Category: National News Feed

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil has described the latest U.S. tariffs on certain Brazilian imports as unjustifiable and politically motivated and threatened on Thursday to impose reciprocal tariffs against U.S. products. The country’s top diplomat criticized U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio for the move.

The U.S. said on Wednesday it would impose a new 25% tariff on certain imports from Brazil, citing unfair trade practices by the world’s 10th-biggest economy.

Brazil’s Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira accused Trump administration officials of pressuring the South American nation to give American companies exclusive access to some sectors of its economy. He said Brazil has never left the negotiating table.

The tariffs, first proposed last month, will take effect July 22. The order exempts some goods that are not produced in the U.S. or that officials worry would disrupt supply chains — including coffee, beef, oranges and orange juice and aircraft components.

Brazil’s government said the decision hits about 3,000 items, but is yet to decide whether and how it could retaliate with a law its Congress passed in 2025 in response to President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

In a statement late Wednesday, the office of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva refuted the U.S. allegations of unfair trade practices. It said 76% of imports from the U.S. entered Brazil duty-free in 2025, and said the average tariff effectively applied to U.S. products was only 3.1%.

It said it has taken steps to impose reciprocal tariffs, along with other trade-related countermeasures, through its own law and through the World Trade Organization’s dispute settlement mechanism.

Vieira said Rubio made statements that are “unacceptable, offensive to the Brazilian people and the Brazilian government” after the new tariffs were announced. Rubio said in a post on X that the tariffs were the result of Lula putting “his own ego ahead of making a deal” and not negotiating with the U.S. in good faith.

“Rubio launches a crude and arrogant attack on the Head of State of a friendly nation, who has personally sought to open channels for dialogue on several occasions,” Vieira told a press conference in the capital, Brasilia. “What Secretary Rubio dismisses as ‘ego’ is, in fact, President Lula’s steadfast resolve to defend Brazil’s sovereignty and the interests of our businesses and workers.”

US has a robust trade surplus with Brazil

The United States has for years run a massive trade deficit with the rest of the world, and Trump has cited the lopsided trade numbers to justify his aggressive use of tariffs.

But Brazilian imports make an unusual target: The U.S. has persistently piled up trade surpluses with Brazil. Last year, in fact, U.S. exports to Brazil exceeded imports by nearly $42 billion; only the United States’ trade surpluses with the Netherlands and the United Kingdom were higher.

The new tariff puts pressure on national exports and increases insecurity for companies in both countries, Brazil’s National Confederation of Industry said in a statement Thursday.

The Trump administration first imposed a 50% tariff on Brazilian imports last July. He cited what he called a “witch hunt” against former President Jair Bolsonaro. Trump’s ally was on trial at the time for attempting a coup despite his 2022 electoral defeat to Lula and was later convicted. Some of those tariffs were later rescinded.

Trump at the time also accused Brazil of unfair trade practices and said he had directed U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer to initiate an investigation under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974.

That led the office to charge Brazil with lax anti-corruption enforcement and unfair tariffs, among other things, in June. One of the targets of the investigation is Brazil’s popular PIX payment system, which is run by the country’s central bank and is overwhelmingly free of charge.

Scott Lincicome, a trade analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute, said the U.S. administration might have had a legitimate Section 301 case if it narrowly targeted Brazil’s restrictions on trade in digital services. Instead, it threw in a bunch of other allegations.

“It’s a pretty clear case of the administration simply finding an excuse and finding a law that allows them to impose the tariffs they want to impose,’’ Lincicome said.

Welber Barral, a trade lawyer and former Brazilian foreign trade secretary, said the move comes as his country’s exports to the U.S. are now less than 10% of its total for the first time in two centuries.

“Brazil is diversifying to other destinations,” Barral said. “Brazil is negotiating with Canada through the Mercosur. Other deals will also come out as the American market closes.”

Brazil elections may be impacted

Brazilian officials have blamed the Bolsonaro family — the main political opponents of Lula — for the latest round of tariffs. The move was announced shortly after Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, a presidential hopeful in October’s elections and son of the former president, visited Trump, Rubio and other U.S. officials in Washington in May.

