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What to know:

• The United States will slap taxes of 10% to 12.5% on imports from 60 trading partners accounting for 99% of U.S. imports, charging that they have inadequately enforced bans on goods produced by forced labor. The new tariffs will take effect just as temporary 10% worldwide tariffs expire Friday. Trump had turned to those temporary levies after the Supreme Court struck down his biggest and boldest tariffs in February.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤

• Carney says Canada is ready to respond to tariffs
  
  
• Canada holding solo celebration of new bridge to US
  
  
• House again passes a resolution seeking to halt military action in Iran as the conflict escalates 
  
  
• Explosions are heard near a US base in northern Iraq after US strikes Iran
  
  
• Trump adds new condition to Saudi nuclear deal, says kingdom must normalize relations with Israel

WORLD NEWS

Laura Loomer meets Zelenskyy in Ukraine after her major reversal on the war

The ardent ally of President Donald Trump, with a reputation for incendiary social media commentary, sat down with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday. Read more.

Why this matters:

• It was a stunning reversal for a woman who had spent years criticizing U.S. support for Ukraine's defense. Loomer had minimized Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and amplified Russian propaganda to her nearly 2 million followers. 
  
  

• Trump gave his stamp of approval on social media. “Very good!!!” he wrote on Thursday evening. It was unclear what had prompted Loomer's trip or how she had arranged the meeting with Zelenskyy. Loomer and the White House did not respond to requests for comment on the trip. “It is really important that @LauraLoomer is in Ukraine and sees things with her own eyes as they are,” Zelenskyy’s office wrote.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤

• US is ready to help end the ‘senseless war’ in Ukraine but no quick deal ahead, Rubio says 
  
  
• How protests over a popular minister’s firing sparked Ukraine’s sudden military reset 
  
  
• Ukraine hits Russia’s largest online marketplace, hurting small businesses and bringing the war home

POLITICS

Nearly 150,000 mail ballots rejected in California primary despite efforts to count every vote

According to state data, 1.73% of all mail ballots were rejected in the June election. It's a spike from recent elections even as the state attempts to make voting easier with the goal of boosting participation and counting every ballot. Read more.

What to know:

• California has become notorious for its ponderously slow vote counts that can drag on for weeks and sometimes longer, largely the result of multiple changes over the years that were intended to increase turnout but have done little to achieve that. Among the changes: Every voter receives a mail-in ballot that can arrive at an election office seven days late and still be counted, provided the envelope is postmarked by Election Day.
  
  

• Yet even with that generous week-long window, the primary driver of the higher rejection numbers is late-arriving ballots, according to data compiled by the secretary of state’s office. Voting experts suspect the main problem is postmarks on ballots that came after Election Day, making them ineligible to be counted. The culprit could be U.S. Postal Service changes that might affect the timing of when postmarks are applied.