Wholesale egg prices are starting to drift lower amid signs that the bird flu is easing, but don't expect to find lower prices at grocery stores yet.

Why it matters: Even as President Trump is claiming victory, his administration is acknowledging that the upcoming Easter holiday could cause prices to jump again.

The big picture: The highly pathogenic avian influenza has led to tens of millions of chickens being culled, triggering shortages and price spikes.

• Many stores are limiting how many eggs shoppers can buy and some restaurants have added temporary egg surcharges.
• Trump on Wednesday took credit for falling prices, saying "we did a lot of things that got the cost of eggs down, very substantially."
• But while wholesale prices have started to tick down, grocery shoppers are still paying more than ever for a dozen eggs.

When are egg prices coming down?

Wholesale egg prices fell by $1.20 to $6.85 per dozen last week, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's March 7 report.

• The department noted that flu outbreaks had slowed over the past two weeks and been "localized, which is providing producers in unaffected regions with an opportunity to make progress in reducing the egg deficit problem the market has been experiencing."
• The latest: The price of Midwest large eggs was $5.23 per dozen on Thursday, down 39% from its peak two weeks earlier, according to Karyn Rispoli, managing editor for eggs in the Americas for price-reporting service Expana.

Yes, but: The price consumers are actually paying still rose 10% from January to February, according to the latest Consumer Price Index released Wednesday.

• Egg prices were up 59% from February 2024 to February 2025.
• The USDA said in a recent report that egg prices are expected to rise by 41.1% this year.

Between the lines: Consumers often don't see wholesale price drops reflected at the grocery store — at least not immediately.

• "There's usually (at least) a two-to-three-week lag between wholesale and retail pricing, and since the market only started correcting last Monday, shoppers haven't seen the impact of these lower prices at the grocery store just yet," Rispoli said Thursday.
• "The main driver behind this drop is weakened demand, largely due to widespread purchasing restrictions and elevated shelf prices," she said. "Right now, consumers are still experiencing the peak of the market in terms of what they're paying at checkout."

Easter could cause egg prices to soar

State of play: Easter is traditionally one of the highest demand periods for eggs with eggs playing a big part of Easter traditions and the Jewish holiday of Passover.

• This year, Easter is April 20, the latest date since 2019. Passover starts April 12.
• "We're going into Easter season. This is always the highest price for eggs," Agricultural Secretary Brooke Rollins said Tuesday. "We expect it to perhaps inch back up."

What they're saying: Kevin Bergquist, Wells Fargo Agri-Food Institute sector manager, said in a new report that egg prices "will likely remain highly variable for the near future, but at a higher-than-usual level."

• "In the short term, we will likely see a continuation of high egg prices," Bergquist said. "The Easter season is just around the corner, and the demand for eggs is not abating."

The bottom line: If egg prices are still high for Easter, expect families to turn to alternatives like painting and hiding potatoes, an idea that sprouted in 2023 because of high prices.

More from Axios:

• Why food prices are still high, five years after COVID
• Government suspends free COVID test distribution program
• Walmart clashes with China after asking suppliers to absorb tariffs

A new documentary on the Columbia University student Palestinian rights movement featuring now-detained graduate Mahmoud Khalil will be released at a film festival later this month.

Why it matters: The film, months in the making, gives more insight into the plight of Khalil's family from Palestine during the 1948 Nakba to decades in refugee camps in Syria and his role in 2024 encampment protests.

The big picture: Khalil remains detained at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Louisiana amid a legal battle to prevent his deportation from the U.S. after the Trump administration ordered his removal.

• He was arrested last week after the Department of Homeland Security concluded he was actively supporting Hamas but not materially supporting the terror group, a White House official said.
• His detention has sparked national student protests around the country.

Zoom in: Watermelon Pictures announced Thursday that it has completed "The Encampments," a documentary chronicling the Columbia University encampments and the international wave of student activism they ignited.

• The film is scheduled to debut at the Copenhagen International Documentary Festival in Copenhagen on March 25.
• "The film ensures the students in (the) U.S and Gaza are heard, their actions are remembered, and the fight for Palestinian liberation continues," Grammy Award-Winning rapper Macklemore, a co-producer, said in a statement.

Khalil is one of the main protagonists in the film.

• "I was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Damascus in Syria. My family's history in Palestine actually goes back as long as my grandparents can trace it," Khalil says in the documentary.
• Khalil talks about how his grandparents were violently forced off their land during the 1948 war and became refugees.

Context: Until now, reporters have been trying to piece together Khalil's biography and determine why the Trump administration targeted him first amid a promised crackdown on immigrants who voice support for the Palestinians.

• ICE records show Khalil is a Syrian national and a citizen of Algeria.
• He was one of the most visible activists in the Columbia protests and served as a student negotiator.
• Khalil finished his master's degree in public administration at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs in December and now holds a green card after he married his wife, a U.S. citizen.

Zoom out: Secretary of State Marco Rubio was presented with evidence from the DHS review and determined that Khalil acted against U.S. foreign policy positions, the official said.

• U.S. law allows the secretary of state to deport a green card holder if that person is deemed to have "potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States."
• Green card holders can be removed from the U.S. for many other reasons, like breaking U.S. law. Khalil has not been charged with any crime.
• President Trump praised the Khalil arrest this week, promising it's the first of "many to come."

