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Pakistan has launched attacks on "multiple targets" across India, according to the media wing of Pakistan's military.

In a statement, Pakistan said it has unleashed Operation Bunyan ul Marsoos (Solid Wall of Steel) in response to what it calls "continuous provocation" by India.

"Multiple targets in this operation are being engaged all across India," the statement added.

Pakistan's military said it used medium-range Fateh missiles to strike a missile storage facility and airbases in Pathankot and Udhampur.

The AP news agency said loud explosions have been heard in Indian-controlled Kashmir, in the disputed region's two big cities of Srinagar and Jammu, and the garrison town of Udhampur.

Meanwhile, an Indian military source told Reuters that India has launched air operations in Pakistan, although no further details were given.

Pakistan's military posted footage on X showing missiles being fired from what appeared to be a mobile launcher.

Pakistan has launched attacks on "multiple targets" across India, according to the media wing of Pakistan's military.

In a statement, Pakistan said it has unleashed Operation Bunyan ul Marsoos (Solid Wall of Steel) in response to what it calls "continuous provocation" by India.

"Multiple targets in this operation are being engaged all across India," the statement added.

Pakistan's military said it used medium-range Fateh missiles to strike a missile storage facility and airbases in Pathankot and Udhampur.

The AP news agency said loud explosions have been heard in Indian-controlled Kashmir, in the disputed region's two big cities of Srinagar and Jammu, and the garrison town of Udhampur.

Meanwhile, an Indian military source told Reuters that India has launched air operations in Pakistan, although no further details were given.

Pakistan's military posted footage on X showing missiles being fired from what appeared to be a mobile launcher.

• Duterte awaits trial in the Hague over bloody war on drugs
• He is also running for election as mayor of southern Davao
• Victory could help his daughter's presidential ambitions
• Candidates of incumbent President Marcos ahead in polls

DAVAO CITY, Philippines, May 9 (Reuters) - Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte spends his days in a small, spartan room in detention at the Hague, awaiting trial for a bloody war on drugs that killed thousands during his time in office.

But halfway around the world, in his hometown of Davao City, Duterte is on the ticket for mayor in midterm elections on Monday that he is widely expected to win, riding on support in the family stronghold, though it may not translate nationwide.

• Rumeysa Ozturk ordered released immediately from Louisiana detention center

• Ozturk was detained after pro-Palestinian campus advocacy
  

• Judge said her detention chills free speech of non-citizens

May 9 (Reuters) - A federal judge ordered the Trump administration on Friday to immediately release a Tufts University student from Turkey who has been held for over six weeks in a Louisiana immigration detention facility after she co-wrote an opinion piece criticizing her school's response to Israel's war in Gaza.

U.S. District Judge William Sessions during a hearing in Burlington, Vermont, granted bail to Rumeysa Ozturk, who is at the center of one of the highest-profile cases to emerge from Republican President Donald Trump's campaign to deport pro-Palestinian activists on American campuses.

The judge said Ozturk had raised a substantial claim that the sole reason she was being detained was "simply and purely the expression that she made or shared in the op-ed in violation of her First Amendment rights."

"Her continued detention potentially chills the speech of the millions and millions of individuals in this country who are not citizens," Sessions said. "Any one of them may now avoid exercising their First Amendment rights for fear of being whisked away to a detention center."

Following the hearing, Ozturk, who appeared before the judge virtually from the Louisiana detention facility, could be seen hugging one of her attorneys. Tufts has said it plans to help provide Ozturk housing upon her release.

The judge ruled shortly after a federal appeals court rejected, the Trump administration's bid to re-detain Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian campus activist who a different judge in Vermont ordered released last week after immigration authorities arrested him as well.

Ozturk's arrest on March 25 by masked, plainclothes law enforcement officers on a street in the Boston suburb of Somerville, Massachusetts, near her home was captured in a viral video and occurred after the U.S. Department of State revoked her student visa.

The sole basis authorities have provided for revoking her visa was an opinion piece she co-authored in Tufts' student newspaper criticizing the school's response to calls by students to divest from companies with ties to Israel and to "acknowledge the Palestinian genocide."

• Trump officials mull proposing COFA status to Greenland
• COFA agreement would see U.S. defending Greenland, but keep island independent
• Plan faces several practical hurdles

WASHINGTON, May 9 (Reuters) - U.S. officials are discussing a plan to pull Greenland into America's sphere of influence using a type of agreement that the United States has used to keep close ties with several Pacific Island nations, according to two U.S. officials and another person familiar with the discussions.

Under the plan being considered, the Trump administration would propose to Greenland's leaders that the island enter into a so-called Compact of Free Association, or COFA, with the United States.

While the precise details of COFA agreements - which have only ever been extended to the small island nations of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Palau - vary depending on the signatory, the U.S. government typically provides many essential services, from mail delivery to emergency management to military protection. In exchange, the U.S. military operates freely in COFA countries and trade with the U.S. is largely duty-free.

