While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, April 30, 2025

Trump eases auto tariffs burden, Lutnick touts trade deal

US President Donald Trump signed an order to soften the blow of his auto tariffs on April 29 with a mix of credits and relief from other levies on materials, and his trade team touted its first deal with a foreign trading partner, developments that eased investor worries about Trump’s erratic trade policies.

The change comes the day Mr Trump was headed to Michigan, cradle of the US auto industry and just days before a fresh set of 25 per cent import taxes was set to kick in on automotive components.

The trip, on the eve of his 100th day in office, comes as Americans take an increasingly dim view of Mr Trump’s economic stewardship, with indications his tariffs will weigh on growth and could drive up inflation and unemployment.

In his latest partial reversal of tariff policies, the Republican president agreed to provide carmakers with credits for up to 15 per cent of the value of vehicles assembled domestically. These could be applied against the value of imported parts, allowing time to bring supply chains back home.

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Three people killed in shooting in Sweden, police say

Three people were killed in a shooting in the Swedish city of Uppsala on April 29 and a murder investigation has been launched, police said.

Police said it was investigating the shooting as a homicide and that it had no information about the incident being a terror or hate crime at this point.

“We have information that a person left the scene on an electric scooter,” a police spokesperson told Reuters.

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EU chief woos scientists, researchers, amid Trump threats

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen on April 29 invited scientists and researchers from the world over to make Europe their home, when the Trump administration is threatening to cut federal funding for Harvard and other US universities.

They have been in the administration’s crosshairs, mainly over how they handled pro-Palestinian rallies against Israel’s war in Gaza that roiled campuses in 2024, but also over issues like diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes, climate initiatives and transgender policies.

“Controversial debates at (European) universities are welcome. We consider freedom of science and research as fundamental,” Dr von der Leyen said in Valencia, at the 2025 congress of the conservative European People’s Party, the largest in the European Parliament.

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US Senate backs Perdue as ambassador to China

A majority of the US Senate on April 29 backed one-time US senator David Perdue to be ambassador to China, a position the former business executive assumes amid a deep strategic rivalry and blistering trade war between the two countries.

The vote was 67 to 29 in favour of confirming President Donald Trump’s nominee, who was a Republican US senator from Georgia from 2015 to 2021 and previously lived in Hong Kong during a 40-year career as an international business executive.

Fifteen Democrats and one independent who caucuses with the Democrats joined Mr Trump’s fellow Republicans in backing Mr Perdue for the position.

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Kardashian robbery suspect says heist was one ‘too many’

At the Paris trial of 10 people accused of robbing Kim Kardashian at gunpoint in 2016, a defendant who wrote a book about the jewellery heist on April 29 said he regretted participating, while one of his co-accused vehemently denied any involvement.

Yunice Abbas, 71, says he remained in a Paris hotel lobby on the lookout while two other suspects on the night of Oct 2-3, 2016, stormed into her room, tied her up and made away with around US$10 million (S$13.14 million) worth of her jewels.

But Abbas has sought to capitalise on the crime by publishing his version of events in a 2021 book, entitled I Kidnapped Kim Kardashian.

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