Sen. Bolsonaro reposted Rubio’s statement, adding: “Lula is no longer fit to be the president of Brazil. We are on a plane without a pilot.” He also described Lula as “the Brazilian Biden” and said he “is grumpy, reckless, and has become a danger to our nation.”

Flávio Bolsonaro is expected to be confirmed as Lula’s main election rival on July 25 at his Liberal Party’s convention in Sao Paulo, though his bid has struggled to overcome the findings of a police investigation which showed he received millions of dollars from a disgraced banker to finance a movie about his father. He has denied any wrongdoing.

The two leading presidential candidates have previously traded barbs over their responses to the deeply unpopular U.S. tariffs, suggesting that they believe how they are perceived as handling them will be a key factor in the vote.

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Savarese reported from Sao Paulo.

Paul Wiseman contributed to this report from Washington D.C.

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Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

UVALDE, Texas (AP) — Catastrophic flash floods in Texas have killed two people and forced hundreds of rescues in areas still reeling from devastating floods a year ago, Gov. Greg Abbott said Thursday.

Rescuers aboard boats and helicopters have saved more than 200 people, including stranded drivers and people trapped in homes, Abbott said.

The governor said the hardest-hit areas are expecting more rain into Friday and are not out of danger yet, with some rivers expected to reach historic levels.

After days of pounding rain, the National Weather Service said a large wave on Thursday barreled down the same river wrecked by flash floods last summer when two dozen children and counselors died at Camp Mystic.

Much like last year, the floods came in the middle of the night. But this time some residents in the Texas Hill Country said they received more warnings.

Forecasters urgently warned, “Move to higher ground now!” as rivers rose hour by hour. Some spots of the Guadalupe River rose by more than 30 feet (9 meters).

The governor said more than 2,000 first responders had been deployed and some evacuations began before the worst of the flooding.

“What happened last year was a warning to people on or near rivers,” Abbott said. “No one can be complacent.”

As much as 28 inches (74 centimeters) of rain fell over the past three days in Uvalde County, which was spared from the worst flooding a year ago, the weather service said Thursday. Other areas saw roughly a foot of rain.

Victims in Texas floods were swept away

The governor said one of the victims was driving on a flooded road and was swept away near Uvalde while the other died in Kerr County.

Jennie Steward said the body of her husband, 65-year-old John Mark Steward, of Kerrville, was found Thursday.

She was visiting her parents when a neighbor called overnight, saying her husband was missing after water had risen to the door of their mobile home, which stood off the ground.

The entire home was swept off the platform and floated down Goat Creek on the Guadalupe, she said.

“It’s really hard that I wasn’t there with him,” she said. The two last spoke by phone Wednesday to celebrate their third anniversary.

Hill Country residents say they were better prepared

The unfolding crisis brought back haunting memories of last summer’s unimaginable Hill Country floods that killed more than 100 people over the July Fourth holiday.

“It’s crazy happening two times in one year,” said Josiah Rodriguez, who awoke to the sound of heavy rain around 2 a.m. Thursday in Kerrville. He navigated flooded roads to help evacuate relatives.

“Last year there was no warning of it,” he said. “It just kind of happened overnight and it took everyone by surprise. This year, a lot more alerts have gone into place, a lot more safety measures.”

Residents said they were caught off guard a year ago and didn’t receive any warning when floods overtopped the Guadalupe. Some local leaders were criticized for not acting quickly.

The storms and flooding this time threatened multiple counties close to the Mexico border and in the Hill Country near San Antonio. Roughly 6 million residents across Texas were under a flood watch this week, and many were expected to remain in effect into Friday.

Several agencies sent rescue helicopters to the flood zone, including Travis County in the state capital of Austin.

Residents rush animals and campers to higher ground

At a wild animal rescue, Katie Buck evacuated several dozen animals to higher ground in the dark Thursday as the normally dry Lazy Creek overflowed. She got all of the animals to safety, but flooding destroyed several enclosures at the Buck Wild Animal Rescue and Wildlife Rehab near Ingram in Kerr County.