President Donald Trump, who during his first administration floated the idea of acquiring Greenland, has pressed even harder since taking office in January, refusing to rule out taking the island by force. Denmark, which governs the island, has sharply rebuffed the idea.

A COFA agreement would stop short of Trump's ambition to make the island of 57,000 people a part of the U.S. It is not the only Greenland plan on the table, the sources said, and it would face many practical hurdles.

Reuters reported before Trump took office that some advisers had informally suggested the idea. But it has not been previously revealed that White House officials have begun talks about the logistics behind such a proposal.

Some officials at the National Security Council and the National Energy Dominance Council, which Trump established, are involved in the talks, two of the sources said. The National Economic Council is also involved, one of those sources added.

COFA agreements have previously been inked with independent countries, and Greenland would likely need to separate from Denmark for such a plan to proceed. While polls show Greenlanders are interested in independence, surveys also show most do not want to be part of the U.S. A COFA - which cedes significant autonomy to Washington - could be viewed with similar skepticism.

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration on Friday agreed to halt all efforts to freeze funds intended for a Maine child nutrition program after initially suspending those dollars due to a disagreement between the state and Trump over transgender athletes.

In response, the state will drop its lawsuit that had been filed against the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey announced.

The top US health department plans to require placebo testing for all vaccines in an effort to offer "straightforward" public health information, but experts say such testing could limit availability and raise ethical concerns.

In a statement first given to the Washington Post, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said this week, "All new vaccines will undergo safety testing in placebo-controlled trials prior to licensure — a radical departure from past practices".

The agency did not provide details on which "new vaccines" would be included.

But officials have suggested that updated Covid-19 shots may be included, which vaccine experts say could slow down vaccine access.

Peter Lurie, a former official with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), said "it's hard to tell exactly what is being proposed."

"But, broadly, if they mean that every modification to an existing vaccine would require a new placebo-controlled trial, they are treading in ethically dubious territory and likely to deny Americans life-saving vaccines at some point."

HHS has not offered details on the timing of the placebo plan or specify the vaccines involved.

An HHS spokesperson told the BBC in a statement that health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr's goal of "radical transparency" means being "honest and straightforward about what we know — and what we don't know — about medical products, including vaccines".

The statement said none of the childhood vaccines recommended in the US - except the Covid shot - had undergone "inert placebo" testing, meaning "we know very little about the actual risk profiles of these products".

But public health experts say the statement is misleading, as childhood vaccinations, including ones for Hepatitis A and B, rotavirus, polio and the mumps, were all initially tested against a placebo. In fact, all new immunizations already go through the trials - a type of random testing where one test group receives the immunization, and the other gets a placebo, like a saline shot.

But newer versions of the shots may not go through the same process, because it is considered unethical to withhold a shot known to be safe from a particular group, and because the shot is only being tweaked in a minor way, vaccine experts said.

An Illinois man has been sentenced to 53 years in prison for the 2023 fatal stabbing of a 6-year-old Palestinian-American boy.

Wadee Alfayoumi was stabbed 26 times and his mother more than a dozen in the Oct. 14, 2023, attack inside their home in the Chicago suburb of Plainfield.

Their landlord, 73-year-old Joseph Czuba, was convicted in February on multiple murder charges, as well as attempted murder, aggravated battery and hate crime counts. A Will County jury found Czuba guilty of all counts after deliberating for less than two hours.

Prior to the sentencing on Friday in Joliet, the judge denied a motion from the defense team to overturn the jury verdict that claimed he did not receive a fair trial, Chicago ABC station WLS reported.

The defense has filed a motion to reconsider the sentencing, with a court appearance scheduled for May 7, WLS reported.

Czuba faced a mandatory prison sentence of 20 to 60 years up to a possible life sentence.

Authorities said he targeted his tenants because they were Muslim and in response to the war between Israel and Hamas that had just ignited after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.

Wadee's great uncle, Mahmoud Yousef, addressed the sentencing outside the courthouse, telling reporters, "It doesn't matter what numbers are. He took a life from us. He took a future."

Sean "Diddy" Combs on Thursday formally rejected the government's offer to plead guilty and spare himself the possibility of a prolonged prison sentence.

"Yes I do, your honor," Combs said after Judge Arun Subramanian asked him whether he rejected the offer federal prosecutors made.

Combs, 55, is scheduled to stand trial beginning Monday with jury selection on charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and prostitution that allege he coerced women into prolonged sexual encounters he called "freak-offs."

Defense attorneys for alleged CEO killer Luigi Mangione said Thursday in a new court filing that the murder indictment a state grand jury returned against him should be dismissed due to double jeopardy and other alleged violations.

