Today is Thursday, April 10, 2025.
It is the 100th day of the year.
265 days remain.
WHAT’S ON TAP
NOTABLE & NOTEWORTHY: Massive tariff shifts on Wednesday upended the market slump.
More “It Ends With Us” legal drama and RUSSELL BRAND to speak about cancel culture. More in SHOWBIZ.
NICK VIALL inks a massive podcast deal and “The Last of Us” gets renewed. Details in CASTING CALL.
MEGHAN SUSSEX puts on her (probably artisan, hand-crafted, and metaphorical) economics bonnet in ROYALS.
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GOOD MORNING TO ALL THE HATERS AND LOSERS: PRESIDENT TRUMP on Wednesday announced a 90-day pause on some tariffs for all countries except China, which is now subject to a 125% tariff.
“I have authorized a 90 day PAUSE, and a substantially lowered Reciprocal Tariff during this period, of 10%, also effective immediately,” Trump said in a statement.
In Trump-speak, that means the baseline tariff for other countries will be 10% while negotiators put together new trade policies, including with Canada and Mexico (we think – as we’ve learned, nothing is certain in Trumpworld). Administration officials have said since the beginning of the trade war that each solution will be “bespoke” and custom-tailored to each trading nation.
“No one creates leverage for himself like President Trump,” Treasury Secretary SCOTT BESSENT said during a press conference following the announcement. Bessent said Trump has issued the 90-day window because he personally wants to be involved with the individual negotiations.
Markets soared on the announcement. Details in BY THE NUMBERS ⬇️
WORTH NOTING: Business reporter Charlie Gasparino reported on Wednesday that the escalation with China might also imperil getting any deal to keep TIKTOK up and running, which would also be an enormous net win for society.
ALSO WORTH NOTING: The Chinese Yuan, its currency, fell to its weakest level against the US Dollar since 2007 at one point on Wednesday.
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FYRE FRAUD: After BILLY MCFARLAND published documents proving that Fyre Festival 2 organizers secured the necessary permits to hold the event at Playa del Carmen, Mexico, a closer look revealed that the paperwork only gives very limited access to public areas.
On one page, the authorization allows for no more than 250 people to party between midnight and 4:00 am each day of the event, and that only recorded music can be played.
IT GETS WORSE: The official ticketing page for the event indicates, “This event was previously scheduled for a different date. Any tickets previously purchased for this event will be honored on this date” – suggesting not only the location, but the date of the festival, could also be changed. [via Consequence]
WORTH ASKING: Hopefully your flights are refundable?
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The driverless car revolution continues to grow, but still has plenty of kinks to work out. On Monday, a driverless WAYMO taxi got stuck in a Santa Monica-area Chick-fil-A drive thru.
After a half hour, with all cars behind it stuck, and workers unable to keep the line moving, staff shut down the restaurant, whose dining room was not open.
No word if there was a passenger inside or if the vehicle just got lost. A rep for Waymo said a team was dispatched to recover the vehicle. [via KTLA]
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Since just before Thanksgiving last year, a rural community in Colorado has reported the disappearance of 187 cows from various ranches, most of which were calves.
Wildlife officials say the occasional disappearance of such animals is normal; they wander off or get killed or weather spooks them into running off, but never like this. Despite government funded search efforts and a $10,000-per-cow reward, there are still no leads.
An initial investigation has ruled out insurance fraud, which would have required a literal vast conspiracy to keep each rancher with missing cows on the same page. Officials are assuming theft by someone intimately familiar with the area, given their ability to continue the crime without getting caught. [via Washington Post]
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TODAY’S EDITION OF WTF IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE: A 70-year-old Missouri woman has been accused of trading a foster child for an exotic monkey.
Brenda Ruth Deutsch, who fostered more than 200 children throughout her lifetime, reportedly took the child to a home in Texas where she then abandoned them in exchange for the monkey. A concerned individual called social services, who found the child unsupervised in the home, which was filthy and filled with other exotic animals.
Deutsch is facing three felony counts of neglect, child abuse, and child endangering. [via NBC]
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