President Donald Trump on Monday declared an emergency aimed at protecting the U.S. food supply and temporarily suspended import duties on certain Moroccan fertilizer products.

Under the presidential emergency declaration, phosphate fertilizer imported from Morocco will no longer face tariffs for up to eight months or until the emergency declaration is terminated.

“The proclamation declares an emergency regarding threats to the availability of sufficient supplies of fertilizers to meet America’s agricultural demand,” the declaration stated. 

“This proclamation will ensure that American farmers have access to a sufficient and timely supply of phosphate fertilizers in the near term to mitigate any significant risks to the domestic food supply.”

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President Donald Trump is pausing tariffs on Moroccan phosphate fertilizer imports. (Al Drago/Getty Images / Getty Images)

The document cited recent overseas conflicts and trade disputes as factors that have disrupted global supply chains and affected access to critical fertilizers needed by U.S. farmers.

“President Trump believes that American farmers must maintain reliable access to key fertilizers to mitigate significant risks to food production, safeguard national security, and ensure a stable domestic food supply,” the declaration stated.

The tariff suspension is considered a short-term measure as the administration works with American companies to expand domestic fertilizer production and reduce the nation’s reliance on foreign suppliers. 

SMART POLICY AND CHEAPER EGGS: TRUMP-ROLLINS TEAM GOOD FOR FARMERS AND US CONSUMERS

A farmer drives a tractor in a field with yellow flowers along Limekiln Lane in Caernarvon Township on Thursday afternoon, May 27, 2021.  (Ben Hasty/MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle via Getty Images / Getty Images)

The declaration is one of several actions Trump has taken to “support American farmers and drive prices down for hardworking families,” according to the White House fact sheet. 

The White House highlighted the president’s Working Families Tax Cuts Act, saying the law provided “historic relief” to farmers by allowing them to write off new equipment costs, creating a permanent 20% tax deduction for small businesses, and letting farmers delay capital gains taxes when selling farmland to another farmer.

“President Trump’s Working Families Tax Cuts Act delivered historic relief to American farmers: Made the virtual elimination of the death tax permanent, benefiting more than 2 million family farms,” it said. 

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A worker fuels a tractor while tilling a field on April 2, 2026, in Rocky Hill, Connecticut. (Mark Mirko/Connecticut Public via Getty Images / Getty Images)

In February 2026, Trump invoked the Defense Production Act to protect the U.S. supply of elemental phosphorus, a critical material used in both farming and military equipment.

In June 2026, Trump signed an executive order aimed at accelerating the development of agricultural technologies and strengthening the nation’s food security. 

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The White House added that Trump’s “America First Trade Agenda has dramatically increased global market access, strengthened farmer incomes, supported rural jobs, and reduced the agricultural trade deficit.”

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There are always things in life that I don’t understand. I bet you a lot of people feel that way. How did that happen? Why did that happen? Or it makes no sense. Somehow we have to accept these decisions, even if we don’t like them or understand them. So here’s a couple.

The Supreme Court ruled that President Biden’s appointee to the Federal Trade Commission could be fired by President Trump. Justice Neil Gorsuch, concurring in the court’s decision, said “independent agencies are not so independent after all.”

Well that I like. Makes perfect sense. As Mr. Trump put it, it reverses a bad decision made by the Supremes 91 years ago back in 1935. It gives the chief executive true executive authority. He defines quote “cause.” Yet what I don’t understand is how the Supremes let Governor Lisa Cook off the hook regarding the Federal Reserve. They decided that at least one so-called independent agency was truly independent and cited a way-long-ago, more or less 200 years ago precedent for the First and Second Bank of the United States. A long time ago.

By the way President Jackson didn’t think the Second Bank of the United States was so independent because he stopped their charter from being extended. Anyway, today’s court also cited the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. That’s a long time ago. Yet many people believe that central bank charter was highly ambiguous. And if presidents have the authority to appoint chairs and governors, they should have the same authority to fire them.

And then Justice Brett Kavanaugh, in a concurring opinion, writes quote “today’s interim ruling does not decide whether the President may lawfully remove Governor Cook for cause.” And he goes on to say “the ultimate decision about why the President may remove Governor Cook for cause will largely depend on the facts regarding the governor’s actions. And those facts have yet to be determined.”

Justice Clarence Thomas called the ruling “incorrect” in his dissenting opinion. “Although the Court expresses concern that the President removed a Board member for ‘the first time in the Federal Reserve’s 111-year history,’” he wrote, “it expresses no such concern that it today upholds an injunction against the President’s removal of an executive officer for the first time in the Constitution’s 237-year history.”

Well Ms. Cook has been accused of mortgage fraud because she apparently or allegedly took out mortgages in three different states, Michigan, Georgia, and Massachusetts. And then she labeled each one her primary residence.

So if she can’t count or if she can’t read, why are we entrusting her with the monetary power of our currency? Her case was referred to the Justice Department, which I guess opened a criminal investigation into mortgage fraud back in August 2025. Almost a year ago.

Yet nothing’s happened since then. So far as we know, no charges have been brought, no grand jury has been convened, or maybe stuff is going on that we don’t know about. Justice Kavanaugh’s comment suggests Ms. Cook may yet get busted, tossed off the court.

The president wrote on Truth Social that the Supremes just sent it back on a strictly procedural basis, but the issue of firing her for cause was not settled. Sounds like he’s right. Yet here you have an independent agency that’s not so independent, and then you have an independent agency that may be independent, but we don’t actually know. So for now, acceptance is the answer to all my prayers, but I don’t really understand any of it.

