National News

U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens has proposed a No Chinese Cars Act in an effort to bolster the Michigan auto industry.
“For too long, the CCP has been rigging the market, undermining Michigan’s auto industry, and cheating the system,” said Stevens, D-Mich. “Now, they’re trying to cheat the system again by moving production to countries like Mexico to dodge tariffs and undercut American automakers. Not anymore.”
According to Stevens, Chinese manufacturing continues to threaten U.S. manufacturing jobs, especially in Michigan.
“My No Chinese Cars Act will force China to finally play by the rules to lower costs and bring Michigan manufacturing jobs back to Michigan,” she said.
While many automakers do have factories in China, a surprisingly small number of the vehicles built in those factories are actually sold in America.
According to one report, Chinese-manufactured cars made up only 0.4% of the cars sold in America in 2024. Cars manufactured in the U.S. accounted for 64%, followed by Mexico at 14%.
That means of the 16 million cars sold in the U.S. in 2024, only 56,800 were made in China.
The Trump administration has levied a number of tariffs on China and the foreign-made auto industry, including the current 25% tariff on imported cars and parts.
Yet, this has minimal impact on Chinese car manufacturing, as such a small percentage are exported to the U.S.
“The U.S. is imposing severe restrictions on Chinese-made vehicles, despite the marginal role the country plays in America’s auto industry,” said Felipe Munoz, global analyst at JATO Dynamics, which released the above report.
Still, American politicians remain concerned about the impacts of Chinese car manufacturing. One concern is that it could begin to take over the U.S. market if unchecked.
“Right now, the CCP is engaged in unfair trade practices that threaten the American auto industry and the livelihoods of Michigan auto workers,” says a release from Stevens’ office. “Unfair subsidies and low wages at Chinese firms undermine American companies and Michigan jobs. We’ve already seen how Chinese car companies like BYD have taken over the European market and the threat they pose to the American market.”
This legislation from Stevens in the U.S. House comes on the heels of similar legislation from U.S. Senator Elissa Slotkin, also a Democrat from Michigan.
“I will lay down on the border to keep Chinese vehicles from entering the U.S. market,” said Slotkin in a statement on the legislation in April. “This is my first bill I’m introducing in the Senate, and it’s for a reason.”
Both Slotkin’s and Stevens’ legislation is notable as it bucks the trend of Democrats opposing trade tariffs implemented by President Donald Trump.
Stevens’ bill would grant the United States Trade Representative the authority to expand existing tariffs on Chinese auto exports to autos arriving in the United States from other countries if those autos:
• Are produced by a firm from a country subject to existing tariffs.
• Or are produced by a firm from China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea.
This would prevent China from outsourcing its manufacturing to avoid tariffs.
MichAuto has announced its support for the No Chinese Cars Act.
“This bill would establish important new safeguards against an influx of Chinese vehicles produced outside the People’s Republic of China, which would pose serious threats to America’s automotive industry and U.S. national security,” said MichAuto Executive Director Glenn Stevens Jr. “We applaud Rep. Stevens’ work on this bill and look forward to working with her and the rest of Michigan’s federal delegation, as the industry seeks to create greater protections for domestic auto jobs and the nation’s industrial competitiveness.”

President Donald Trump outlined the framework of a trade deal with leaders in Seoul on Wednesday that will include a 15% tariff on imports from South Korea.
Trump announced the deal Wednesday afternoon in another social media post, providing few details about the scope of the agreement.
Under the terms Trump outlined, South Korea will buy $100 billion in U.S. liquefied natural gas or other energy products and give the U.S. $350 billion for investments.
“The Deal is that South Korea will give to the United States $350 Billion Dollars for Investments owned and controlled by the United States, and selected by myself, as President,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Trump said South Korea would announce further U.S. investments in the coming weeks when South Korean President Lee Jae Myung visits the White House.
“South Korea has agreed to invest a large sum of money for their Investment purposes,” Trump wrote.
As with a string of other trade deals Trump has announced in recent weeks, Trump said South Korea would open its markets, tariff free, to the U.S. Trump said that it would include automobiles, trucks and agricultural products.
So far, a 15% import duty is the lowest Trump has announced in recent trade deals. Only the United Kingdom, which didn’t have a substantial trade deficit with the U.S., got a 10% tariff.