“We were just starting to get back on our feet again,” Buck said. “To have to go through this again is just devastating.”

Residents at an RV park in Comfort moved their trailers as sirens sounded, manager Duke Earwood said.

Water rose over the hoods of vehicles parked near the river at the Comfort RV Resort. Markers showed the flooding already matched last July’s big flood.

“Too familiar for sure, and too soon,” Earwood said.

Uvalde residents isolated by floodwaters

Floodwaters also overran the city of Uvalde overnight, cutting off most outside routes. The Leona River, normally dry most of the year, filled streets with water.

“People really can’t get anywhere,” said Carmen Rodriguez, who nervously watched water engulf her neighborhood as a helicopter roared overhead. “We have a place to go, but all the streets are closed.”

Rodriguez said authorities seemed to be prepared, ordering mandatory evacuations and notifying people directly.

After staying up most of the night, Casy Sanford and her husband felt like things were OK at their home in Uvalde as the downpour and heavy winds let up. Texas Game Wardens were outside their door just a few hours later, evacuating the couple, Sanford’s son and three daughters, her mother-in-law and two dogs by boat Thursday morning.

Sanford said she felt “mere shock” as they left most everything and closed the door behind them, water seeping into the ground floor of the only home her little girls have known.

“My little one was scared. She kept grabbing my hand real tight,” Sanford said of her 8-year-old. “I’m not sure what we’ll see when we get back.”

Sanford later said a neighbor had visited her family’s home and found water had climbed as high as their kitchen counters.

Texas Game Wardens rescued close to 150 people by the afternoon, according to a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department spokesperson. Video released by the agency showed crews hoisting children from a house surrounded with water into a helicopter.

Uvalde resident Jose Maldonado said water reached the first step to the entrance of his RV on Wednesday and rose above the door on Thursday. Floodwaters took down nearby walls, moved cars, flipped a trailer and left behind debris, he said.

He and his wife planned to stay with his parents until they could return to clean up.

Flooding hasn’t reached last year’s deadly high

So far, the Guadalupe has remained below the record levels reached in 2025. Close to Camp Mystic, which hasn’t reopened since last year’s tragedy, the Guadalupe near Hunt reached about 20.5 feet (6.3 meters), which is enough to cause flooding, according to U.S. Geological Survey and National Water Prediction Service data.

In Kerr County, where summer camps dot the river’s shores, the sheriff’s office said all campers were safe. Several camps said the children were staying inside, with one camp reporting normal flooding.

While the water didn’t rise as high as a year ago in Ingram, Mayor Claud Jordan believes this round of flooding was more widespread in his city.

“There are a bunch of businesses that haven’t reopened from last year,” Jordan said. “This doesn’t help.”

The Hill Country is especially prone to flash floods because the area’s signature limestone is covered by just a thin layer of soil. During heavy rains, water can quickly shoot downhill before filling the narrow river basins.

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Stengle reported from Dallas and Fingerhut reported from Des Moines, Iowa. Associated Press writers Christopher L. Keller in Albuquerque, New Mexico; Dave Collins in Hartford, Connecticut; Michael Phillis in Washington; Claudia Lauer in Philadelphia; Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire; Anna Wilder in Austin, Texas; Laura Turbay in Little Rock, Arkansas; and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed.

MIAMI (AP) — he Trump administration is reviving a rule that could deny green cards to immigrants who use public benefits that could include food stamps, Medicaid, housing vouchers and others.

The policy, known as “public charge,” appeared on Thursday in the Federal Register and will be formally published on July 20.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The U.S. government has designated two new Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.

They are the Juárez Cartel, on the border with Texas, and Los Viagras, a criminal group from the western state of Michoacán. The Federal Register, the U.S. government’s gazette, published the designation on Thursday.

They joined six other Mexican criminal organizations that the U.S. considers terrorist groups, including the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. Gangs in other Latin American countries, including Venezuela, Brazil, Ecuador and El Salvador, also have been designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the Trump administration.