The intrigue: In an interview with NPR on Thursday, Troy Edgar, the deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, struggled to explain what Khalil did to face deportation.

• "I think you can see it on TV, right? This is somebody that we've invited and allowed the student to come into the country, and he's put himself in the middle of the process of basically pro-Palestinian activity," he said.
• But he declined to say what specific actions Khalil committed to amount to removal.

What we're watching: The legal challenge to Khalil might ultimately come down to the Supreme Court, which would decide how far the secretary of state can determine whether a permanent resident can be removed for speech.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a press conference in Moscow on Thursday that he needs more clarifications before Russia agrees to a ceasefire with Ukraine.

Why it matters: The U.S. and Ukraine both endorsed an unconditional 30-day ceasefire on Tuesday that calls for all air and artillery strikes to stop and fighting to cease all along the front lines. Putin raised doubts about that idea and said any ceasefire should also be part of a process that addresses the "root causes of this crisis."

He noted that his troops had been retaking occupied territory in Russia's Kursk region in recent days and advancing along the front lines in Ukraine, and asked, "What would happen during those 30 days?"

• Specifically, Putin raised the fate of the Ukrainian soldiers still in Kursk, asking, "Would it mean that everybody there would leave? Should we release them after they committed serious crimes against civilians?"
• But Putin also thanked President Trump for his efforts and took a less hardline position than his senior aide, Yuri Ushakov, who said earlier on Thursday that Trump's proposal was "nothing other than a temporary timeout for Ukrainian soldiers."
• "The idea is good and we absolutely support it, but there are issues we need to discuss, and I think we need to negotiate with our American colleagues," Putin said.

What's next: White House envoy Steve Witkoff arrived in Moscow on Thursday to meet with Putin about the ceasefire proposal.

• Ushakov said Putin and Witkoff would meet privately on Thursday night.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

A coalition of 21 Democratic attorneys general on Thursday sued the Trump administration over its plan to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education.

Why it matters: President Trump's Education Secretary, Linda McMahon, confirmed the mass layoffs this week were the first step toward shuttering the department.

Driving the news: The attorneys general argue that the recent mass layoff of department staff was "illegal and unconstitutional. They're seeking a court order to stop further disruption.

• The lawsuit asserts that "only Congress may abolish an agency it created." McMahon did acknowledge this week that Congress would have to be involved in disbanding the department.
• McMahon has the authority to "modestly restructure" the department, but her permissions are limited, the lawsuit said.
• However, it noted, "She is not permitted to eliminate or disrupt functions required by statute, nor can she transfer the department's responsibilities to another agency outside of its statutory authorization."

The big picture: The mass layoffs will cause loss or delays in funding or support "impacting nearly every aspect of K-12 education" in the states that sued, the lawsuit said.

• Impacts will include teacher shortages and a loss in professional development and salaries for specialists who work with students with disabilities, the attorneys general said.
• The cuts "will result in lost educational opportunities for students that cannot be recovered or remedied," they wrote.
• The recent layoffs will acutely hurt low-income and disabled students, who rely on supports provided via federal funding, New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement.

Zoom in: The attorneys general participating in the lawsuit are from Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, Wisconsin, Vermont, and the District of Columbia.

• Democratic attorneys general have launched challenges to several of the Trump administration's actions and executive orders.
• On Thursday afternoon, the case was assigned to a Magistrate Judge Page Kelley in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts.

Read the lawsuit:

Go deeper:

• Education secretary says mass layoffs first step toward shutting down DoE
• Trump-voting states have more to lose if Education Department dismantled

Editor's note: The story has been updated with the judge assigned to the case.

Alcohol appears to be one of the earliest casualties of President Trump's trade war, one he escalated Thursday with a threat to impose massive levies on European wine and Champagne.

Why it matters: The alcohol industries may not have had the same influence in the tariff fight so far as automakers, but there's still billions of dollars in revenue and thousands of jobs at stake.

Driving the news: On Wednesday the U.S. imposed 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum, prompting retaliation from top trading partners like Canada and the European Union.

• The EU quickly reimposed previously suspended counter-measures, including 50% tariffs on American whiskey as of April 1.
• On Thursday, Trump responded, threatening a 200% tariff on European wine and Champagne if the whiskey levy wasn't removed.
• "This will be great for the Wine and Champagne businesses in the U.S.," Trump posted on Truth Social.

Yes, but: Historically, it's not.

• In 2020 the U.S. Wine Trade Alliance begged Trump to suspend a previous set of retaliatory tariffs on EU exports that had been imposed in 2019, citing their significant impact on the hospitality industries.

By the numbers: The U.S. imports more than $6.7 billion worth of wine a year, per the American Association of Wine Economists, with about two-thirds of that coming from France and Italy.

What they're saying: "We urge President Trump to secure a spirits agreement with the EU to get us back to zero-for-zero tariffs, which will create U.S. jobs and increase manufacturing and exports for the American hospitality sector," the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States said in a statement.

• "We want toasts not tariffs."

💭 Thought bubble, from Axios economics reporter Courtenay Brown: The EU is quickly learning the risk of trying to hit Trump where it hurts, like red-state industries.

• He doesn't back down, he doubles down. "If you make him unhappy, he responds unhappy," as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Bloomberg TV Thursday.

