 1962 Trade Expansion Act — to slap levies on steel, aluminum, cars, copper and lumber worldwide. He began to roll out even more Section 232 tariffs in September, on kitchen cabinets, bathroom vanities and upholstered furniture.

Amid pressure to lower rising prices, Trump has rolled back some of his tariffs recently. Beyond trade frameworks, that’s included adding exemptions to specific levies and scrapping import taxes for goods like coffee, tropical fruit and beef.

Still, Trump has previously threatened more sectoral levies are on the way, and that could all the more likely be his administration’s path forward following Friday’s decision.

AP Writers Paul Wiseman and Lindsay Whitehurst contributed to this report.

You can give old batteries a new life by safely recycling them

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By ADITHI RAMAKRISHNAN

NEW YORK (AP) — When household batteries die, it’s hard to know what to do with them. So they get shoved into a junk drawer or sheepishly thrown into the trash.

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But dead batteries aren’t quite finished. They can leak heavy metals like cadmium and nickel into soil and water once they reach the landfill. Some of them can also overheat and cause fires in garbage trucks and recycling centers.

The good news is, safely disposing of your batteries takes just a few steps. They’ll get shipped to recycling centers that break down their contents to make new things.

Battery recycling processes could use some fine-tuning, but it’s still a simple and responsible way to get rid of them.

Recycling old batteries “keeps you safe, keeps the waste industry safe, keeps the first responders safe and responsibly sees that battery reach a proper end of life,” said Michael Hoffman, president of the National Waste and Recycling Association.

Small batteries can have a big environmental impact

Batteries keep things running in our homes, powering everything from alarm clocks and TV remotes to gaming controllers. Millions are bought and used every year in the U.S., according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

They leave their stamp on the environment at nearly every stage of their life span.

Many of the materials used to make batteries — elements like lithium and nickel — are mined. Over half the world’s cobalt reserves are in Congo.

Once mined, those materials are shipped around to be refined, fashioned into a battery and packaged for sale. All the ships, trucks and planes moving them add to batteries’ carbon footprint. Making the batteries can release carbon emissions and pollution into the air and atmosphere, too.

Though household batteries are far smaller than the big ones that power EVs and electric bicycles, there are a lot more of them and it’s worth figuring out how to get rid of them.

“One person’s single battery is not necessarily a lot,” said environmental scientist Jennifer Sun with Harvard University. “But everyone uses many batteries.”

Recycle batteries at a registered drop-off site

To begin, wrangle your old batteries and figure out what kind they are. Batteries “come in all shapes and sizes, but what’s inside differs,” said materials scientist Matthew Bergschneider of the University of Texas at Dallas.

Alkaline and zinc-carbon batteries are generally single-use and come in AA, AAA and more. These can be safely thrown in the household trash in most places, but the EPA still recommends recycling them so that their materials can be made into something new.

Lithium-ion batteries — commonly found in things like power tools and cordless vacuums — are a risk to cause fires and leak toxic gases in garbage trucks and landfills. A lot of rechargeable batteries are lithium-ion, but more single-use batteries are being made this way too.

Be sure to look up battery disposal laws for your area: Places like New York, Vermont and Washington, D.C. have special rules about throwing away household or rechargeable batteries.

Once you’ve corralled your batteries, tape their ends or put them in plastic bags to avoid the possibility of sparking. Then, take them to a drop-off location. How easy or hard this is depends on where you live.

Many hardware and office supplies stores accept old batteries. Look into city and state drop-off programs or search by ZIP code using The Battery Network, a nonprofit geared toward safe battery recycling.

Have a location in your home to collect the batteries over time and then “at some point, hopefully among all the other things that we all have in our lives, you can find a convenient drop-off location,” said Todd Ellis of The Battery Network.

If your batteries look swollen, cracked or are leaking, don’t drop them off. You’ll need to get in touch with your local hazardous waste removal agency to figure out how to turn them in.

Recycled batteries can have a second life

Once batteries are dropped off at a collection site, they’re sorted by type and taken to a recycling facility where they’re broken down into their essential components — like cobalt, nickel or aluminum. Some bits can be used to make new batteries or other things. Nickel, for example, can be used to make stainless steel products and alkaline batteries can be turned into sunscreen.

