United States | News & Politics

The official portrait of former president Barack Obama has moved to the opposite side of the hallway — directly across from the new addition

The upheaval in stocks has been grabbing all the headlines, but there is a bigger problem looming in another corner of the financial markets that rarely gets headlines: Investors are dumping U.S. government bonds.

Normally, investors rush into Treasurys at a whiff of economic chaos but now they are selling them as not even the lure of higher interest payments on the bonds is getting them to buy.

The freak development has experts worried that big banks, funds and traders are losing faith in America as a good place to store their money.

Johana Bhuiyan Sat 12 Apr 2025 08.00 EDT

“Amir Makled thought he was being racially profiled. A Lebanese American who was born and raised in Detroit, the attorney was returning home from a family vacation in the Dominican Republic when he said an immigration official at the Detroit Metro airport asked for a “TTRT” agent after scanning his passport on Sunday. Makled said the expression on the agent’s face changed. He felt something “odd” was happening.”

The footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHIdWRQR39A

https://archive.ph/1eNVl

A technical “glitch” has created the biggest hiccup in Trump’s tariffs rollout.

When Jonathan returned from the US to Australia for a quick trip to scatter his sister’s ashes, he packed only two changes of clothes, leaving enough space in his small bag to carry the empty ashes urn to his home in the US. The trip was so brief he didn’t even pack a laptop charger.

The disaster began at border control in transit in Houston, Texas, when he was pulled aside and taken to a “secondary” room, he says. Posters hanging on the walls that had once celebrated diversity, equity and inclusion, had been crudely updated with a black marker pen, with mentions of DEI scribbled out. About 100 people from around the world sat and lay in various states of worry and exhaustion, he says.

“There were so many people in this room. A heavy percentage of them were from South America. I met a girl from Berlin. There were a bunch of people from Canada. There were two Brits.”

After about half an hour, he says, his name was called out. He was asked if he wanted to call the Australian consulate, but declined.

“I thought I was just going to be given my passport and sent on my way, or maybe asked a couple of questions, but they made some pretty outlandish accusations. They said, ‘We know you have two mobile phones. We’ve been tracking your calls. We know you’ve been selling drugs’.”

He says he told the border officer he did not drink, smoke or take drugs and owned just one phone. He was asked for his passcode.

“That didn’t sound right. I asked to talk to a lawyer and they told me I had no rights.” He says he was given a brochure explaining that he must surrender his phone and so handed it over, along with his smartwatch.

He says the official then told him: “Trump is back in town; we’re doing things the way we should have always been doing them.”

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