Former United States president Joe Biden, in his first major speech since leaving the White House, railed Tuesday against his successor President Donald Trump’s frenetic government overhaul, claiming the “hatchet” effort put Americans’ retirement benefits at risk.

“Fewer than 100 days, this administration has done so much damage, and so much destruction, it’s kind of breathtaking it could happen that soon,” Biden told a conference of disability advocates in Chicago.

“They’ve taken a hatchet to the Social Security administration, pushing 7,000 employees out the door,” said the former president, referring to the national agency which pays out retirement and disability benefits.

Wearing a blue suit and tie and standing in front of American flags, the 82-year-old Democrat spoke for around a half-hour, displaying at times the signs of ageing that prompted him to abandon his re-election campaign last year.

He stumbled over some sentences as he read from a teleprompter and struggled to get through winding off-the-cuff anecdotes, cutting himself off with a favourite phrase, “anyways.”

President Trump, in a jab at Biden, posted a short video on social media of one of the rambling anecdotes, without comment.

Biden’s choice of topic, Social Security, aimed to ramp up pressure on Trump over his rampaging government overhaul efforts.

He highlighted staff reductions at the agency that Trump and his billionaire aide Elon Musk have pushed as part of their “Department of Government Efficiency,” saying the Social Security “website is crashing” and hindering retirees from getting their benefits.

The program, which more than 65 million Americans rely on, is colloquially known in Washington as the “third rail of politics” for its sensitivity to voters.

Many Americans “literally count on social security to buy food, just to get by,” Biden said, and “many of these beneficiaries, it’s their only income. If it were cut or taken away, it would be devastating, devastating for millions of people.”

He bashed Trump’s commerce secretary, former hedge fund manager Howard Lutnick, over a recent remark in which he said “fraudsters” would complain about a missing check, but not his mother-in-law.

Biden scoffed at that characterisation, saying, “what about the 94-year-old mother living all by herself, who doesn’t have a billionaire in the family?”

Forget spending hours researching holidays online. AI tools are rapidly reshaping the way we plan travel, offering tailored itineraries and bookings in a matter of seconds, AFP reported. 

Start-up Mindtrip has developed a generative AI that builds entire travel plans based on just a few lines of text. From flights and hotels to dining and excursions, the app can recommend options and link users directly to booking platforms.

“You don’t need to keep switching between sites,” explained CEO Andy Moss. “It’s all in one place.”

Mindtrip is not alone. Platforms like Vacay and Navan are competing in leisure and business travel, while tech giants like Google, OpenAI and Anthropic are promoting their own AI assistants for trip planning.

Travel industry staples are adapting too. Expedia now offers Romie, an AI assistant aimed at group travel, while Booking.com’s Smart Filter lets users specify niche requests. “Agentic AI will help us provide something unique,” said Rob Francis, Booking.com’s tech chief.

Club Med’s chairman Henri Giscard d’Estaing said the company’s new WhatsApp chatbot has drastically improved customer service times. “When a human answered, it took around 90 minutes,” he said.

Experts say AI’s impact goes beyond convenience. “If your travel plans change, the system can update your itinerary instantly—no phone calls needed,” said Jukka Laitamaki of New York University.

However, the pace of change may be slower than some expect. “The travel sector is dominated by small and mid-sized operators who lack the tech to integrate AI at scale,” said Eva Stewart from GSIQ consultancy.

While start-ups are innovating quickly, Stewart expects major online travel companies to leverage their resources and reassert control. Laitamaki agrees: “They’ve already got loyal customers—that’s their edge.”

Human agents, meanwhile, may only survive in the high-end market. “Ultra-luxury travellers still want a real person,” Laitamaki said. “But for everyone else, AI is the future of travel planning.”

WASHINGTON: The White House has said that the United States is ready to enter a trade deal with China, but stressed that it is up to Beijing to take the first step towards negotiations.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday that President Donald Trump is open to making a trade deal with China, but Beijing should make the first move.

“The ball is in China’s court: China needs to make a deal with us, we don’t have to make a deal with them,” Leavitt told a press briefing, saying Trump had given her that statement directly in an Oval Office meeting to use.

“China wants what we have… the American consumer, or to put another way, they need our money,” Leavitt said.

China raised its tariffs on imports of US goods to 125% on Friday in a retaliatory move against Trump, who effectively raised US tariffs on Chinese goods to 145%, while putting a pause on planned levies for other countries’ goods.

Trump has described Chinese President Xi Jinping in admiring terms, but neither man has backed down in an escalating trade war between their two countries.

“The president, again, has made it quite clear that he’s open to a deal with China. But China needs to make a deal with the United States of America,” Leavitt said.

Trump has said he expects something positive to come out of the trade tensions between the world’s two largest economies. But, unlike multiple other nations who have responded to his plans for tariffs by seeking deals with Washington, Beijing has raised its own levies on US goods and not sought talks.

NEW YORK: US President Donald Trump has warned he may revoke Harvard University’s tax-exempt status after the institution rejected government demands to overhaul its academic policies or risk losing federal funding.

US President Donald Trump threatened to strip Harvard of its tax-exempt status on Tuesday and said the university should apologise, a day after it rejected what it called unlawful demands to overhaul academic programmes or lose federal grants.

Beginning with Columbia University, the Trump administration has rebuked universities across the country over their handling of the pro-Palestinian student protest movement that roiled campuses last year.

Trump has called the protests anti-American and antisemitic, accused universities of peddling Marxism and “radical left” ideology, and promised to end federal grants and contracts to universities that do not agree to his administration’s demands.

Some professors, students and university presidents have said the protests are being unfairly conflated with antisemitism as a pretext for an unconstitutional attack on academic freedoms.

Columbia, a private school in New York City, agreed to negotiations after the Trump administration said last month it had terminated grants and contracts worth $400 million, mostly for medical and other scientific research.

Harvard President Alan Garber, in a letter on Monday, said demands the Trump administration made of the Massachusetts university — including an audit to ensure the “viewpoint diversity” of its students and faculty, and an end to all diversity, equity and inclusion programmes — were unprecedented “assertions of power, unmoored from the law” that violated constitutional free speech rights and the Civil Rights Act.

Like Columbia, he said Harvard had been working to fight antisemitism and other forms of discrimination on its campus while preserving academic freedoms and the right to protest.

Hours after Garber released his letter, the Trump administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism said it was freezing more than $2 billion in contracts and grants to Harvard, the country’s oldest and richest university. The administration did not respond to questions about which grants and contracts had been cut, and Harvard did not respond to a request for comment.

Trump, a Republican, said in a social media post on Tuesday he was mulling whether to seek to end Harvard’s tax-exempt status if it continued pushing what he called “political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting ‘Sickness?’”

He did not say how he would do this. Under the US tax code, most universities are exempt from federal income tax because they are deemed to be “operated exclusively” for educational purposes.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Trump wanted to see Harvard apologise for what she called “antisemitism that took place on their college campus against Jewish American students.”

She accused Harvard and other schools of violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination by recipients of federal funding based on race or national origin.

Under Title VI, federal funds can be terminated only after a lengthy investigation and hearings process and a 30-day notification to Congress — which has not happened at Columbia or Harvard.

Five people, including a Pakistani worker, died, and 19 others were injured — two critically — after a fire broke out in a high-rise residential building in Sharjah’s Al Nahda neighbourhood, local police said Tuesday.

“The blaze broke out at approximately 11:30am, when Sharjah Police received an emergency call reporting flames shooting out from a top floor apartment,” the police said in a statement.

The injured are being treated at Al Qasimi Hospital, and authorities have launched an investigation into the incident, while forensic experts have examined the site to determine the cause of the blaze, according to the officials.

Eyewitnesses said the fire broke out suddenly on the top floor of the 52-storey building, which housed around 1,500 residents of diverse ethnicities.

Emirati authorities expressed their condolences in a statement, saying, “We extend our heartfelt sympathies to the families of the deceased and share in their grief during this difficult time.”

Further updates are expected as the investigation continues.

The most recent incident before the Sharjah high-rise fire, in which Pakistani nationals lost their lives in a fire in the UAE, was reported on January 25, 2024, by Gulf media.

The blaze that broke out in an apartment in Sharjah’s Muwaileh area claimed the lives of a Pakistani man and his 11-year-old daughter. His wife and two other children were hospitalised in critical condition following the incident.

Sixteen people were killed and nine were injured in a Dubai residential building fire in April 2023. The fire engulfed the five-storey building in the Al-Ras neighbourhood, one of the oldest parts of Dubai and home to many migrant workers and traders, according to Abu Dhabi-based newspaper The National.