Safely recycling a battery doesn’t cancel out the environmental cost of making it. But it does give the battery’s components their best chance at becoming something new.

“You continue to recycle and you don’t have to go back to the Earth to mine,” said public health expert Oladele Ogunseitan, who studies electronic waste at the University of California, Irvine.

Good battery habits are also good for us. It protects against old or damaged batteries leaking toxic compounds into our cabinets and junk drawers.

“I think it’s one of the simplest and most controllable actions that we can take to reduce our impact,” said Sun, the Harvard scientist.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Virginia Democrats pass map that could flip 4 US House seats, if courts and voters approve

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By OLIVIA DIAZ

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Democrats passed a new congressional map through the Virginia legislature on Friday that aims to help their party win four more seats in the national redistricting battle. It’s a flex of state Democrats’ political power, however hurdles remain before they can benefit from friendlier U.S. House district boundaries in this year’s midterm elections.

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A judge in Tazewell, a conservative area in Southwest Virginia, has effectively blocked a voter referendum on the redrawn maps from happening on April 21 by granting a temporary restraining order, issued Thursday.

Democrats are appealing that decision and another by the same judge, who ruled last month that Democrats illegally rushed the planned voter referendum on their constitutional amendment to allow the remapping. The state’s Supreme Court picked up the party’s appeal of the earlier ruling.

If Democrats get to carry out a referendum, voters will choose whether to temporarily adopt new congressional districts and then return to Virginia’s standard process after the 2030 census. Democrats wanted to publish the new map ahead of the April vote.

President Donald Trump launched an unusual mid-decade redistricting battle last year by pushing Republican officials in Texas to redraw districts to help his party win more seats. The goal was for the GOP to hold on to a narrow House majority in the face of political headwinds that typically favor the party out of power in midterms.

Instead, it created a national redistricting battle. So far, Republicans believe they can win nine more House seats in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio. Democrats think they can win six more seats in California and Utah, and are hoping to fully or partially make up the remaining three-seat margin in Virginia.

Democratic lawmakers in Virginia have sought to portray their redistricting as a response to Trump’s overreach.

“The president of the United States, who apparently only one half of this chamber knows how to stand up to, basically directed states to grab power,” Virginia’s Democratic Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell said in February. “To basically maintain his power indefinitely — to rig the game, rig the system.”

Republicans have sounded aghast. House Minority Leader Terry Kilgore described the remap as a way for liberals in northern Virginia’s Arlington, Fairfax and Prince William counties to commandeer the rest of the state.

“In southwest Virginia, we have this saying … They say, ‘Terry, you do a good job up there, but you know, Virginia stops at Roanoke,” Kilgore said, referring to how some people across Virginia’s Appalachian region feel unrepresented in state politics. “That’s not going to be the same saying anymore, because Virginia is now going to stop just a little bit west of Prince William County.”

Virginia is currently represented in the U.S. House by six Democrats and five Republicans who ran in districts imposed by a court after a bipartisan legislative commission failed to agree on a map after the 2020 census.

Legislation that would put the Democrats’ more gerrymandered map into effect if voters approve the referendum now awaits the signature of Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger, who has indicated that she would support it.

“Virginia has the opportunity and responsibility to be responsive in the face of efforts across the country to change maps,” Spanberger said as she approved the referendum.

Democratic candidates are already lining up in anticipation. “Dopesick” author Beth Macy and former U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello launched campaigns in red areas that would be moved into districts with more registered Democrats.

Virginia Del. Dan Helmer and former federal prosecutor J.P. Cooney, who helped investigate Trump and was fired by him, have launched campaigns in a formerly rural district that would now mostly include voters just outside the nation’s capital. And former Democratic congresswoman Elaine Luria is mounting a comeback against Republican Rep. Jen Kiggans, who ousted her in 2022, in a competitive district that the map has made slightly more favorable to Democrats.

PWHL’s influence apparent at Olympics with OT medal games and the gap closing behind US and Canada

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By JOHN WAWROW

MILAN (AP) — Alina Muller instantly understood the significance her bronze medal-clinching overtime goal in a 2-1 win over Sweden meant not only to girls back home in Switzerland, but in the bigger picture of women’s hockey.