By Jennifer Nash

The Dallas Fed released its Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey (TMOS) for June. The general business activity index fell 0.4 points to 0.0, indicating slower growth of manufacturing activity and stable business conditions perceptions.

TUCSON, Ariz. — A former FBI agent says the latest anonymous ransom note in the Nancy Guthrie case may be less about money and more about self-preservation, suggesting whoever sent it understands they could be facing a capital murder charge in Arizona if caught.

Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of “Today” show co-anchor Savannah Guthrie, has been missing since the early hours of Feb. 1, after being dropped off at her Tucson home by her son-in-law the previous night around 9:50 p.m. The new note, sent to TMZ last week, claims Guthrie is dead and was “buried with nature,” language consistent with a second note investigators received earlier in the case.

Former FBI agent Jennifer Coffindaffer addressed the latest correspondence during a Sunday appearance on “NewsNation Prime,” telling host Hena Doba that she believes the note’s author understands the legal stakes have shifted dramatically now that Guthrie is presumed dead.

“They have a murder on their hands as opposed to a kidnapping,” Coffindaffer said.

Coffindaffer characterized the note as functioning less like a genuine ransom demand and more like an attempt by the sender to get ahead of the consequences before any arrest, framing it as a kind of preemptive apology aimed at softening how the person might eventually be perceived if identified. She suggested the writer is motivated by a desire for attention and a need to control the public narrative around the case, while still holding out hope of receiving a cryptocurrency payment if possible. Coffindaffer also said she suspects the timing of this latest note may have been driven by renewed media coverage following the disclosure of an earlier, previously undisclosed note’s contents earlier in the week.

As for whether Guthrie is still alive, Coffindaffer was unequivocal in her own assessment, saying she believes the notes sent so far are authentic and that the sequence of events described, in which the people responsible apparently did not intend for Guthrie to die before they could establish proof of life and collect a ransom, points to a plan that went catastrophically wrong for those involved. She said she believes Guthrie is no longer alive, while cautioning that no suspects have been arrested and that she believes investigators are working the case intensively behind the scenes, even if the public cannot see most of that activity.

The note Coffindaffer was discussing is the latest in a string of ransom communications that have surrounded the case since Guthrie’s disappearance. According to investigators who have reviewed the correspondence, two notes sent in early February are believed to have come from the same person or group, likely from the same computer IP address. The first, sent Feb. 2 to two local Tucson television stations and to TMZ, demanded a payment in bitcoin and contained unusually specific details about Guthrie’s home, including the location of an Apple Watch with a white band on her bedroom floor and a broken light on her back porch. The second note, sent four days later, was similar in tone and style but made no financial demand, instead indicating that Guthrie had died and that her abductors had not intended for that to happen.

Savannah Guthrie addressed the broader landscape of ransom claims in a March interview, distinguishing between the notes her family considers credible and the many other claims that have surfaced since her mother’s disappearance.

“There are a lot of different notes, I think, that came,” Savannah Guthrie said.

That distinction has become increasingly important as additional claims have continued to surface in the months since. Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos addressed one such claim directly during a radio interview on a Tucson station’s Buckmaster Show last Friday, responding to a newer message sent to TMZ from someone claiming to possess video footage showing “the main guy” with Guthrie on what the sender described as the day she likely died, along with photographs, names and addresses tied to two alleged kidnappers. Nanos voiced clear skepticism about the claim’s authenticity, drawing on the case’s history of false reports.

“I think the FBI has done a number of arrests for false or fake ransom notes,” Nanos said.

The sender of that particular video claim also denied being responsible for an earlier tip that pointed to a possible burial site near Nogales, Mexico, and disputed reports that the previously revealed second ransom note had been written by a woman. That Mexico-related tip, which came through a Mexican volunteer search group called Buscando Corazones Nogales, prompted an unsuccessful local search effort earlier this month after it suggested Guthrie’s remains might be located near the U.S.-Mexico border.

Throughout the investigation, authorities have said they have ruled out Guthrie’s children and their spouses as suspects in her disappearance. Investigators have previously disclosed finding drops of Guthrie’s blood on the front stoop of her home, evidence that has reinforced the working theory that she was taken against her will rather than having left voluntarily. A reward of up to $100,000 from the FBI remains in place, supplemented by an additional $1 million reward offered by the Guthrie family, and the FBI’s tip line, 1-800-CALL-FBI, remains open for anyone with information.

Guthrie, born in Fort Wright, Kentucky, had lived in the Tucson area for more than five decades before her disappearance. She failed to log on to a scheduled online church service the morning after she went missing, prompting a church member to alert her family. Relatives went to check on her home around 11 a.m. that day, found no sign of her, and called police around noon after discovering her phone and other personal belongings still inside the house.

Savannah Guthrie has since returned to her duties on “Today,” though producers have reportedly put strict internal procedures in place for handling any breaking developments related to the case that might surface during the broadcast. She has repeatedly pleaded publicly for anyone with knowledge of her mother’s whereabouts or what happened to her to come forward, expressing hope that her family might finally find closure after nearly five months of uncertainty.

As the investigation continues without a confirmed suspect, authorities have not publicly verified the authenticity of any of the ransom notes received by media outlets, leaving the case in a familiar pattern: a steady stream of unconfirmed claims, competing theories from outside experts, and a family still waiting for the kind of definitive answer that, five months in, remains frustratingly out of reach.