President Donald Trump began to extend the terrorist label to Latin American cartels in February 2025 to allow U.S. authorities to take more aggressive action against them or against anyone who the U.S. sees as aiding the groups.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that both criminal groups either have committed terrorist acts or pose a serious risk of committing acts that threaten the security of U.S. nationals or the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States.

The measure represents a further increase in pressure on Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration following the indictment of 10 current and former officials from the state of Sinaloa for alleged ties to the Sinaloa Cartel, as well as the controversies about U.S. operations in Mexico.

Higher pressure on the Texas border

Juarez Cartel is one of Mexico’s oldest drug trafficking organizations, which for decades has controlled a key crossing point in the central part of the Mexico-U.S. border: Ciudad Juárez, across from El Paso, Texas.

Both its founder, Amado Carrillo Fuentes — known as “El Señor de los Cielos” for smuggling massive drug shipments by light aircraft in the 1990s — and the brothers and sons who succeeded him, turned the trafficking of tons of drugs into a multimillion-dollar business. Despite the arrests of many of its leaders, the cartel and its allied gangs maintained control of a vast infrastructure for smuggling illegal shipments into the U.S..

According to Mexican analyst David Saucedo, the designation is key to enabling the United States to take more decisive action along the border, where two other groups both located at the eastern end of the border with Texas — the Gulf Cartel and the Northeast Cartel — were declared terrorist organizations in February 2025.

The US again targets Michoacan

Los Viagras is a local cartel in the western state of Michoacan, which is already home to two other criminal groups designated as terrorist organizations: Cárteles Unidos and La Nueva Familia Michoacana.

Los Viagras emerged following the 2013–2014 armed uprising led by farmers who succeeded in driving out many of the old cartels, only to see them replaced by new ones.

The cartel is led by Nicolás Sierra Santana, who faces a formal indictment in the District of Columbia for conspiracy to traffic drugs, filed in June 2025. The State Department is offering a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture.

The group has shifted its loyalties and alliances to consolidate its regional control of the territory through extortion. It also produces synthetic drugs, which sells to other cartels that traffic them into the United States.

NEW YORK (AP) — Shoppers slowed their spending in June from May, as they spent less to fill their gas tank because of falling gas prices.

But the report, released by the Commerce Department on Thursday, showed consumers’ continued resilience despite ongoing economic uncertainty as they bought cars and took advantage of summer sales events.

Retail sales rose 0.2% in June, after being up a revised 1% in May, according to the report.

Outside of gas stations, retail sales rose a solid 0.7%, according to the report.

The government figures aren’t adjusted for inflation so last month’s decline in gas prices pulled down gas station sales and thus the overall retail sales figure.

Business at gas stations fell 5.3% last month. Meanwhile, sales at motor vehicle and parts dealers rose 1.9%, helped by aggressive manufacturers’ incentives, according to the report.

Elsewhere, shoppers were selective in their buying, given their worries about the economy and fading benefits of generous government tax benefits, which propelled spending earlier in the spring.

Business at clothing and accessories stores as well as at miscellaneous retailers both posted small declines, And sales at retailers that sell big-ticket items were mixed, with business at furniture and home furnishings merchants flat, while electronics and appliance stores showing a small increase for June.

World Cup boost

Among the bright spots: online sales rose 1.9%, fueled by spending surrounding Amazon’s Prime Day event, which was held from June 23 through June 26. Business at sporting goods, hobby, musical instrument and book stores was up 1.3%, likely helped by spending around the World Cup tournament.

The data offers only a snapshot of consumer spending and doesn’t include activities like travel and hotel stays. The lone services category – restaurants – registered a slim 0.1% increase.

The so-called control group—which excludes food services, autos, building materials and gas station sales and is used to calculate economic growth—rose a solid 0.5%.

The report comes as U.S. inflation cooled last month as the cost of gas, clothes, and used cars fell, offering some relief to consumers, while underlying price pressures also slowed more than anticipated.

Gas prices fell to $3.94 per gallon on Thursday, down from $4.04 a month ago, according to motor club AAA.