Muller has spent the past 12 years experiencing the ups and downs, fitful starts and stops her sport has endured since first splashing on the Swiss hockey scene as a 15-year-old by scoring her nation’s first bronze-medal clinching goal at the 2014 Sochi Games.

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These Milan Cortina Games, however, were different for Muller and the rest of the competitors. They represent the first Olympics since the Professional Women’s Hockey League was launched in the summer of 2023.

“Just a few years ago there would have been a hundred people in the stands, and now it’s crazy to see,” said Muller, the former college star at Northeastern and now in her third season with the Boston Fleet.

“Every year, it’s getting more exciting. We’re getting more physical, more athletic, faster, faster game,” she added. “And the stadiums are filling up.”

For a sport and league banking on enjoying a post-Olympic boost, the tournament delivered on many fronts.

U.S. captain Hilary Knight is heading home with a gold medal in closing her Olympic career. The tournament featured two thrilling medal finals, both ending in overtime, with the Americans beating Canada 2-1. And the competitive gap the U.S. and Canada have long enjoyed appears to be closing ever so slightly.

“This is just the new normal,” Canada coach Troy Ryan said following the loss Thursday.

“Largely because of the impact of the PWHL, you saw a lot of closer games,” added Ryan, who also coaches the PWHL Toronto Sceptres. “You saw international teams that have PWHL players in it showcase better than they previously did.”

Four years after Czechia broke through by winning its first medal, a bronze, at the world championships, Switzerland and Sweden climbed the ranks by reaching the medal round as the fifth- and sixth-seeded teams.

Just as important were the lack of lopsided scores, which previously raised questions as to whether anyone can catch Canada and the U.S. The most one-sided outcome was the top-seeded Americans’ 6-0 win over host Italy in the quarterfinals.

That’s a large departure from the past when Canada routed the Italian hosts 16-0 at the 2006 Turin Games, followed by Canada’s 18-0 win over Slovakia in 2010. Four years ago in Beijing, five games were decided by seven or more goals, including Canada’s 10-3 win over Switzerland in the semifinals.

In Milan, nine games were decided by one-goal margins, including four of eight in the knockout and medal rounds.

“What the entire world enjoyed in Milan was the highest level of Olympic women’s hockey we’ve ever seen,” PWHL executive vice president of hockey operations and Hockey Hall of Famer Jayna Hefford told The Associated Press. “The speed, the skill, the physicality, it’s all been elevated, and the competitive balance is stronger than ever.”

PWHL hats were notable around Milan, and the league’s Olympic pins so in demand they were traded in to pay for at least one dinner.

And the league’s influence on international competition is only expected to grow with more roster spots opening on the horizon. After adding two franchises last year, the eight-team PWHL is preparing to expand by as many as four more for next season.

The growth is a reflection of the league’s desire to attract even more talent from Europe. And the timing coincides with a deep and talented prospect class eligible for this year’s draft. It’s a group topped by Americans Caroline Harvey, the tournament MVP, Abbey Murphy and Laila Edwards, and also includes Sweden’s Josefin Bouveng, Finland’s Elisa Holopainen and Swiss goalie Andrea Braendli.

“I think it’s a big game changer,” Swedish coach Ulf Lundberg said of the PWHL.

“I’ve been there watching a lot of games and I can see it,” added Lundberg, whose team featured seven U.S. collegiate athletes. “It’s big events for every game and it’s for real, so I think it’s very important for women’s hockey.”

There’s a payoff, too, for PWHL players. They now have a league to return to, with the PWHL schedule resuming next week, rather than spend much of the next four years playing and practicing in relative obscurity as they’ve done in the past.

“I think it’s just the reality that women’s hockey isn’t going to go silent. It’s not going to go dark,” U.S. forward and Minnesota Frost captain Kendall Coyne Schofield said, a day before the gold medal final. “You’ll be able to see every one of these players in tomorrow night’s game a week from now, which is pretty awesome and hasn’t been the case for the existence of women’s hockey and the Olympic games.”

AP Winter Olympic: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics