Immigration judges, who are employees of the Justice Department, hear deportation cases including migrants’ petitions for asylum and other protections from removal

International News via Reuters:

The Trump administration’s removal of more than 100 immigration judges is undermining the independence of the courts and the U.S. justice system, a panel of independent experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council said on Thursday.

Immigration judges, who are employees of the Justice Department, hear deportation cases including migrants’ petitions for asylum and other protections from removal. 

The U.N. panel called for the administration to stop what it described as “the mass arbitrary removal” of immigration judges and the continued politicization of immigration courts.

An official at the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review said the agency continually evaluates all immigration judges on factors, including conduct and impartiality.

“All judges have a legal, ethical, and professional obligation to be impartial and neutral in adjudicating cases. If a judge violates that obligation by demonstrating a systematic bias in favor of or against either party, EOIR is obligated to take action to preserve the integrity of its system,” the official said.

The panel of experts said the firings raised concerns that the judges were being targeted on the basis of their perceived political affiliation, professional background or adjudicative record.

“These removals undermine the independence of the immigration courts and the larger justice system, and their consequences are immediate and severe,” the experts said in a release, adding that they had communicated their concerns to the U.S.

The panel said it was concerned that the White House was transforming the immigration court system “from a forum for independent, individualized adjudication into an instrument for implementing deportation objectives.”

More than 100 immigration judges out of about 700 have been fired or pushed out since President Donald Trump’s return to office in January 2025, according to the American Immigration Lawyers Association. 

The group said the departures had reduced the number of judges available to handle a surge in cases as the administration ramps up arrests and deportations.

Several former immigration judges have sued the Justice Department for wrongful termination.

Reporting by Jasper Ward in Washington;Editing by David Ljunggren, Michelle Nichols and Sanjeev Miglani

Investors from Asia to Europe pulled back from AI-exposed stocks and so-called momentum names that had powered portfolio returns through much of this year

International News via Reuters:

A brutal week for chip stocks — the same names that fueled this year’s blistering market rally — has left investors from Seoul to Silicon Valley asking whether the AI boom became over-leveraged and got ahead of itself.

Investors from Asia to Europe pulled back from AI-exposed stocks and so-called momentum names that had powered portfolio returns through much of this year.

The Philadelphia SE Semiconductor Index dropped 1.6% on Friday. For the week, it sank about 10%, its largest weekly fall in over a year. The index ended Friday down just over 20% from its late-June all-time high, a move that confirms it has been in a bear market.

“The pullback reflects profit-taking and rising scrutiny of AI capex sustainability,” said Toni Meadows, head of investment at BRI Wealth Management. “Valuations in semiconductor stocks had priced near-perfect demand, for what has been a cyclical area in the past, so was always going to leave stocks vulnerable at some point in what has been a rapid rise.”

The chip index remains up more than 60% for the year.

“I don’t think it has really anything to do about fundamentals as much as just repositioning of portfolios and just taking profits in stocks that have gone crazy,” said Chuck Carlson, chief executive officer at Horizon Investment Services in Hammond, Indiana.

CHINESE STARTUP TURNS FOCUS TO AI SPENDING

Analysts have highlighted several reasons for this month’s sharp reversal.

Chinese AI startup Moonshot unveiled a model that it said is the world’s largest open-weight AI system, rekindling investor scrutiny of the pace of potential returns from hefty AI investments by U.S. tech companies.

A Bloomberg report on Thursday suggested Alphabet’s Google is months behind schedule on the release of Gemini 3.5 Pro, its most powerful flagship AI model.

Traders have faced a volatile start to July: South Korea’s KOSPI showed it was in a bear market last week despite being up nearly 62% for the year, Japan’s Nikkei fell into correction territory on Friday, and Europe’s tech sector is among this week’s top losers after its biggest quarterly jump since 2001 in June.

After outperforming the benchmark S&P 500 by more than two to one this year, the S&P 500 Momentum Index, which tracks S&P 500 stocks with consistently strong performance, has pulled back 11% in July, compared to a less than 1% drop in the broader S&P 500.

Some semiconductor exchange-traded funds have recorded steeper drawdowns. The Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bull 3X ETF has slumped more than 50% from its late-June peak, although it remained up over 200% on the year.

LEVERAGE WORRIES

The sector weakness raised concerns about investors being overextended or highly leveraged.

Tony Pasquariello, head of hedge fund coverage at Goldman Sachs, said in a note to clients that leverage has built up across the marketplace, seen for example in a rise in retail margin, the assets under management of levered ETFs and the volume in short-dated options.

Large hedge funds that typically use leverage to take bigger swings at the markets to boost returns have in recent weeks reduced their exposure to top AI infrastructure players, according to executives at banks that cater to hedge funds.

“People got way overextended on these names,” said Walter Todd, chief investment officer at Greenwood Capital in South Carolina. “There are a lot of people under the impression over the last couple of months that these stocks only go up. And if they borrowed money to buy the positions, then they (could be) getting called out of them.”

Still, options traders seemed more focused on buying the dip and rotating into less crowded corners of the market than on retreating from stocks altogether.

“Investors have generally been rotating rather than broadly reducing risk,” Chris Murphy, co-head of derivative strategy at Susquehanna Financial Group, said.

Some of the hottest chipmakers, including SK Hynix, Micron Technology, and SanDisk even drew some bullish options action around midday.

