🚨12 HOUR NEWS RECAP

1. Trump paused all military aid to Ukraine, escalating tensions days after his heated Oval Office meeting with Zelensky. A senior Defense Department official says the halt will remain until Ukraine shows a "good-faith commitment to peace."

2. Marine Le Pen said that France can't promise NATO membership for Ukraine "when we know that this option was a justification for Russian aggression and is now clearly rejected by the United States."

3. Trump signed an executive order doubling tariffs on Chinese imports from 10% to 20%, citing China's failure to "take adequate steps to alleviate the illicit drug crisis."

4. Toymakers are scrambling after Trump's 20% tariff hike on Chinese imports, with price hikes now inevitable. The Toy Association is pushing for an exemption, and with U.S manufacturing practically nonexistent, there's nowhere left to turn.

5. China hit back at Trump's tariff hike by slapping fresh tariffs on U.S goods, hitting American farmers where it hurts - with up to 15% hikes on wheat, corn, soybeans, meat, and more.

6. Romanian MEP Georgiana Teodorescu said that her country was no longer a true democracy: "In Romania, they canceled the elections last December; last week, we had also the arrest of the independent candidate, Mr. Georgescu. So now we are trying to have new presidential elections, but we are not sure if, this time, the Constitutional Court will allow free elections to happen."

7. China's Zuchongzhi-3 quantum chip left classical computing in the dust, running tasks a quadrillion times faster than today's top supercomputers. According to researchers from the University of Science and Technology of China, it crushes Google's latest quantum benchmark by 6 orders of magnitude.

8. A nonprofit was raking in $18 million a month to run a migrant facility in Texas - one that's been sitting empty. Elon's DOGE called it out, and now the contract is dead.

9. Belgium plans to accelerate its defense spending, reaching 2% of GDP this year - the NATO minimum. Previously set for 2029, it marks a historic first for Belgium, which currently spends only 1.3% of GDP on defense.

10. Serbian opposition deputies set off smoke grenades inside parliament, disrupting a session in protest against government policies. The dramatic stunt was also a show of support for student-led demonstrations sweeping the country.