The bottom line: To paraphrase FDR, what America needs now is a drink — but not if it costs 200% more.

David Solomon — Goldman Sachs chairman and CEO — said after President Trump's visit to the Business Roundtable this week that "the business community understands what the president is trying to do with tariffs."

• "The business community is always going to want lower tariffs ... everywhere in the world," Solomon told Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo on Wednesday. "At the moment, there is some uncertainty — the market is digesting that."

Solomon told Bartiromo that Trump projected a "sense of optimism" during his closed-door remarks Tuesday to the biggest-ever meeting of the BRT, made up of the CEOs of America's largest companies.

• Solomon, whose firm manages or supervises trillions of dollars in assets, praised the administration for being "engaged with the business community. ... That's a different experience than what we've had over the course of the last four years."
• He said business wants to see "more specific actions on the regulatory front to unleash more animal spirits. ... My expectation is you will see, as you get through the year, a pickup in activity across both the capital markets and M&A."

One CEO in the room for Trump's remarks told Mike: "Let's slow down and have a little perspective. We may not like how fast this is going, and have real concerns. But let's play a long game."

• The CEO told us that amid the current uncertainty, many BRT members are medium-term and long-term optimistic that Trump policies will encourage capital spending, economic growth and consumer activity.

🥊 Reality check: A front-page story in today's Wall Street Journal is headlined, "CEO Frustrations With Trump Over Trade Mount — in Private."

• Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a well-known professor at Yale School of Management, who organized a CEO Caucus in Washington on Tuesday, said he heard "universal revulsion against the Trump economic policies ... They're also especially horrified about Canada."
• Trump has been dismissive of CEOs' concerns about tariff uncertainty. Last weekend, he told Bartiromo they had "plenty of clarity."

Stephen Schwarzman — chairman, CEO and co-founder of Blackstone, and a top Trump donor — told reporters in India yesterday that the tariffs would, "at the end of the day," lead to a significant increase in manufacturing activity in the U.S., the Financial Times reports ($).

• "Given the size of the U.S., that tends to be a good thing for the world," Schwarzman said.

Solomon added that tariffs are getting the headlines, but CEOs "are excited about some of the tailwinds ... the move to lower regulation. Regulation has been a significant headwind to growth in investment."

• "Tax policy is going to be a big discussion as we move forward, energy policy," he said. "The more we can have certainty on the policy agenda ... the better that is going to support capital investment and growth."

Solomon concluded his Fox interview: "When there's change, there's uncertainty — it takes a while for people to absorb and adopt. But I continue to be incredibly optimistic about the United States and the direction of travel. We have an incredibly nimble and versatile economy."

• Go deeper: Watch Solomon's video.

The White House is withdrawing the nomination of Dave Weldon to be the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), per a source close to Senate health committee and another source familiar.

Why it matters: The former Florida congressman was scheduled to appear before the committee this morning for a since-cancelled confirmation hearing. But his views questioning certain vaccines have garnered attention since he was nominated months ago and were sure to play a prominent role in questioning.

• HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. himself said Weldon wasn't ready, per one of the sources.

Background: Weldon is an internal medicine doctor who served in the House of Representatives from 1995 through 2009. While in Congress, he was one of the sponsors of a bill that would have banned mercury from vaccines.

• In a 2007 statement on a different bill he sponsored, Weldon wrote that "legitimate questions persist regarding the possible association between the mercury-based preservative, thimerosal, and the childhood epidemic of neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs), including autism."
• Thimerosal has been used as a preservative in vaccines, although it was taken out of childhood vaccines in 2001, per the CDC. Many studies have found no evidence of harm of thimerosal in low doses in vaccines.
• Studies have also found no evidence of a connection between vaccines and autism.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said Weldon repeated debunked claims about vaccines in a meeting they had last month. She called on the administration to pick a nominee "who at bare minimum believes in basic science and will help lead CDC's important work to monitor and prevent deadly outbreaks."

Polish President Andrzej Duda has called on the U.S. to move some of its nuclear arsenal to Polish territory to deter potential future Russian aggression.

Why it matters: The move would likely anger Moscow, which views NATO's encroachment — and any shift of its member countries' military might — eastward as a threat.

• Duda's suggestion comes as the Trump administration is engaging the Kremlin on a ceasefire proposal with Ukraine.

Driving the news: Duda told the Financial Times in an interview published Thursday that the U.S. could move nuclear weapons stored in Western Europe or the U.S. to Poland, and that he'd discussed the idea with U.S. envoy to Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg.

• "The borders of NATO moved east in 1999, so 26 years later there should also be a shift of the Nato infrastructure east. For me this is obvious," Duda said. 
• "I think it's not only that the time has come, but that it would be safer if those weapons were already here," he added.
• Duda highlighted the fact that Russia had announced a similar move in 2023 to move nuclear weapons to its ally, Belarus.

The big picture: Duda's plea comes as Europe prepares for a new geopolitical future, in which the U.S. plays a smaller role in guaranteeing European security.

• Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said last week that Poland would need to explore "opportunities related to nuclear weapons" due to the "profound change of American geopolitics."
• France, the only nuclear power in the European Union, has signaled it could be willing to extend its nuclear umbrella to cover its allies, a move Duda was open to.
• Duda noted it would "take decades" for Poland to develop its own nuclear weapons.