“This suggests that a short-term oversold bottom may be in,” said Brent Kochuba, founder of options analytic service SpotGamma.

HARD-HIT SHARES

On Friday, Nvidia shares finished 2.2% lower, while Intel dropped 2%, and Applied Materials fell 5.6%. Memory chip company Micron slipped 0.5% and SanDisk closed down 4%.

SpaceX dropped 5.4%, as a last-second abort of Starship’s 13th flight test piled more pressure after the stock slipped below the $135 initial public offering price this week.

SK Hynix’s U.S.-listed shares briefly dropped below their offering price before reversing losses to finish modestly higher.

The focus now shifts to earnings reports from two of Wall Street’s Magnificent Seven. Alphabet and Tesla are scheduled to report quarterly earnings next week, along with semiconductor company Intel.

Reporting by Saqib Iqbal Ahmed, Anirban Sen and Lewis Krauskopf in New York, Johann M Cherian and Shashwat Chauhan in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila, Megan Davies, Rod Nickel

Thick black smoke covered the area, located some 50 km (30 miles) west of Oslo, but there were no reports of casualties or people missing from the blaze, which hit a neighbourhood of terraced housing

International News via Reuters:

More than 100 homes were destroyed by fire on Friday near the city of Drammen in southern Norway as firefighters battled to contain the flames amid strong winds, rescue officials said.

Thick black smoke covered the area, located some 50 km (30 miles) west of Oslo, but there were no reports of casualties or people missing from the blaze, which hit a neighbourhood of terraced housing.

More than 60 firefighters worked to put out the fire, while helicopters were deployed to douse the flames with water.

Police evacuated hundreds of people as the fire continued to burn and also spread to the surrounding forest.

It was not immediately known where or how the fire began.

Reporting by Terje Solsvik; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Franklin Paul

Detroit registered the worst air quality of any city in the world on Thursday, according to monitoring company IQAir, with a pollutant index of 600, twice the level considered “hazardous” by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

International News via Reuters:

Heavy smoke from hundreds of wildfires in Canada enveloped a swath of the U.S. from the Midwest to the Northeast on Thursday, prompting warnings from officials that residents should stay indoors wherever possible and avoid the acrid, unhealthy air.

Detroit registered the worst air quality of any city in the world on Thursday, according to monitoring company IQAir, with a pollutant index of 600, twice the level considered “hazardous” by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Federal data showed dangerous levels of smoke across Minnesota, Michigan, northern Illinois, northern Ohio and into Ontario, with hazardous readings in such major cities as Minneapolis, Milwaukee and Toronto. Ten states reported at least some locations with an “unhealthy” reading, stretching from Minnesota to as far south as Maryland.

“It’s wild because when you look outside you think it’s fog, and it’s completely covered the city, and it’s smoke, because when we walk outside it burns,” Chicago resident Stephanie Villanova, 33, said while out for a late-morning downtown stroll with her 68-year-old father. Both were wearing face masks.

Outdoor shows, fairs and other events in Minnesota, including a concert by the rock band Creed at Mystic Lake Amphitheater outside Minneapolis, were canceled on Thursday due to poor air quality, the Minnesota Star Tribune reported.

Municipal swimming pools, nature camps, golf courses and all outdoor events and programs scheduled in Minneapolis were likewise closed, the city Park and Recreation Board announced.

‘RIVER OF SMOKE’

Minnesota’s northeastern Iron Range region along Lake Superior, including the cities of Duluth and Hibbing, registered fine-particulate concentrations as high as 900 micrograms per cubic meter of air, triple the threshold classified as hazardous, according to the state Pollution Control Agency.

“It’s basically a river of smoke pouring into the Midwest right now,” said Emily Fischer, an atmospheric chemist and professor at Colorado State University. “This is a direct connection to climate change. This is the climate change that people breathe.”

The smoke was expected to worsen throughout the day. In New York, where the sky was tinged with an orange haze and the air smelled acrid, local officials urged residents to limit their outdoor time and cautioned the elderly, pregnant women and people with other risk factors, such as heart and lung disease, to remain inside.

The dangerous conditions in the New York City metropolitan area came just days before the FIFA World Cup soccer final was set to be played in nearby New Jersey on Sunday in front of more than 80,000 fans.

“Today is expected to be the worst day of this event,” New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said at a gathering on Thursday. “At ‘unhealthy’ levels, everyone – not just people with asthma or heart conditions, not just older adults – everyone may feel health effects. So today, every New Yorker should take precautions.”

The city was handing out free KN95 face masks at hundreds of libraries, police precincts and firehouses, the mayor said.

As of Thursday morning, officials tallied 858 fires burning across Canada, including 111 considered out of control. Most of the fires were in the central provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Ontario.

Roughly 5.9 million acres (2.4 million hectares) have burned during this wildfire season in Canada, according to government data. Climate experts say rising global temperatures are driving an increase in the frequency and intensity of wildfires around the world.

Wildfire smoke, which can linger in the air for weeks and travel thousands of miles, is more toxic than normal air pollution. Studies have linked wildfire smoke with higher rates of heart attacks, strokes, cancer, pregnancy complications and weakened immune defenses.

Reporting by Joseph Ax in New Jersey and Eric Cox in Chicago; Additional reporting by Andrew Hay in New Mexico, and Caroline Stauffer and Wa Lone in Toronto; Writing and additional reporting by Joseph Ax and Steve Gorman; Editing by Mark Porter and Nick Zieminski