The indictment should be dismissed "because concurrent state and federal prosecutions violate the Double Jeopardy Clause, the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause and Mr. Mangione's constitutional rights against self-incrimination, to meaningfully defend himself, to a fair and impartial jury and to the effective assistance of counsel," defense attorneys wrote.

Defense attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo said in the filing that "prosecutorial one-upmanship" resulted in Mangione facing state and federal charges in New York and separate charges in Pennsylvania.

• US tariff exemption for low-value items from China ends Friday
• Ecommerce goods from China face jump to 145% tariffs
• Some online retailers stop serving US over tariffs
• Shein seeks to reassure shoppers in Instagram post

LONDON, May 2 (Reuters) - With the end of a U.S. tariff exemption for small parcels on Friday, some retailers have stopped selling to customers in the United States while others are seeking temporary workarounds in the hope the tariff rate may be reduced.

The removal of "de minimis" - duty-free treatment of e-commerce packages worth less than $800 - for products originating from China and Hong Kong exposes those goods to tariffs of 145% on most Chinese goods following U.S. President Donald Trump's decision last month. The move upended global trade and triggered retaliation from Beijing.

British beauty products retailer Space NK has paused e-commerce orders and shipping to the United States "to avoid incorrect or additional costs being applied to our customers' orders", the company said in a notice on Wednesday.

It is not alone. Understance, a Vancouver-based company that sells bras and underwear manufactured in China, told customers in an Instagram post that it would no longer ship to the United States due to the tariffs, saying it will resume once there is clarity.

"We're going from zero to 145%, which is really untenable for companies and untenable for customers," said Cindy Allen, CEO of Trade Force Multiplier, a global trade consultancy.

"I've seen a lot of small to medium-sized businesses just choose to exit the market altogether," she added.

PRICE HIKES UNDERWAY

Players willing to continue to access the U.S. market are forced to hike their price tags.

Oh Polly, a British clothing retailer, has increased prices in the U.S. by 20% compared to its other markets, and may have to consider further price increases because of the higher tariffs, said managing director Mike Branney.

Singapore-based fast-fashion giant Shein sought to reassure customers in a post on its U.S. Instagram account on Thursday, saying: "Some products may be priced differently than before, but the majority of our collections remain as affordable as ever." Shein sells clothes mostly manufactured in China, and the U.S. is its biggest market.

Temu, the international arm of Chinese e-commerce giant PDD Holdings (PDD.O) , prominently featured products already in U.S. warehouses on its website, labelled 'Local', and a pop-up informed customers there would be no import charges for local warehouse items.

"All sales in the U.S. are now handled by locally based sellers, with orders fulfilled from within the country," Temu said in a statement, adding that its pricing for U.S. customers "remains unchanged".

But items imported before the May 2 change will eventually run out. Both Shein and Temu have slashed their U.S. digital advertising spending in the past weeks as they prepared for the change that is likely to hit their sales.

Shein did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

"E-commerce companies have had it really good for a really long time, and this is a seismic shift in how trade works," said Hugo Pakula, customs expert and CEO of trade automation platform Tru Identity. "If your inventory is not already in the U.S., selling to the U.S. is going to hurt."

Gov. JB Pritzker and three other Democratic state chief executives on Tuesday night called for Democrats to mobilize and protest outside Republican congressional offices to oppose President Donald Trump’s administrative actions following his first 100 days in office.

“If you’re not out there protesting in front of a Republican congressman’s office, or out in the street making your voice heard, or calling your friends in another state to have them do it, or showing up in Washington, D.C., in front of their offices, those Republican congressmen, then you’re not doing what’s necessary to put pressure on them to vote the right way,” he said.

Pritzker was joined by Govs. Tim Walz of Minnesota, the unsuccessful 2024 vice presidential nominee, Maura Healey of Massachusetts and Kathy Hochul of New York in an hourlong, live-streamed question-and-answer event hosted by the MeidasTouch Network. The online site has used its social media platforms and other channels to sharply criticize Trump and Elon Musk, the presidential adviser who heads up the Department of Government Efficiency.

The governors were asked about formulating a new messaging strategy following the party’s poor showing last November and current public polling indicating dissatisfaction with Democrats for failing to address kitchen table issues and for not helping working families — once a core constituency.

The forum comes as Democrats also are trying to reconcile divisions between the party’s progressive wing and more moderate Democrats who feel the party’s leftward drift was a major factor to last year’s election results.

Of the three other governors, Hochul was the most vocal in echoing Pritzker’s call for Democrats to take their objections of Trump and Musk directly to members of the Republican-controlled House — with an eye toward the 2026 midterm elections.

“I believe that we all ought to be mobilizing. The best way for us to get across what we really believe is that you show up at your Republican congressman’s office and let them know: Quit shutting down veteran services. Quit taking away Social Security and Medicaid — and we know that’s what they’re about to do,” the New York governor said.