Go deeper: Trump's nuclear dilemma: "Greatest threat" is getting bigger

President Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff arrived in Moscow on Thursday ahead of his meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin, according to flightradar data and a source familiar with the trip.

Why it matters: The Moscow talks are crucial to Trump's efforts to secure a 30-day ceasefire in the war between Russia and Ukraine.

• The visit could also lead to a phone call between Trump and Putin on Thursday.

Driving the news: On Tuesday, the U.S. and Ukraine agreed on a plan for a 30-day ceasefire in the 3-year war.

• President Trump said on Wednesday in an Oval Office meeting with Ireland's prime minister that "it's up to Russia now" to respond to the ceasefire proposal.
• "We are going to know very soon. I've gotten some positive messages, but a positive message means nothing."

The other side: Putin's foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov spoke to White House national security adviser Mike Waltz on Wednesday and discussed the ceasefire proposal.

• Ushakov told Russian media on Thursday that he gave Waltz Russia's comments about the proposal and stressed the need for "long-term settlement." "The proposed ceasefire is nothing more than temporary breather for Ukrainian forces," Putin's adviser said.
• He added that Russia doesn't need steps "that just imitate peace actions in Ukraine."

Go deeper: Sen. Mark Kelly brings back horror stories from Ukraine

OpenAI's chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane told Axios in an interview this week that it's time to accelerate AI policy for the Trump era two years after ChatGPT exploded onto the scene.

Why it matters: For top AI companies, the policy message has shifted from begging for regulation and warning of dangers to projecting confidence about the policies needed to keep growing and beat China in the AI race.

• "There's a real focus from the administration on developing an AI strategy to ensure U.S. economic competitiveness and national security are prioritized," Lehane said. "Our work stream is intersecting with where the administration is going."
• Lehane said he was at the White House last week and has had many meetings with Trump administration officials about AI policy, and he expects a full strategy to be released by the summer.

The big picture: The White House is collecting comments on what its national AI strategy should be in what is amounting to a total reset of policy from the Biden administration.

• Lehane says the U.S. view on AI is shifting as the industry grows more comfortable and ambitious with the technology.
• "Globally, the conversation around AI has changed," said Lehane. "There's been a definite pivot. ... Maybe the biggest risk here is actually missing out on the opportunity. There was a pretty significant vibe shift when people became more aware and educated on this technology and what it means."

OpenAI's memo to the White House, seen early by Axios, focuses on a number of key things the company deems necessary for the U.S. to lead on AI with democratic values and stay ahead of China:

• pre-emption of state AI laws;
• balanced rules around what advanced AI technology can be exported abroad;
• allowing AI to learn from copyrighted material;
• infrastructure investments for AI growth; and
• government adoption of AI.

State laws on AI assume "AI is like social media," Lehane said, while the company believes it is more like electricity, a key underpinning of systems people use every day.

• A voluntary structure housed at a re-imagined U.S. AI Safety Institute could test models as part of a public-private partnership in exchange for liability protection from dozens of state-level AI laws, which are creating uncertainty in the market, Lehane said.
• Export rules should be considered on a tiered basis to ensure there's a balance between protecting U.S. intellectual property and making sure it's in enough global markets, he said.
• OpenAI also hopes to see fair use copyright rules continuing to be applied to AI so models can be trained on as much information as possible, he said, calling copyright "a national security issue."

Flashback: In May 2023, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman appeared before Congress and asked for a heavy approach by Congress, including an AI licensing agency and independent audits.

The bottom line: For Lehane and OpenAI, fears about AI are dwindling, and the vibe shift is here to stay.

• "Companies like ours have gotten pretty comfortable with how we're deploying this stuff in a responsible way, and understand the real challenge here is to make sure this opportunity is realized."

President Trump's public intervention on behalf of Tesla marks the most extraordinary chapter yet in the partisan war over America's preeminent electric vehicle brand.

Why it matters: Elon Musk's assault on the federal government has supercharged Tesla's evolution from liberal status symbol to pride-of-MAGA protectorate. The company's stock has taken a beating along the way.

• "We struggle to think of anything analogous in the history of the automotive industry, in which a brand has lost so much value so quickly," says J.P. Morgan analyst Ryan Brinkman.

What's happening: Musk's efforts to fire thousands of federal workers and dismantle whole government agencies have sparked "Tesla Takedown" protests in at least 100 cities over the last month.

• Those protests spurred vandalism of vehicles and violent incidents at Tesla facilities — including the use of Molotov cocktails.
• Some current Tesla owners have embraced a quieter form of resistance by applying bumper stickers disavowing Musk's politics — or badges disguising the vehicle's branding.

Zoom in: With Tesla's stock hemorrhaging $800 billion in market cap since December, Trump held an event at the White House Tuesday to publicly rally support for his billionaire benefactor's brand.

• Standing alongside Musk and a row of Teslas on the South Lawn, Trump said he'd buy a Model S sedan for White House staff and threatened to classify anti-Tesla violence as domestic terrorism.
• Photographers captured a shot of Trump holding a Tesla sales script that listed out prices and features, a brazen challenge to ethical norms as the president said he hoped the event would boost Tesla sales.
• "He's built this great company, and he shouldn't be penalized because he's a patriot," Trump said.

