By JIANG JUNZHE and MATT OTT, Associated Press

Wall Street pointed modestly higher before the opening bell as investors pored over the latest corporate earnings ahead of weekend trade talks between China and the U.S.

Markets initially seemed indifferent to what appeared to be a de-escalation of the U.S.-China trade rift by President Donald Trump, who floated cutting tariffs on China from 145% to 80%.

“80% Tariff on China seems right! Up to Scott B,” Trump wrote on social media early Friday, referring to Scott Bessent, his Treasury chief and point person on the trade talks.

Futures for the S&P 500 rose 0.2%, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged 0.1% higher. Nasdaq futures rose 0.3%

Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will meet with their Chinese counterparts in Geneva this weekend amid growing U.S. market anxiety over the impact of the tariffs on the prices and supply of consumer goods.

Also early Friday, China reported that its exports rose at a faster-than-expected 8.1% annual pace in April, down from 12.4% the month before. Exports to the United States dropped more than 20%, however, as Trump’s steep tariff increases took effect.

China is the world’s biggest exporter and second largest economy.

In premarket equities trading Friday, shares of the travel website Expedia fell 10% after it trimmed its full-year bookings forecast. The owner of Vrbo and Hotels.com highlighted a 7% decline in travel demand to the U.S., including a 30% decline in bookings from Canada.

Other travel-related companies, including Hilton and Airbnb, have reported a similar softening in travel demand to the U.S. in their recent earnings reports.

Elsewhere, in Europe at midday, Germany’s DAX gained 0.6%, while the CAC 40 in Paris was up 0.7%. Britain’s FTSE 100 added 0.3%.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.4% to 22,867.74, while the Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.3% to 3,342.00.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 jumped 1.6% to 37,503.33, while the Kospi in Seoul dipped 0.1% to 2,577.27.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 added 0.5% to 8,231.20.

Taiwan’s Taiex surged 1.8% and India’s Sensex fell 1.1%.

U.S. benchmark crude oil gained $1.23 to $61.14 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Brent crude, the international standard, added $1.19 to $64.03 per barrel.

The U.S. dollar fell to 145.25 Japanese yen from 145.91 yen. The euro rose to $1.1254 from $1.1220.

After a restoration over the winter, the cast iron fountain at Irvine Park in St. Paul was returned to its base on Thursday with the help of Cora Metal Works and Rocket Crane.

The restoration project included repairs and a fresh coat of paint by KCI Conservation.

The fountain reinstallation should wrap up by Friday afternoon.

The Historic Irvine Park Association helped commission the current fountain from the Robinson Iron Company of Alexandria, Alabama in 1978-79. The original ornate cast iron fountain that was installed in the park in 1881 had been removed by 1927.

Read more about the restoration of the current fountain in our earlier report.

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By SEUNG MIN KIM, LISA MASCARO and ZEKE MILLER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump abruptly fired Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden as the White House continues to purge the federal government of those perceived to oppose the president and his agenda.

Hayden was notified in an email late Thursday from the White House’s Presidential Personnel Office, according to an email obtained by The Associated Press. Confirmed by the Senate to the job in 2016, Hayden was the first woman and the first African American to be librarian of Congress.

“Carla,” the email began. “On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as the Librarian of Congress is terminated effective immediately. Thank you for your service.” A spokesperson for the Library of Congress confirmed that the White House told Hayden she was dismissed.

Hayden, whose 10-year term was set to expire next year, had come under backlash from a conservative advocacy group that had vowed to root out those standing in the way of Trump’s agenda. The group, American Accountability Foundation, accused her and other library leaders of promoting children’s books with “radical” content and literary material authored by Trump opponents.

FILE – Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden arrives on the red carpet for the 2024 Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song honoring Elton John and Bernie Taupin at DAR Constitution Hall March 20, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf, File)

“The current #LibrarianOfCongress Carla Hayden is woke, anti-Trump, and promotes trans-ing kids,” AAF said on its X account earlier Thursday, just hours before the firing was made public. “It’s time to get her OUT and hire a new guy for the job!”

All around the government, Trump has been weeding out officials who he believes don’t align with his agenda, from the Justice Department to the Pentagon and beyond. At times, the firings come after conservative voices single out officials for criticism.

Earlier Thursday, the acting administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency was pushed out one day after he had testified that he did not agree with proposals to dismantle the organization. Trump has suggested that individual states, not FEMA, should take the lead on responding to hurricanes, tornadoes and other crises.

At the Pentagon, more than a half-dozen top general officers have been fired since January, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. CQ Brown Jr. The only two women serving as four-star officers, as well as a disproportionate number of other senior female officers, have also been fired.

The unexpected move Thursday against Hayden infuriated congressional Democrats, who initially disclosed the firing.

“Enough is enough,” said Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, who called Hayden “a “trailblazer, a scholar, and a public servant of the highest order.”

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Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said Hayden was “callously fired” by Trump and demanded an explanation from the administration as to why she was dismissed.

“Hayden, has spent her entire career serving people — from helping kids learn to read to protecting some of our nation’s most precious treasures,” said Rep. Joseph Morelle of New York, the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee that oversees the Library.

“She is an American hero,” he said.

The Library of Congress, with its stately buildings across from the U.S. Capitol, holds a vast collection of the nation’s books and history, which it makes available to the public and lawmakers. It houses the papers of nearly two dozen presidents and more than three dozen Supreme Court justices.

It also has collections of rare books, prints and photographs, as well as troves of music and valuable artifacts — like a flute owned by President James Madison, which the singer and rapper Lizzo played in a 2022 performance arranged by Hayden.