Sharjah is one of seven emirates that make up the UAE, where several residential compounds and hotels have been hit by fire in recent years.

In some of those cases, experts said the flames may have been encouraged to spread by the exterior cladding.

TEHRAN: Ahead of a second round of talks with the United States on nuclear programme, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on Tuesday the country’s military capabilities were off limits.

“National security and defence and military power are among the red lines of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which cannot be discussed or negotiated under any circumstances,” Guards spokesperson Ali Mohammad Naini said, quoted by state broadcaster IRIB.

The United States and Iran are set to hold another round of talks in Muscat on Saturday, a week after top officials met in the Omani capital for the highest-level discussions since the 2015 nuclear deal collapsed.

US President Donald Trump, who withdrew the United States from the 2015 deal during his first term, has reinstated his “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran since returning to office in January.

In March, he sent a letter to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei calling for nuclear talks and warning of possible military action if Tehran refused.

Trump addressed reporters on Monday regarding Iran, saying “I’ll solve that problem” and “That’s almost an easy one”.

The US leader also threatened to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities and called Iranian authorities “radicals” who should not possess nuclear weapons.

Iran has repeatedly denied seeking an atomic bomb, insisting its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes, especially the provision of energy.

Late Sunday, Iran’s official IRNA news agency said the country’s regional influence and its missile capabilities were among its “red lines” in the talks.

On April 12, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, met US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff in Oman for “indirect” talks, according to Iranian officials and media.

The talks were the highest-level Iran-US nuclear negotiations since the collapse of the 2015 accord, formally known is the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

The accord offered Iran relief from international sanctions in return for curbs on its nuclear programme.

Both Tehran and Washington, enemies who have had no diplomatic relations since shortly after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, have called the latest round of negotiations “constructive”.

Araghchi’s office has said he will travel to Moscow at the end of this week for talks with Russia, a close ally of Iran and party to the 2015 nuclear deal.

Moscow welcomed the Iran-US talks as it pushed for a diplomatic solution and warned any military confrontation would be a “global catastrophe”.

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Tuesday he was satisfied with talks with arch-foe the United States but warned they could ultimately prove fruitless.

Tehran and Washington are due to meet again in Muscat on Saturday, a week after top officials held the highest-level talks since the landmark 2015 nuclear accord collapsed.

US President Donald Trump, who pulled out of the deal during his first term, revived his “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign after returning to office in January.

In March, he sent a letter to Khamenei urging talks and warning of possible military action if Iran refused.

Saturday’s talks were “well carried out in the first steps”, Khamenei said, quoted by state television. “Of course, we are very pessimistic about the other side, but we are optimistic about our own capabilities.”

But he added that “the negotiations may or may not yield results”.

Despite having no diplomatic ties since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, both sides described the talks as “constructive”.

Iran insists that discussions remain “indirect” and mediated by Oman.

Trump threats

On Monday, Trump again threatened to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities if no deal was reached, calling Iranian authorities “radicals” who should not possess nuclear weapons.

Tehran denies seeking an atomic bomb, saying its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes, especially energy production.

Khamenei said Iran’s “red lines are clear”, without elaborating.

Earlier Tuesday, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said the country’s military capabilities were off limits in the discussions.

“National security and defence and military power are among the red lines of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which cannot be discussed or negotiated under any circumstances,” Guards spokesman Ali Mohammad Naini said.

On Monday, US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, who led the talks in Oman with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, said Iran should return to the 3.67 percent enrichment level stipulated in the 2015 accord.

He said the process with Iran “is going to be much about verification on the enrichment programme and then ultimately verification on weaponisation that includes missiles, the type of missiles that they have stockpiled there and it includes the trigger for a bomb”.

‘Red lines’

In its latest quarterly report in February, the UN nuclear watchdog said Iran had an estimated 274.8 kilograms (605 pounds) of uranium enriched to up to 60%, close to the 90% threshold required for weapons-grade material.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency Rafael Grossi is expected in Iran on Wednesday.

Late Sunday, Iran’s official IRNA news agency said the country’s regional influence and its missile capabilities — long criticised by Western governments — were among its “red lines” in the talks.