“Falling fuel prices weighed on headline sales data, but a smaller bill at the pump was a source of relief for consumers and provided at least a little more cushion in household spending budgets,” Jim Baird, chief investment officer with Plante Moran Financial Advisors, wrote in a report published Thursday.

But Baird noted the June report suggests consumers are “perhaps taking a more discerning approach to where they’re spending and how they’re prioritizing their choices.”

The Labor Department said Tuesday that consumer prices dropped 0.4% from May to June, the largest monthly drop in four years, after increasing 0.5% in the previous month. On a yearly basis, inflation declined to 3.5%, down from a year-over-year gain of 4.2% in May and lower than many economists expected.

Muted impact at the gas pump

The core inflation figures suggest that the gas price spike from the Iran war, while it pushed up airfares and some other costs, hasn’t so far led to broad-based, sustained inflation, according to economists. But the United States renewed attacks on Iran and President Donald Trump announced a new blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, a key shipping route for about one-fifth of the world’s oil. The increase threatens to unravel at least some of the progress that occurred last month.

Next month, major retailers including Walmart, Target and Macy’s, are slated to announce their second-quarter earnings results, which will offer some insight into shopping behavior.

A report last month from the Conference Board showed that Americans’ attitudes toward the economy improved slightly this month as gas prices declined, but their outlook is still mostly negative by historical standards.

Sara Williamson, a 27-year-old software support engineer in Raleigh, North Carolina, said that over the last year or so, she’s more conscious of how she spends her money. She feels financially secure given her stable job, but increasing costs of food and gas are making her pull back on frivolous spending.

“I shop less overall as a hobby,” she said.

Williamson noted that at the supermarket, she avoids buying pre-cut fruits like cantaloupe, which tend to be more expensive than buying the whole cantaloupe, to save money, and is careful about buying clothing for herself.

Brian Reynolds, CEO and founder of Just For Teens, a skincare collection aimed at preteens and teens, noted that his low-price products, which include $5 pimple patches, are aimed at families on a budget and are in the sweet spot of retailing right now.

By October, his brand will be expanded to 10,000 Dollar General stores, up from about 4,000 late last year. He said sales have been decent so far, but he expects that business will see more of a momentum for the back-to-school selling season.

“There’s a lot of space for products that are everyday essentials that are value-priced,” he said.

Speeding in your car to work, to pick up your children from school, or go from one errand to the next not only wastes money in gas and sends harmful emissions into the air, it barely saves you time, new research says.

It is something to think about as gas prices stay elevated throughout the summer months and add pain to day-to-day driving and seasonal road tripping.

Instead, abiding by posted speed limits can save U.S. drivers millions of dollars at the gas pump and eliminate millions of gallons of fuel each day, according to a study published Thursday in the Nature journal Communications Sustainability. That is fuel that, when burned, emits planet-warming gases into the atmosphere. To top it all off, changing driving habits wouldn’t even add a full minute to a driver’s commute.

University of Minnesota researchers analyzed 120 million vehicle trips across the United States from four Wednesdays in 2021 using driving data on national road networks, speed limits and U.S. Geological Survey elevation data. The analysis included roads with speed limits of 45 mph (72 kph) and higher.

More than 43% of the studied trips included at least one instance of speeding, and drivers spent nearly 12% of their driving time going faster than the speed limit.

They found that if drivers of light-duty, conventional internal combustion engine vehicles actually drove at posted speed limits, it could save an average of $22 million, based on fuel costs at the time, 6.7 million gallons of fuel and 57,000 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide every day. The researchers said that is comparable to taking about 5.5 million passenger vehicles off the road.

And while drivers say that speeding saves them precious time, researchers found that is not really the case. With an average daily driving distance of 28.6 miles (46.03 kilometers), driving at or below the posted limit corresponds only to about 54 seconds longer per day.

“If your goal is to shave one minute off your time, then you’ve got to drive fast. If your objective is to get to your destination safely and to save fuel, then you might drive slower than the speed limit,” said William Northrop, mechanical engineering professor at the University of Minnesota and study co-author.

The research considered battery-electric vehicle efficiency only in California given the level of EV adoption in the U.S. at that time. Based on the California modeling, “We find that driving slower is beneficial for EVs as well,” he said.