Trump’s deal with the EU includes a 15% tariff on imports, although the pact still needs the approval of all 27 members of the bloc.
Trump has announced deals with Indonesia (19% tariff on imports), the Philippines (19% tariff on imports), and Japan (15% tariff on imports).
Earlier Wednesday, the U.S. president threatened India with a 25% tariff and a “penalty” for buying from Russia.
In 2024, U.S. trade with South Korea totaled an estimated $197.1 billion. U.S. goods exports to South Korea were $65.5 billion, while U.S. goods imports from South Korea totaled $131.5 billion. That year, the U.S. goods trade deficit with Korea was $66 billion.
Economists, businesses and some publicly traded companies have warned that tariffs could raise prices on a wide range of consumer products.
Trump has said he wants to use tariffs to restore manufacturing jobs lost to lower-wage countries in decades past, shift the tax burden away from U.S. families, and pay down the national debt.
A tariff is a tax on imported goods paid by the person or company that imports the goods. The importer can absorb the cost of the tariffs or try to pass the cost on to consumers through higher prices.

President Donald Trump announced a trade deal with the European Union on Sunday that will require imports from the 27-nation bloc to face a 15% tariff.
Trump had previously threatened tariffs of 30% on European goods. Trump announced the the deal after a meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
“It’s a good deal for everybody,” Trump told reporters after the meeting at his golf resort in Turnberry, Scotland.
Trump has been on a roll recently, announcing deals with Indonesia (19 tariff on imports), the Philippines (19% tariff on imports) and Japan (15% tariff on imports) earlier this week.
Trump said the EU will buy $750 billion in energy from the U.S. and agreed to invest $600 billion in the U.S.
“We have a trade deal between the two largest economies in the world. It’s a big deal, it’s a huge deal, it will bring stability, it will be predictability,” von der Leyen said. “It’s a good deal, it’s a tough deal.”
It’s the biggest deal Trump has reached so far.
U.S. total goods trade with the European Union were an estimated $975.9 billion in 2024. U.S. goods exports to the European Union in 2024 were $370.2 billion. U.S goods imports from the European Union totaled $605.8 billion in 2024. The U.S. goods trade deficit with the European Union was $235.6 billion in 2024, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
By comparison, U.S. trade goods with Japan totaled an estimated $227.9 billion in 2024.
Trump has been working to reorder global trade through tariffs to give U.S. companies an advantage at home.
Economists, businesses and some publicly traded companies have warned that tariffs could raise prices on a wide range of consumer products.
Trump has said he wants to use tariffs to restore manufacturing jobs lost to lower-wage countries in decades past, shift the tax burden away from U.S. families and pay down the national debt.

Two victims remain in serious condition Sunday and a Michigan man is facing terrorism charges related to stabbing 11 people at a Walmart in Traverse City on Saturday afternoon in an apparently random attack.
Minutes after the attack began inside the store, 42-year-old Bradford James Gille was cornered by a number of civilians in the parking lot, including one armed with a pistol. Local authorities then took him into custody, according to Grand Traverse County Sheriff Michael D. Shea.
Shea held a press conference on Sunday regarding the incident.
“Aid was immediately provided to the victims by responding law enforcement, citizens, and other emergency responders,” he said. “For all of those people that were involved, first of all, I commend them. It’s not very often that we have citizens that are willing to step up and take action.”
All victims were taken to the local hospital, Munson Medical Center. The victims range in age from 29 to 84 and include one Walmart employee.
While two victims remain in serious condition as of Sunday afternoon, all are expected to survive.
Gille is currently charged with 11 counts of assault with intent to murder, along with the one count of terrorism. He is awaiting trial in the Traverse County Jail.
“Any time there is a mass incident like this, where it is something that appears to be a very random act of violence . . . it is, we believe, in some ways done to affect the entire community, to put fear in the entire community,” said Grand Traverse County Prosecutor Noelle Moeggenberg at the press conference. “So, that is why we are looking at that terrorism charge.”
Gille has previously had encounters with law enforcement, including charges for controlled substances.
If sentenced on all charges, Gille could face life in prison. Authorities say he acted alone.
Shea said that during interviews with Gille, it was not yet apparent what his motive for the attacks were.
The FBI is also involved in the investigation. Dan Bongino, deputy director of the FBI, responded to the incident on social media.