Fox News favorite Sean Hannity boasted of buying one, too, and said he'd give a Tesla away on his website — an offer Trump was quick to share with his own social media followers.

Zoom out: "Tesla is becoming a political symbol of Trump and DOGE, and that is a bad thing for the brand," warned Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, a longtime Tesla bull.

• Through the first two months of 2025, Tesla sales are down 71% in Germany, 45% in Norway, 44% in France and 44% in Spain, according to registration data reported by Electrek.
• Sales have also been slumping in the critical markets of California and China, Bloomberg reported.
• The company does not report U.S. sales, but Tesla's U.S. registrations fell 11% in January, according to S&P Global Mobility.

Between the lines: The irony of MAGA's support for Tesla — whose existence is inextricably linked to the fight against climate change — is not lost on Republicans.

• In a 2022 analysis by Scarborough Research, Teslas were — by far — the car most likely to be associated with Democratic owners.
• Musk's brand is now poisonous among Democrats, and it's unclear whether his popularity with Republicans — or Trump's endorsement — will drive conservatives to buy Teslas in meaningful numbers.

The other side: Plenty of investors on Wall Street are still bullish on Tesla, and Musk has vowed to double production in the U.S. within two years as Trump pushes for a manufacturing renaissance.

• The company, amid Wall Street concerns about cash flow this quarter, has been offering a variety of incentives to juice sales, including 0% financing deals (as long as buyers put down a large down payment).
• "Car buying means something different to everyone and if the price is right, you can still get some consumers to put their personal feelings aside," Ivan Drury, an analyst at car-research site Edmunds, tells Axios.

The bottom line: Ives, the Tesla mega-bull, warns the next few months will bring a "moment of truth" for investors who want to see Musk recommit to the company — and decouple from DOGE.

• Musk's biggest ambitions for Tesla include self-driving cars and humanoid robots, with plans to launch a self-driving car network in Austin, Texas, later this year.
• Musk, who did not respond to an Axios request for comment, told investors in January that 2025 may end up as "the most important year in Tesla's history."

The number of migrants trying to travel through the dangerous jungles of the Darién Gap to get from Colombia into Panama has fallen dramatically in recent months to the lowest levels since the pandemic, new data show.

Why it matters: The decline is the latest sign that fewer migrants from South America are risking the treacherous, 2,600-mile journey north to the U.S. border in the early days of President Trump's immigration crackdown.

• The number of migrants illegally crossing the U.S. southern border plummeted in February to its lowest level in decades.

Zoom in: Only 408 migrants traveled northward through the Darién Gap in February, according to Migración Panama, an agency in Panama that keeps track of migration in the region.

• That's the fewest in a month since November 2020, when 365 traveled the path during the pandemic.
• Nearly 82,000 people traveled through the Darién Gap in August 2023, data collected by Migración Panama and reviewed by the human rights advocacy group Washington Office on Latin America found.
• The August 2023 surge led to a historic rise of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border for weeks afterward.
• During the Biden administration, monthly traffic in the Darién Gap ranged from a few thousand to tens of thousands.

State of play: White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday touted the drop in Darién Gap traffic as part of Trump's overall immigration enforcement.

• "The Trump administration is committed to delivering on President Trump's mandate from the American people to stop the invasion of migrants, secure our borders, and enforce our immigration laws," White House spokesperson Kush Desai told Axios.
• Trump border czar Tom Homan promised weeks before the president took office that he'd "shut down" the Darién Gap.

The big picture: The Darién Gap is a 60-mile, roadless, treacherous jungle of crocodiles, snakes, harsh terrain and drug gangs that human rights groups say exposes migrants to harm and disease.

• It's the only break in the Pan-American Highway, a 19,000-mile-long network of roads that runs from Alaska to the southern tip of Argentina.

Between the lines: No one knows precisely why migrant traffic along the U.S.-Mexico border and in the Darién Gap has fallen so much, but immigration experts tell Axios that it's likely because migrants and smuggling networks are waiting to see how Trump's enforcement actions play out.

• Boston College law professor Daniel Kanstroom tells Axios that Mexico is also intercepting more migrants, and many migrants aren't trying to go north because they don't know if they'll be able to apply for asylum in the U.S.
• "We've seen this for decades. It's just episodic. It'll go back up again, because the forces that move people north have not changed. It's a temporary low," Kanstroom said.

An Axios analysis of Darién Gap migration numbers found that most migrants traveling the route from 2020 through 2024 were from Venezuela, followed by those from Haiti and Ecuador.

• Experts say such migrants were escaping political unrest, gang violence, weather disasters caused by climate change and extreme poverty.

America's metros are growing faster than the country overall, driven largely by foreign immigration, per the U.S. Census Bureau.

Why it matters: An exodus of city-dwellers rocked many U.S. metros during the COVID-19 pandemic, but some are now clawing back residents (and their productivity, creativity, tax dollars, etc.)

Driving the news: The number of people living in U.S. metro areas rose by almost 3.2 million between 2023 and 2024, the Census Bureau said today — a gain of about 1.1%.

• By comparison, the total U.S. population rose by 1% during that time.
• Nearly 90% of U.S. metro areas grew from 2023 to 2024, the bureau says.