Tehran supports the “axis of resistance” — a network of militant groups opposed to Israel, including Yemen’s Huthi rebels, the Hezbollah armed group in Lebanon, the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Shiite militia groups in Iraq.

Iran has long been wary of talks with the United States, citing past mistrust.

The 2015 accord — known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA — offered Iran relief from international sanctions in return for curbs on its nuclear programme.

Iran complied with the agreement for a year after Trump’s withdrawal before scaling back its compliance.

In his speech, Khamenei said that Iran should not pin its hopes on progress in the negotiations.

“At the time (of the JCPOA), we made everything conditional on the progress of the negotiations,” he said.

A woman was left dead during a cryotherapy session in Paris, which turned deadly, with another hospitalised in critical condition as a result of a nitrogen leak from a cold chamber, according to French investigators.

The tragic incident unfolded on Monday evening at a small sports centre located in the 11th district of the French capital, where a nitrogen leak from a cryotherapy chamber is suspected to have caused poisoning, AFP reported, citing information from a police source.

An employee of the gym, who was in her late 20s, died. A client of the establishment, who is in her 30s, was hospitalised in critical condition.

“An investigation into the cause of death has been launched,” the Paris public prosecutor’s office said.

Three people who were in contact with the victims and provided first aid also received treatment, the police source said.

The gym, where 150 people were present when the tragedy struck, was evacuated shortly afterwards.

AFP journalists present at the scene on Monday evening saw a body covered with a white sheet being carried out of the sports centre.

Screens were set up to conceal what was happening in front of the door to the gym and along the pavement.

Nitrogen is a colourless, odourless gas that is commonly used in cryotherapy.

During a session in a walk-in chamber, a person is exposed to temperatures below -100 degrees Celsius for a recommended time of no more than three minutes.

Advocates say whole body cryotherapy is effective in reducing muscle soreness, stress, rheumatism and various skin conditions.

Star athletes and celebrities have used whole-body cryotherapy as an alternative to ice packs and cold water baths.

But many experts warn that the treatment has not been proven to be medically sound and are urging further research to determine the short- and long-term effects.

Diego Brisset, 26, said he planned to work out at the gym but was told it was closed on Monday evening.

He said he did not practice cryotherapy.

“I was always told it was dangerous”, he said.

Cryotherapy came under scrutiny in the United States in 2015 after a woman froze to death at a Las Vegas spa.

The 24-year-old woman was believed to have entered one of the spa’s cold chambers after business hours to relieve some aches and was discovered the next day by a co-worker

KUALA LUMPUR: Former Malaysian prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who promised reforms after taking over from his predecessor Mahathir Mohamad but was criticised for lacklustre leadership, has died, his family said.

The 85-year-old passed away in hospital on Monday after a lingering illness.

He will be buried Tuesday after a state funeral.

Affectionately known as “Pak Lah” or Uncle Lah, Abdullah became prime minister in 2003, succeeding Mahathir, who resigned after 22 years in power.

He served as Malaysia’s fifth prime minister until 2009 when he was forced to stand down after his ruling coalition’s poor showing in general elections and following relentless criticism from Mahathir, who had turned against his hand-picked successor.

A moderate, the fatherly Abdullah was a sharp contrast compared with his domineering predecessor.

Many cheered the transition, and this helped Abdullah lead his National Front coalition to a landslide victory in the 2004 elections.

But there were also those who saw him as a weak leader.

Abdullah maintained a low profile after his term was over.

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim paid tribute to Abdullah as a “person with a great soul who instilled a new narrative in Malaysia’s politics of power”.

Describing Abdullah as a friend and a statesperson of great character, Anwar said he led with a face that “was not angry, hands that did not grab at power, and a voice that was never raised despite relentless attacks”.

“When I was struggling during a dark episode in my life, Abdullah never added to the hurt with insulting words,” said Anwar, who was jailed under Mahathir’s rule.

“That was the personality of Pak Lah, who always chose peace even though retaliation was easy,” Anwar said on Facebook.

“During his six years as prime minister, Tun Abdullah made significant contributions to Malaysia’s social and economic development,” said Lawrence Wong, prime minister of neighbouring Singapore.

Former Singapore prime minister Lee Hsien Loong said: “I knew Pak Lah since before we became PMs. He served his country with great dedication, working tirelessly to tackle Malaysia’s challenges and uplift the lives of Malaysians.”