“FBI personnel are responding to provide any necessary support to the Grand Traverse County Sheriff’s Office in their investigation,” Bongino said.

When hackers stole a rural school district’s computer system last year, students in the middle of midterm exams were left frustrated, but concerns went far beyond testing.
Cafeteria staff scrambled to help students who depended on school meals. Parents searched for childcare when district officials canceled classes. Seniors worried about college application deadlines while transcripts were inaccessible.
A report from the Center for Internet Security found such attacks are becoming more sophisticated, more frequent and more damaging to K-12 schools. CIS runs the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center with the goal of better overall cybersecurity posture for governments at all levels through coordination and collaboration.
The 2025 CIS MS-ISAC K-12 Cybersecurity Report found 82% of K-12 organizations experienced cyber incidents. Of the nearly 14,000 security events, 9,300 were confirmed. It also found that attacks surge during high-stakes periods such as exams, disrupting education and forcing officials to make difficult decisions.
Randy Rose, vice president of security operations and intelligence at the Center for Internet Security, said cyber attacks at school can have “huge, broad implications.” He pointed to the unnamed rural school district highlighted in the report. Like many other schools, it serves as a central hub in the community and school disruption can create a cascade of community problems.
“Schools are really central to a community. So when they’re impacted, it’s far beyond just kids in classrooms,” he told The Center Square. “We’re talking about their kids who only eat when they’re in school. So if they’re out of school, there’s no food. There are parents whose lives are disrupted because they’re unable to work, and a lot of those parents don’t have jobs where they can take time off. So if they’re not working, they’re not making money, which has an impact on the local economy.”
Many districts have some form of insurance to cover cyber attacks, but those policies vary widely in what they cover after a breach, Rose said.
“Insurance will cover things like initial incident response. In some cases, they’ll cover ransomware payments. Sometimes they won’t,” he said. “Sometimes they’ll require you to have a particular provider that does ransomware negotiations with the actors. But sometimes they stop short of actual recovery and future implementation.”
What insurance doesn’t cover usually ends up on local taxpayers.
“If you’re having to pay massive amounts of money for restoration and ransomware payments, guess whose taxes are going to go up next?” Rose said.
It can get more complicated when foreign state-backed groups are involved. Some policies might consider that an Act of War, which isn’t covered.
Recovering from cyber attacks can take time, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office report from 2023. That report found the loss of learning after an attack “ranged from 3 days to 3 weeks and recovery time ranged from 2 to 9 months.”
The GAO report found financial losses to school districts ranged from $50,000 to $1 million. The GAO also noted that the “precise national magnitude of cyberattacks on K-12 schools is unknown.”
Experts said many attacks are not reported. The issue isn’t limited to schools. It can affect the vendors that districts hire. In 2022, a cyber attack on Illuminate Education, an education technology company based in California, affected more than 1 million students, including students in New York, California, Connecticut, Washington, Oklahoma and Colorado.
Josh Bauman is the technology director at Festus R6 School District, located in Festus, Missouri. The district serves about 3,500 students at five schools near the Mississipi River and the state’s border with Illinois. It’s about 35 miles south of St. Louis. Outside of school, he hosts a K-12 Tech Talk podcast on cyberattacks, talking with school officials who have reported breaches. Most of the people on the podcast change details to protect the identity of the schools involved.
He said simple things such as public-facing school calendars can give hackers an advantage. Since they know what’s happening at the school, they can use information to make strikes more damaging, hit at key times, or wait until no one is in the building.
Bauman said that ransomware attacks have morphed into double extortion-style attacks. First, the hackers will gain access, start extracting data, and then encrypt machines. They’ll then ask for a ransom to get the machines back. If the school district pays, the hackers will threaten to post all the information they downloaded to the dark web unless they get another ransom payment.
The latest trend has been hackers impersonating school vendors, which is also often public information that can be found on a district’s website, to switch accounts and steal the money.
Bauman said that as the threats evolve, so must schools. In the case of a key vendor, for example, school officials may ask the company to come to the school in person to change any payment or account information.
But unlike building a new cafeteria, gymnasium or upgrading sports facilities, money that goes into IT to prevent attacks isn’t very flashy. Rarely is it something that district’s are eager to spend money on, but some insurance policies require schools to have things like multi-factor authentication or procedures in place before they’ll offer coverage, Bauman said.