Zoom in: Some metros hit hardest by pandemic population loss — think New York; Washington, D.C. and San Francisco — grew between 2023 and 2024, though some are still down relative to 2020, as seen above.

Between the lines: Cities can thank international migration for this latest population spike.

• "All of the nation's 387 metro areas had positive net international migration between 2023 and 2024, and it accounted for nearly 2.7 million of the total population gain in metro areas," the bureau said in a statement accompanying the new data.

How it works: The bureau bases these estimates on current data for births, deaths and migration, all of which affect overall population.

What's next: Demographers and other researchers will be keeping a close eye on how Trump administration policies might affect immigration levels.

Tech evangelists predict the arrival of "superintelligence" any year now, but others doubt AI will ever produce its own Leonardos and Einsteins.

Driving the news: In a post on X Tuesday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman touted the company's development of "a new model that is good at creative writing" and showed off its work — a thousand-word "metafictional" composition on "AI and grief."

Why it matters: Creativity could be the final hurdle for AI to leap in proving it's humanity's peer — but until then, many see it as the last bastion of humanity's irreplaceability.

The big picture: Whether telling stories or researching scientific breakthroughs, today's generative AI isn't very good at creative leaps and novel insights.

• It's bounded by what it "knows" — the data it is trained on — and how it "thinks," by guessing the next word or pixel that best fulfills its prompt.

In science, our AI models aren't going to push the boundaries because they're too eager to please people and prove their utility, Thomas Wolf, Hugging Face's co-founder and chief science officer, wrote on X last week.

• Wolf called AI that does research "yes-men on servers."
• "To create an Einstein in a data center, we don't just need a system that knows all the answers, but rather one that can ask questions nobody else has thought of or dared to ask," Wolf argued.
• The benchmarks we're using to gauge AI's advances "consist of very difficult questions — usually written by PhDs — but with clear, closed-end answers. ... Real scientific breakthroughs will come not from answering known questions, but from asking challenging new questions and questioning common conceptions and previous ideas."

Getting AI to produce compelling art looks even more unlikely.

• Most work produced by AI is literally derivative. Of course, most artists, especially at the start of their careers, learn by imitation, and many human artworks are effectively collages, rewrites or remixes.
• But memorable artists develop distinctive voices by mixing their own experiences and obsessions with whatever they've learned from the artists they admire — and even their collages "sound like them."
• People seek out art because hearing those voices inspires them, leaving them feeling connected with the artist in a way that they cherish.

The short story Altman posted showed formal facility — but many of the responses on X found it, as I did, more exercise than expression.

Between the lines: Plenty of artists will find AI a valuable creative tool or an aid to brainstorming, just as many researchers will employ it to speed their work.

• But creation is likely to remain hard work for human beings. It takes effort to wrestle a vague idea in your head into words, images or any other material for an audience to encounter.
• This is the sort of friction that AI visionaries sometimes promise to liberate us from.

Yes, but: "Friction-free art" is inert. What sends off sparks is the struggle of a person's urge to express something against the limits of form and medium.

The bottom line: LLMs are like youngsters who have read a lot but do not have experience of the world. And right now there's not much of a way for AIs to get it.

• An LLM has never felt sunlight on its arm or raindrops on its head, known a parent or a child, given birth or faced death.
• It doesn't feel the need to share such experiences or to shape them into works of writing, or music, or any other form.

What's next: Maybe the fusion of generative AI with robotics will surprise us, and an embodied LLM will find itself moving toward something humans might recognize as art.

• But it's very possible AI will never be truly creative because it has no impulse to play around for the heck of it, to impress peers or best rivals, or to leave a little mark on the world. People give AI prompts, whereas human artists get their prompts from their own lives.

The world's largest retailer is clashing with China over the company's efforts to reduce the impact of President Trump's increased tariffs.

Why it matters: Walmart — whose brand is inextricably linked to low prices — is trying to leverage its monumental size to mitigate its own costs from the billowing international trade war.

Driving the news: Officials from China's Ministry of Commerce met with Walmart executives on Tuesday to cry foul over the retailer pressuring local suppliers to absorb tariff hikes, according to a Chinese state media report.

• The Ministry of Commerce called for Chinese and American companies to work together in response to the tariffs.

Threat level: "If Walmart insists" ... "then what awaits Walmart is not just talk," state broadcaster China Central Television said on social media Wednesday, according to the WSJ.

Walmart did not respond to requests for comment.

• WSJ, citing people familiar with Tuesday's meeting, reported that the company offered to work with Chinese suppliers to "find ways to avoid damaging the interests of the parties involved."

Zoom out: Walmart's retail business in China is growing but was still less than 3% of the company's total sales in the 2024 fiscal year, according to an SEC filing.

• In that respect, the company has more to lose in the U.S. and other core markets if increased costs lead to price hikes.

Yes, but: Its exposure to Chinese supply lines is more substantial. Reuters has estimated that 60% of Walmart's shipments came from the country in 2023.

• Walmart has also made significant investments in its Chinese supply chain, having committed in 2019 to build or upgrade more than 10 logistics distribution centers in the country over the next 10 to 20 years.

Follow the money: "The retailer has historically had strong bargaining power over its Chinese suppliers and requests for lower prices have mostly been met," Bloomberg reported last week, citing people familiar with the matter. "But the scope of the recent requests are unusual and leaves manufacturers weighing whether to absorb the costs to maintain a longer-term business relationship."

