While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, Aug 12, 2025
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Containers are seen at the port in Qingdao, in China’s eastern Shandong province on Aug 11, 2025.
PHOTO: AFP
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Trump signs order extending China tariff truce by 90 days
US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order extending a tariff truce with China by another 90 days, a White House official said on Aug 11 with only hours to go before US tariffs on Chinese goods were due to snap back to triple-digit rates.
The order followed a noncommittal answer by Mr Trump to reporters as to whether he would extend the lower tariff rates a day after he urged Beijing to quadruple its purchases of US soybeans.
A tariff truce between Beijing and Washington was set to expire on Aug 12 at 12.01am Eastern time (12pm in Singapore). The order prevents US tariffs on Chinese goods from shooting up to 145 per cent, with Chinese tariffs on US goods set to hit 125 per cent, rates that would have resulted in a virtual trade embargo.
“We’ll see what happens,” Mr Trump told a press conference, when asked how he planned to extend the deadline. “They’ve been dealing quite nicely. The relationship is very good with President Xi (Jinping) and myself.”
Trump open to Nvidia selling scaled-back Blackwell chip to China
PHOTO: REUTERS
US President Donald Trump signalled on Aug 11 that he’d be open to allowing Nvidia Corp to sell a scaled-back version of its most advanced AI chip to China.
Mr Trump said he would consider a deal that would allow Nvidia to ship its Blackwell chips to China if the company could design it to be less advanced. “It’s possible I’d make a deal” on a “somewhat enhanced – in a negative way – Blackwell” processor, he said in a briefing with reporters. “In other words, take 30 per cent to 50 per cent off of it.”
Nvidia declined to comment on the president’s remarks. Mr Trump made his assertion on Nvidia’s Blackwell chip while confirming that he’d hammered out a separate, unusual deal with Nvidia that will allow the company to sell its less-advanced H20 AI chip to China if it pays 15 per cent of revenue tied to those shipments to the US government.
Child dies in Italy as European heatwave sets records and sparks wildfires
PHOTO: REUTERS
A young boy died of heatstroke in Italy while wildfires threatened a Unesco site in Spain and French cities saw record temperatures, as a heatwave baked Europe on Aug 11.
Many towns and cities in France, Italy and the Balkans were put on red alert due to the heat.
Wildfires fanned by strong winds forced the evacuations of thousands of people throughout the continent and threatened popular tourist sites in Turkey and Spain.
Trump seizes control of Washington police, deploys National Guard
President Donald Trump announced he would take federal control of Washington, DC’s police department and deploy 800 National Guard troops there, escalating his push to exert power over the nation’s capital.
Mr Trump on Aug 11 also threatened to insert federal personnel into other cities, including New York and Chicago, if they did not crack down on what he called “out of control” crime.
During a White House news conference, Mr Trump painted a nightmarish picture of a Washington that’s been “overtaken” by “bloodthirsty criminals” and “roving mobs of wild youth” that was at direct odds with statistics showing plummeting crime rates. Violent crimes in the capital reached a 30-year low in 2024, the Justice Department announced weeks before Mr Trump took office in January.
Sabalenka survives massive Cincinnati struggle with Raducanu
Top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka fought through a three-hour battle to hold off an inspired Emma Raducanu 7-6 (7/3), 4-6, 7-6 (7/5) on Aug 11 and reach the fourth round of the ATP and WTA Cincinnati Open.
The top seed, who won the Cincinnati final a year ago over Jessica Pegula, increased her lead at the top of the WTA Tour match-win statistics as she secured her 49th of the season.
But the struggle was real for Sabalenka, who finished with two aces in the closing stages.