A 2023 report from S&P Global Ratings found that cyberattacks have not affected schools’ credit quality or resulted in long-term operational problems. Successful attacks can prove costly, requiring technology investments, ransom payments, legal fees, cyber security consultant fees and costs associated with credit monitoring services for affected people, according to the S&P report. That report found 50% of providers paid to get data back.
One more problem: When Bauman and other technology directors discuss prevention efforts with school boards, those discussions often occur during public meetings streamed on the web.
“We don’t want to be in a public setting and say, ‘Oh, hey, we’re using product X, Y, Z to protect our edge,’ and keeping in mind that the bad guys know our calendars, and if we’re streaming our board meetings, it’s a huge threat vector, we have to be very careful about what we say and where we say it,” Bauman said.

As Congress heads into August, conflicts and scandals are poised to derail a seemingly quiet end to the summer in Washington, with the investigations into and debates about former President Joe Biden’s mental decline, Jeffrey Epstein and Russiagate just heating up.
The investigation into Biden’s mental and physical fitness continues, with more witnesses expected to appear before the House Oversight Committee in the coming week.
So far, three witnesses, including Annie Tomasini, who served as an assistant to the former president and deputy director of Oval Office Operations, former First Lady Jill Biden’s chief of staff, Anthony Bernal, and Dr. Kevin O’Connor, Biden’s physician – all pleaded their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.
The committee may have had a breakthrough on Thursday when Ron Klain, who served as former President Joe Biden’s chief of staff during the first half of Biden’s presidency, testified in a marathon hearing. Unlike the other witnesses, Klain appeared voluntarily.
Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., told Newsmax Friday that Klain answered every question, admitting that Biden’s “memory had deteriorated a little bit” and “wasn’t as sharp” in the lead up to the former president dropping out of the race for reelection. However, Comer added that Klain told the committee that he believed Biden was still competent to lead.
Comer added that the investigation has been easier by the number of Biden aides and staffers “writing books” or mentioned in tell-all’s regarding the former president, including a book written by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, “Original Sin,” which the congressman quoted as claiming, “Five people were running the country, and Joe Biden was at best a senior member of the board.”
During Comer’s interview, he segued into another ongoing investigation gripping the nation, the Epstein files. The congressman announced on Thursday that he has issued a subpoena to Ghislaine Maxwell for a deposition, which will occur at the federal prison in Tallahassee, Fla., where the former close associate of Epstein is being held. Comer said the subpoena is issued for Aug. 11.
U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche spent two days, Thursday and Friday, interviewing Maxwell, adding that the Department of Justice will release information regarding the interview “at the appropriate time.”
Comer also announced that the committee is preparing to subpoena more individuals, including former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to uncover more on the Epstein case. Those listed include big names, spanning multiple presidential administrations, such as James Comey, Loretta Lynch, Eric Holder, Merrick Garland, Robert Mueller, William Barr, Jeff Sessions and Alberto Gonzales.
As President Donald Trump was preparing to leave on an overseas trip to Scotland Friday, he was asked if he had considered pardoning Maxwell to get her to talk. The president didn’t appear to rule the possibility out.
“I’m allowed to do it, but it’s something I have not thought about,” Trump told reporters.
Questions continue to swirl around Trump’s involvement with Epstein as the Wall Street Journal is doubling down on claims that the president was included in a book of messages for the late, disgraced financier’s 50th birthday, reportedly compiled by Maxwell.
Senior Democratic Virginia Sen. Mark Warner is showing no signs of backing down, holding Trump and his administration accountable for not disclosing files on the Epstein case. Warner claims that the latest, emerging scandal accusing former President Barack Obama of “manufacturing” intelligence information that the Trump campaign and Russia colluded on influencing the 2016 presidential campaign is merely a means to be a distraction from the Epstein files.
Warner took aim at Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who appeared at a White House press briefing Wednesday, highlighting the explosive claims against Obama, accusing the administration of engaging in a “coup” to undermine the election.
“Tulsi Gabbard has been on the outs with Trump since she undermined him on Iran intelligence. So it’s no surprise she’s doing everything she can to help him distract from Epstein files. But America isn’t looking away,” Warner posted on X.
It would appear the latest scandals may be causing a distraction and potential delays in implementing the president’s agenda, including the confirmation of over 100 presidential appointees. Trump has been urging Senate Majority Leader Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., to cancel the August recess and confirm his nominations.