💭 Nathan's thought bubble: Walmart is playing with fire but retains a degree of leverage because it's such an enormous buyer and because it can source more products from other countries if Chinese suppliers don't cooperate.

Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is now in the custody of the International Criminal Court following his arrest in Manila in connection with his deadly war on drugs during his presidency, the ICC confirmed Wednesday.

The big picture: The ICC Office of the Prosecutor alleged in a statement "there are reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Duterte bears criminal responsibility for the crime against humanity of murder" for the drugs crackdown.

• The ICC began its investigation in 2021 after thousands of people were killed in police drug operations in the Philippines.

Zoom in: Duterte is alleged to have committed the crimes from November 2011 through March 2019 "as part of a widespread and systematic attack directed against the civilian population," per the statement.

• The Office of the Prosecutor alleges that Duterte, as founder and head of the "Davao Death Squad," then mayor of Davao City and subsequently as the president of the Philippines, "is criminally responsible for the crime against humanity."
• The Office of the Prosecutor called the transfer of Duterte to the Netherlands, where he could face trial in the Hague, "a crucial step in our continuous work to ensure accountability for the victims of the most serious crimes under ICC jurisdiction."

What they're saying: Sara Duterte, the elder daughter of the former Philippines' and current vice president of the Southeast Asian nation, in a media statement called his being taken to the Hague following his arrest Tuesday "oppression and persecution."

What's next: The office is making preparations toward Duterte's initial appearance and subsequent judicial proceedings that will determine whether he stands trial.

Flashback: "I assume full responsibility," Duterte says of drug war

A Texas megachurch founder and former spiritual adviser to President Trump was indicted in Oklahoma Wednesday for alleged child sexual abuse crimes dating back to the 1980s.

The big picture: Robert Preston Morris, 63, who founded the Gateway Church in the Dallas suburb of Southlake, faces five counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child, according to the indictment.

Details: Morris is accused of committing the offenses on a girl from when she was 12 until she was 14.

• Prosecutors allege the offenses began in December 1982 when Morris was a traveling evangelist visiting the accuser's family in Hominy, Okla., and continued for the next four years, per a statement from the Oklahoma Attorney General's Office.
• An attorney for Morris, who resigned from his role as senior pastor last June following child molestation allegations, declined to comment to local media.

Zoom out: Morris founded the Gateway Church in 2000 and it now has an estimated 100,000 attendees.

• Trump appointed Morris to his evangelical advisory committee and named him as a spiritual adviser in 2016 when the Republican leader was a presidential candidate.
• Morris hosted Trump at Gateway Church during a 2020 roundtable event. A spokesperson for Trump emphasized to the New York Times after the allegations emerged last year that the pastor had no role in his re-election campaign.

What they're saying: "There can be no tolerance for those who sexually prey on children," said Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond in a statement. "This case is all the more despicable because the alleged perpetrator was a pastor who exploited his position.

• A Gateway Church spokesperson said in a media statement it's "aware of the actions being taken by the legal authorities in Oklahoma and are grateful for the work of the justice system in holding abusers accountable for their actions."
• It added the church was continuing to pray for Morris' accuser "and her family, for the members and staff of Gateway Church, and for all of those impacted by this terrible situation."

Go deeper: Southlake and Argyle churches seek new pastors

President Trump's tariffs that targeted Canada, Mexico and China before being expanded to all steel and aluminum imports have not only triggered trade wars, they're also leading to a "Boycott USA" global consumer backlash against U.S. goods.

The big picture: "Boycott USA" has spiked on Google in the past seven days, with four EU countries and Canada topping the search list and multiple countries have large Facebook groups dedicated to boycotting U.S. products.

Zoom in: One of the biggest regions for this pushback is Denmark, where Trump's talk of taking over its semi-autonomous territory Greenland has provoked anger.

• The Danish "Boycott goods from the U.S." Facebook page has nearly 73,000 members and Denmark had the second-highest search number of searches for "Boycott USA" this week after Luxembourg.
• In neighboring Sweden, the fourth-biggest "Boycott USA" search region on Google, a Facebook page that says using a U.S. platform is "the best weapon" in the drive against U.S. goods has nearly 80,000 members.
• France ranked at no.3 on Google for "Boycott USA" searches. The country's "BOYCOTT USA: Buy French and European!" Facebook page has more than 20,000 members.

Canada is another top backlash spot due to Trump making the closest ally of the U.S. a top tariff target and his desire to make the North American country the 51st state, ranking at no.5 on Google for "Boycott USA" searches.

• Several Facebook groups have emerged amid a drive for Canadian-made products and "Canada is not for sale" hats have taken off, with Ontario Premier Doug Ford among those wearing the headwear.
• Ford announced several measures against the tariffs, including canceling a $100-million contract with Musk's Starlink.
• The CEO of Jack Daniels' parent company said the Liquor Control Board of Ontario's decision to remove U.S.-made spirits from the province's shelves was "worse than a tariff."
• A survey of 3,310 respondents last month found 85% of Canadians plan to replace U.S. products or have already done so in the face of Trump's tariff threats. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 1.5 percentage points.
• The U.S. Travel Association warned of the impacts of tariffs, saying a 10% drop in Canadian travel could cause "$2.1 billion in lost spending and 14,000 job losses." The number of Canadians taking road trips to the U.S. fell 23% last month compared to the previous year, per Statistics Canada.

