📌 More Tariffs, Election Results, Spies

President Donald Trump will announce his latest round of tariffs today on what he has named “Liberation Day.”

No details of today’s plans were available ahead of the announcement set for 4 p.m. ET. White House officials said that the implementation of the most sweeping rewrite of US trade policy would be immediate.

Trump has made clear a few goals he wants to accomplish through his tariffs: bring manufacturing back to the US, respond to unfair trade policies from other countries, increase tax revenue and incentivize crackdowns on migration and drug trafficking.

Trump has repeated the idea of imposing “reciprocal tariffs,” where the US would tax imports at the same rates that a country uses for US exports. Trump has specifically mentioned countries like South Korea, Brazil and India, along with the EU, as being possible targets for reciprocal tariffs.

Reports have said Trump’s advisers are pitching him a 20% across-the-board tariff on all imports, closer to what Trump promised in his campaign. Any tariffs would be on top of those implemented: a 20% tariff on all Chinese imports, 25% on all steel and aluminum imports, and 10% on Canadian energy imports.

Trump announced in March a 25% tariff on all imported vehicles and, eventually, imported auto parts, which will start going into effect on Thursday.

Wisconsin voters elected Susan Crawford to the state Supreme Court on Tuesday, maintaining the court's 4-3 liberal majority.

The election is seen as a setback for President Donald Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk, who had backed her conservative rival, Brad Schimel, a former Republican state attorney general and a county judge. Crawford held a 9-point lead with a margin of some 191,000 votes and 88% of the vote counted.

The election was widely seen as an early referendum on Trump's presidency, and the campaign easily became the most expensive judicial contest in US history with over $90 million spent by the candidates, the state parties and outside groups, said New York University's Brennan Center.

"I've got to tell you, as a little girl growing up in Chippewa Falls, I never could have imagined that I'd be taking on the richest man in the world for justice and Wisconsin. And we won!" Crawford told supporters in a celebration in Madison, the state capital.

In the Florida elections, two Republicans won their special elections to fill US House vacancies created by Trump's cabinet picks. The victories give Republicans a House majority of 220-213. Republicans had been expected to hold both seats. Both GOP candidates won by reduced margins.

A third major law firm has agreed to a deal with the Trump administration reportedly to retain its government business.

Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, which has over 1,200 attorneys, will provide at least $100 million in legal services to causes favored by the White House and end diversity programs under terms of a deal President Donald Trump announced Tuesday on social media.

The Trump administration previously reached agreements with two other prominent law firms — Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison and Skadden Arps — to lift the threat of executive orders that would have cost them government contracts, reports say.

The pro bono services to causes favored by the White House include assistance to veterans, actions countering antisemitism, and those “ensuring fairness” in the justice system, a nod to Trump’s claim that he and others have been unfairly targeted with legal action.

The White House said that the firm “proactively reached out to President Trump and his administration, offering their decisive commitment to ending the weaponization of the justice system and the legal profession.”

Trump has deployed executive orders and memos to punish law firms he views as adversaries, sources say. Several firms, including Jenner & Block and WilmerHale, have fought back against Trump’s punishing orders, suing to block the orders.

Public awareness of the link between drinking alcohol and an elevated risk of cancer has grown in the US.

A survey of over 1,700 US adults on Jan. 30–Feb. 10 conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania reports 56% say the regular consumption of alcohol increases the chances of later developing cancer. This is up from 40% in an Annenberg survey in September 2024.

The percentage of those saying alcohol consumption has no effect on later developing cancer fell to 16% from 20% in September 2024, and fewer are not sure how alcohol consumption affects cancer risks (26%, down from 40%).

The survey was fielded less than a month after US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy's advisory on alcohol and cancer risk calling for updated warning labels on alcoholic beverages to indicate that drinking alcohol carries an increased risk for at least seven types of cancer, including breast, colon, and liver cancer.

Another federal report led by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration on Jan. 14, 2025, found that even moderate drinking carried health risks, including liver disease, cancer, and injuries. Moderate alcohol use is defined as one drink a day for women and up to two drinks a day for men.

Respondents who knew of at least one report on alcohol and health were asked if anything they read or heard about from the report(s) made them more or less likely to accept a drink when offered one on a social occasion, or whether it had no effect.

Nearly 1 in 3 (29%) say they would be less likely to accept an alcoholic drink if one is offered. But 61% say the report(s) would not affect their decision. A small group (9%) say they would be more likely to accept a drink.

An innovative approach could revolutionize eye-tracking applications.

Eye tracking plays a critical role in virtual and augmented reality headsets. It is used in the entertainment industry, scientific research, medical and behavioral sciences, automotive driving assistance, and industrial engineering.

Researchers at the University of Arizona Wyant College of Optical Sciences integrated a 3D imaging technique known as deflectometry with advanced computation. Deflectometry allows for accurate measurement of reflective surfaces.

“Current eye-tracking methods can only capture directional information of the eyeball from a few sparse surface points, about a dozen at most,“ said Florian Willomitzer, associate professor of optical sciences and principal investigator of the study.

However, Willomitzer said the deflectometry-based method can use information from millions of surface points, all extracted from only one instantaneous camera image.

“Our goal is to close in on the 0.1-degree accuracy levels obtained with the model eye experiments,“ Willomitzer said. “We hope that our new method will enable a new wave of next-generation eye tracking technology, including other applications such as neuroscience research and psychology.“

Hope is fading in finding many more survivors of the violent earthquake in Myanmar that killed over 2,700 people.

A 63-year-old woman was pulled from the rubble of a building in the capital, Naypyitaw, on Tuesday. The building collapsed in the 7.7 magnitude earthquake that hit midday Friday. Experts say the likelihood of finding survivors drops significantly after 72 hours.

The head of Myanmar’s military government, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, told a forum for relief donations in Naypyitaw that 2,719 people have now been found dead, with 4,521 others injured and 441 missing.

He said Friday’s earthquake was the second most powerful in the country’s recorded history after a magnitude 8 quake east of Mandalay in May 1912.

The casualty figures are widely expected to rise. The earthquake hit a wide swath of the country, leaving many areas without power, telephone, or cell connections and damaging roads and bridges, making the full extent of the devastation hard to assess.

The World Health Organization said more than 10,000 buildings overall are known to have collapsed or been severely damaged by the quake. Over 3 million people had been displaced from their homes by Myanmar’s brutal civil war, and nearly 20 million were in need, according to the UN.

A briefcase left by double agent Guy Burgess as he fled to Moscow is among the artifacts to be displayed at a London exhibition.

Burgess was a British diplomat and Soviet spy during the Second World War and the early Cold War. His briefcase and passport will be displayed in the “MI5: Official Secrets” exhibition at the National Archives in Kew, southwest London.

Burgess was a member of the Cambridge Five spy ring and fled to Moscow with fellow spy Donald Maclean in 1951 due to fears of being discovered. None of the Cambridge Five was ever prosecuted for spying.

Another key exhibit in the first-ever public look into MI5's classified files and private collection is a 110-year-old lemon used as evidence against German spy Karl Muller. Muller used lemon juice as invisible ink to inform on British troop movements. A warm iron was passed over a letter to reveal the secret messages.

When he was arrested, the lemon was found in his overcoat. He was executed by firing squad at the Tower of London in 1915.

The display includes items dating from the foundation of MI5 in 1909 to modern-day artifacts such as a Provisional Irish Republican Army mortar bomb and the reconstruction of a bomb made from an instant camera and bottle.