Trade Court v. Trump Tariffs, Gaza Strikes Kill 37, Swiss Avalanche

✅ SIGN UP

This is our daily newsletter Worldcrunch Today, a rapid tour of the news of the day from the world’s best journalism sources, regardless of language or geography.

It’s easy (and free!) to sign up to receive it each day in your inbox: 👉 Sign up here

🗞️ FRONT PAGE​​

Colombian daily El Espectador lends its front page to the 48-hour national strike that began Wednesday, backing President Gustavo Petro’s proposed labor reform referendum. Organized by major unions, the protests across cities like Bogotá and Medellín demand stronger worker protections and push back against congressional resistance. Petro has signaled he may authorize the referendum by decree if lawmakers continue to block it.

🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW

• U.S. court blocks Trump tariffs. A federal court in the U.S. blocked Donald Trump’s unilateral tariffs on nearly every country in the world. The Court of International Trade, a specialized court in Manhattan that oversees U.S. laws related to international commerce, ruled that Trump’s so-called “liberation day” tariffs — along with separate levies on Canada, Mexico and China — exceed presidential authority, stating that only congress has the power to make such trade decisions. The court didn’t address a separate set of tariffs on cars, steel and aluminum. The Trump administration said it would appeal the decision. Read more about Trump’s tariffs in the

• 37 killed in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, settlements approved in West Bank. A series of Israeli airstrikes killed at least 37 in Gaza on Thursday, including 19 in a refugee camp in central Gaza. The strikes come as a second aid distribution point, established by a U.S.- and Israeli-backed initiative, was overrun on Wednesday, and criticism is mounting over reports of gunfire, with at least four civilians killed and dozens injured while trying to receive food aid. Meanwhile, Israeli ministers say that nearly two dozen settlements have been approved in the occupied West Bank, making the outposts already there legal under Israeli law. Since occupying the West Bank and East Jerusalem, during the 1967 war, Israel has built some 160 settlements which house roughly 700,000 Jews and are widely seen as illegal under international law. Read French political writer Pierre Haski’s analysis on the Gaza food distribution chaos here. 

• U.S. will “aggressively” pull visas of Chinese students, says Marco Rubio. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Trump administration would “aggressively” revoke the visas of Chinese students attending universities in the U.S. amid a sweeping plan to halt appointments for student visa seekers globally. China condemned the plan, saying it had filed a formal complaint with Rubio’s office, and that the “discriminatory” practice violated the rights of Chinese students. 

• Trump sets two-week deadline for Putin. Donald Trump seemed to set a two-week deadline for Russia to end the war in Ukraine, saying he would let reporters know “in about two weeks” if Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to end the conflict. The seeming deadline comes as the U.S. president changed tack on Russia’s responsibility for ending the war, saying earlier this week that Putin was “playing with fire” as it escalated attacks on Ukraine. Meanwhile, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz committed to helping Ukraine develop long-range missile systems that wouldn’t be subject to Western restrictions on targeting sites inside of Russia. Check out this piece about geopolitics being dictated by individuals instead of institutions translated from Italian via Worldcrunch. 

• French court convicts pedophile former surgeon. A French court sentenced a 74-year-old pedophile and former surgeon to 20 years in prison on Wednesday for the rape and sexual assault of nearly 300 patients, mostly children, over the course of two decades. Joël Le Scouarnec, who was convicted in 2020 for the rape and sexual assault of four children, including two nieces, is already serving fifteen years in prison. During the trial, prosecutors also argued that some of the blame rested on the authorities, who were supposedly notified up to a decade before his arrest that he possessed child pornography photos. 

• African literary giant Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o dies. Kenyan writer and global literary giant Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o died Wednesday at the age of 87. The author was known for his six decades of work that focused on Kenya’s transformation from colonialism to democracy, and was repeatedly expected to win the Nobel Prize for Literature — though he never did. Ngũgĩ was also a fierce proponent of literature written in native African languages, and was repeatedly jailed and attacked, self-exiling to the U.S. for long periods of his life. 

• News Quiz! Swiss luxury watchmaker Omega, James Bond’s watch of choice since GoldenEye (1995), has announced the brand’s latest global ambassador, fueling speculation as to the identity of the next 007. Who is the new ambassador?

A. Henry Cavill
B. Ana de Armas
C. Aaron Taylor-Johnson
D. Idris Elba

[Answer below]

#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS

€8 billion

U.S. chipmaker giant Nvidia anticipates a massive $8 billion revenue loss in the second quarter of 2025, due to U.S. export restrictions on its AI chips to China. CEO Jensen Huang highlighted the impact of the ban on H20 chip sales, which has not only affected Nvidia’s financials but also accelerated the development of domestic AI chip alternatives in China.

📰 IN OTHER NEWS

💥 In Cúcuta, a Colombian border city shaped by the legacy of drug trafficking and migration, armed groups now rule the streets, blending violence with an eerie everyday normalcy — and the state is all but absent.
— EL ESPECTADOR

🍼 Around the world, more women are having children later in life — by choice, necessity, or societal shift — as biology, career, and culture collide in the global rise of late motherhood.
— DIE ZEIT

🌡️ In India, the deadly intersection of caste discrimination, poverty, and climate change is turning heatwaves into a public health crisis — and for many, survival now depends on status as much as shade.
— THE WIRE

📣 VERBATIM

“Humanitarian needs have spiralled out of control.”

— The World Food Programme called for safe and unimpeded humanitarian access to Gaza. The UN organization wishes to enable food distributions all across Gaza, after “hordes of hungry people” broke into the WFP’s Al-Ghafari warehouse, resulting in two confirmed deaths and multiple wounded Palestinians. Humanitarian conditions remain dire, with aid deliveries at a near standstill due to an 80-day blockade by Israel — despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent announcement that the siege would be lifted.