The Democratic leaders praised Hayden, who had been the longtime leader of Baltimore’s library system, for a tenure that helped modernize the Library and make it more accessible with initiatives into rural communities and online. She is a graduate of Roosevelt University and the University of Chicago.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., applauded Hayden as “an accomplished, principled and distinguished Librarian of Congress.”

“Donald Trump’s unjust decision to fire Dr. Hayden in an email sent by a random political hack is a disgrace and the latest in his ongoing effort to ban books, whitewash American history and turn back the clock,” Jeffries said.

“The Library of Congress is the People’s Library. There will be accountability for this unprecedented assault on the American way of life sooner rather than later,” he said.

New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich, the top Democrat on the Senate panel that oversees funding for the library, said the firing, which he said came at 6:56 p.m., was “taking his assault on America’s libraries to a new level.”

“Dr. Hayden has devoted her career to making reading and the pursuit of knowledge available to everyone,” he said.

Robert Newlen, the principal deputy librarian, said he would serve as acting librarian of Congress “until further instruction” in a separate email seen by the AP.

“I promise to keep everyone informed,” he wrote to colleagues.

Hayden spoke recently of how libraries changed her own life, and opened her to the world.

“Libraries are the great equalizer,” she posted on X during National Library Week last month.

“And when you have a free public library in particular,” she said, it’s an “opportunity center for people all walks of life, and you are giving them the opportunity to make choices on which information, entertainment and inspiration means the most to them.”

By JAIMIE DING, Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Attorneys for Erik and Lyle Menendez, who were convicted of killing their parents in 1989, will make their case to a judge Friday that Los Angeles prosecutors should be removed from the brothers’ resentencing case.

The brothers were sentenced in 1996 to life in prison without the possibility of parole for fatally shooting their entertainment executive father, Jose Menendez, and mother, Kitty Menendez, in their Beverly Hills home. The brothers were 18 and 21 at the time of the killings. Defense attorneys argued the brothers acted out of self-defense after years of sexual abuse by their father, while prosecutors said the brothers killed their parents for a multimillion-dollar inheritance.

Former LA County District Attorney George Gascón had opened the door to possible freedom for the brothers in October by requesting their sentences be reduced to 50 years with the possibility of parole. His office said the case would’ve been handled differently today due to modern understandings of sexual abuse and trauma, and that the brothers had rehabilitated during their 30 years in prison.

But current district attorney Nathan Hochman has reversed course and opposes the brothers’ resentencing. Hochman has said the brothers have not taken full responsibility for their crimes because they have not admitted to lies told during their trials. The Menendez family and lawyers have been heavily critical of the way Hochman has handled the case.

Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman speaks outside of court before a hearing in the case of Erik and Lyle Menendez Thursday, April 17, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Hochman’s office filed a motion to oppose his removal from the case, dismissing the defense’s concerns as simply “not being happy” with prosecutors’ opinion on resentencing.

“Disagreeing with the opposing side’s position is not a conflict of interest, it is simply a disagreement,” it said.

While Hochman’s conduct is the focus of defense attorneys’ petition, they want the case entirely removed from the Los Angeles district attorney’s office, in which case the state attorney general’s office would usually step in.

However, California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a motion this week siding with Hochman, saying the defense had not adequately demonstrated a conflict of interest.

Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor and professor of criminal law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said these types of recusal requests are “almost never” granted.

“Defendants don’t usually get to pick their prosecutors,” she said. “Occasionally an individual prosecutor will be recused, but to recuse an entire office is very rare.”

Generally, this only happens if a prosecutor’s personal family member is involved or if the district attorney’s office received outside payment in a case, Levenson said.

During long-awaited resentencing hearings last month, attorneys engaged in a heated debate over whether material from risk assessments completed by the state parole board at the governor’s order should be admissible in court. The hearings were delayed, and the brothers’ lead attorney Mark Geragos said he would move to recuse Hochman from the case.

In a motion filed April 25, Geragos argued that Hochman’s bias against the brothers and mistreatment of the Menendez family posed a “genuine risk” the brothers would not receive a fair hearing.

Attorney Mark Geragos, center, representing Erik and Lyle Menendez, who were sentenced in 1996 to life in prison without the possibility of parole for fatally shooting their parents, speaks to the media outside of court after a resentencing hearing in their case, Thursday, April 17, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

He pointed to Hochman’s demotion of Nancy Theberge and Brock Lunsford, the two deputy district attorneys who filed the original resentencing motion. Theberge and Lunsford have since filed lawsuits against Hochman alleging they were punished for their work on the Menendez case.

Hochman also hired Kathleen Cady, who represented Milton Andersen, the only Menendez family member who opposed the brothers’ resentencing at the time, to head his Office of Victim Services. Andersen died in March.

Geragos said no one from the victim services office had ever reached out to the Menendez family to offer support. In mid-April, both Cady and Hochman were present at an organization’s rally to condemn the Menendez brothers’ resentencing, he said.

Finally, Geragos said the district attorney’s office had violated Marsy’s Law, which ensures victims in California are treated with fairness and respect.

Menendez cousin Tamara Goodell filed a complaint with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in which she wrote Hochman used a “hostile, dismissive, and patronizing tone” that left the family “distressed and feeling humiliated.”

Hochman’s motion said the defense had not presented any proof that hiring Cady, a seasoned prosecutor and attorney, prevented his office from treating the Menendez brothers fairly, and that the reassignments of Theberge and Lunsford were “internal staffing decisions.”

Marsy’s Law also does not give victims the right to seek the removal of a prosecutor, the motion said.

The Menendez brothers are still waiting for the full results of a state parole board risk assessment ordered by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office. The final hearing, scheduled for June 13, will influence whether Newsom grants the brothers clemency.