Zoom out: Analysts have expressed concern that Tesla's plummeting sales may be linked to CEO Elon Musk's closeness to Trump as a mega-donor and in his role as senior adviser to the president, working with the administration's federal cost-cutting team DOGE — though it's too early to assess whether this is having a direct impact on the EV company.

• Trump said on Truth Social this week "Radical Left Lunatics, as they often do, are trying to illegally and collusively boycott Tesla."
• There was a very public boycott in classic music, from German violinist Christian Tetzlaff — who told the New York Times he was canceling a spring tour of the U.S. in protest at Trump's policies. A White House spokesperson told the NYT in response: "America first."

Meanwhile, Norwegian fuel firm Haltbakk Bunkers said it would no longer be a supplier due to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's treatment at the White House.

• CEO Gunnar Gran told Norwegian newspaper VG the company's action was "symbolic" because it doesn't have a fixed contract with the Navy.
• Representatives for the White House did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment in the evening.

Go deeper: How Trump's tariffs will impact everyday Americans

Editor's note: This article has been updated with more details on Ontario's response and a screenshot of a post by provincial Premier Doug Ford.

President Trump is planning an unusual visit to the Justice Department on Friday to speak about his administration's plans on "restoring law and order," Axios has learned.

Why it matters: Trump's appearance will be the latest illustration of how he's taken a direct interest in the work of the DOJ, which he has stacked with allies while purging dozens of people who were deemed disloyal.

• Those dismissed from the department since Trump took office included officials who worked on the department's two criminal prosecutions of Trump between his presidencies.

Zoom out: Trump, who also had two state criminal indictments filed against him after leaving office, spent much of the 2024 campaign railing against what he called the "weaponization" of the justice system.

• After winning the 2024 election, Trump nominated Pam Bondi to be attorney general and Kash Patel to be FBI director, both of them longtime loyalists. Todd Blanche, one of Trump's personal attorneys, was named deputy attorney general.
• Trump last month said he had ordered the firings of U.S. attorneys appointed by his predecessor, Joe Biden. "We must 'clean house' IMMEDIATELY, and restore confidence. America's Golden Age must have a fair Justice System," Trump posted on Truth Social.

Most presidents historically have maintained at least the appearance of a Justice Department that operated independently of their political concerns.

• Trump accused Biden of using the DOJ to target him, but Biden said he made a point of not getting involved in Trump's felony cases. Biden didn't stop the department from prosecuting his son Hunter on gun and tax charges — but pardoned Hunter during the final weeks of his presidency.
• Trump has long been fixated on the DOJ. During his first term, he fired then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, whom he blasted for recusing himself from overseeing a special counsel's probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
• During the final days of his term, Trump clashed with then-Attorney General Bill Barr after Barr said the department had found no evidence of significant fraud in the 2020 election.

Bondi and Patel are expected to be present for Trump's visit on Friday, according to a person familiar with the plans.

What they're saying: "President Trump will visit the Department of Justice to give remarks on restoring law and order, removing violent criminals from our communities, and ending the weaponization of justice against Americans for their political leanings," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Axios in a statement.

• "President Trump's historic visit to the Department of Justice will signify another promise made and kept."

House Democrats are mounting a sudden push for a last-minute vote on an alternative to House Speaker Mike Johnson's (R-La.) bill to avert a federal government shutdown.

Why it matters: The effort dovetails with pressure some in the party are placing on key Senate Democrats to reject Johnson's 6-month stopgap bill and force Republicans to the table.

• The bill passed the House despite all but one House Democrat voting against it — but Republicans will need support from at least eight Senate Democrats for it to pass the upper chamber. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is already a "no" on the bill.
• "Our message to the Senate is ... stand with us," Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.), the House minority whip, said at House Democrats' retreat on Wednesday.

Driving the news: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), Clark and Democratic caucus chair Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) said Wednesday in a joint statement they would "strongly support" a four-week stopgap bill.

• "House Republicans should get back to Washington immediately so that we can take up a short-term measure, pass it on a bipartisan basis and avoid a Trump-inspired government shutdown," they said.
• House Democrats have demanded that any longer-term spending measure include language that constrains DOGE's ability to cut congressionally authorized spending.

State of play: Senate Democrats left a closed-door meeting Wednesday signaling that they will not provide the votes for the bill to overcome the chamber's 60-vote filibuster threshold.

• Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) told reporters that Democrats are pressing for opportunities to amend the bill.
• "There are not the votes right now to pass it," he said.

What we're hearing: House Democrats have been advised to keep their schedules flexible in case they are called on short notice to vote on a replacement measure, multiple Democratic lawmakers told Axios.

• Said one person familiar with the matter: "Most House Democrats remain in the DC-area, and all have been advised to keep their schedules flexible so they can be present to vote on short notice."
• Many House Democrats are at their caucus' annual retreat in Leesburg, Virginia — roughly an hour drive to Capitol Hill.
• House Democrats' messaging arm is advising members to say on social media that they are willing to return to Capitol Hill this week to vote, according to guidance viewed by Axios.

Axios' Hans Nichols contributed reporting for this story.