Interestingly, the study found differences among states. Nevada saw elevated speeding prevalence as well as high speed excess. There was high speeding prevalence in Florida, Georgia and North Carolina, though those states did not necessarily exhibit high speed excess. Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and South Dakota showed both low speeding prevalence and speed excess.

The cost of faster driving today

Driving faster increases a vehicle’s energy use and the emissions from its engine, as well as reduces efficiency. Vehicle engines have become increasingly more efficient over the past several decades even as vehicles have gotten bigger and more powerful. But speed limits have also climbed since the Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act was implemented, which mandated 55 mph national speed limits amid the 1970s energy crisis.

Accounting for the average cost of gas today and more vehicle miles traveled, that increases to roughly $26 million and 7.2 million gallons of fuel that Americans collectively could save each day this year just by not putting the pedal to the metal.

One limitation of the research is that slower driving could impact traffic patterns, which could play a role in efficiency.

However, it is especially timely as U.S. drivers remain price-sensitive to volatile gas prices as the war in Iran has sent the cost for a gallon of fuel above $4 this year. Experts have said there are a number of ways to improve one’s gas mileage, including something as simple as slowing down. Less fuel needing to be purchased because of better efficiency could influence oil market demand, which in turn could impact pricing.

Rob Middleton, associate research scientist of mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan who was not involved in the research, said the study was well-done. But he also noted that the fuel saved from driving more slowly still only represents a fraction of daily gasoline consumption in the U.S., which is about 375 million gallons daily.

“It’s a big number, but it’s a small fraction,” Middleton said. “This is a ‘freebie’ in that it doesn’t really cost anyone anything to do.”

“The market penetration of selling EVs is still small, so we still need fuel, we still need ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicles, we’re still going to have them for a very long time,” he added. “Things that we can do to either make the new ones better or to improve our fuel supply, we need to do.”

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Alexa St. John is an Associated Press climate reporter. Follow her on X: @alexa_stjohn. Reach her at ast.john@ap.org.

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Read more of AP’s climate coverage.

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The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Filings for unemployment benefits fell last week to the lowest level in 10 weeks as U.S. layoffs remain historically low.

The number of Americans applying for jobless aid in the week ending July 11 dropped by 8,000 to 208,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That’s well below the 219,000 new applications forecast by analysts surveyed by the data firm FactSet.

Weekly filings for unemployment benefits are considered a proxy for layoffs and are close to a real-time indicator of the health of the U.S. job market.

In its more comprehensive June jobs report earlier this month, the government reported that employers pulled back on hiring in June, adding only 57,000 jobs. That’s less than half the previous month’s total and a sign that companies remain cautious about adding to their head counts. The unemployment rate dropped to 4.2% from 4.3% in May, though that decline is mostly because many out-of-work people gave up looking for jobs and were no longer counted as unemployed.

June’s tepid hiring comes after a relative surge in job gains the previous three months, countering concerns that the war in Iran could trip up an already wobbly labor market.

Weekly jobless aid applications have stabilized in a range mostly between 200,000 and 250,000 since the U.S. economy emerged from the pandemic recession. However, hiring began slowing about two years ago and tapered further in 2025 due to President Donald Trump’s tariffs, his purge of the federal workforce and the lingering effects of high interest rates meant to control inflation.

Among the companies that have trimmed their workforce recently are Verizon, UPS, Amazon, Disney, Starbucks and Walmart.

Last week, Microsoft said it was cutting 4,800 jobs, about 2.1% of its global workforce, including a large number of workers at its Xbox video game business.

Thursday’s layoffs data showed that the four-week moving average of weekly jobless claims, which adjusts for volatility, declined by 4,750 to 214,250.

The total number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits for the previous week ending July 4 fell by 16,000 to 1.81 million, also a historically healthy figure.

HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong authorities have raided two bookstores and arrested five people on suspicion of selling allegedly seditious publications, local media reported Wednesday, in the latest step targeting independent booksellers.

Videos and photos from multiple media outlets showed officers wearing vests marked with “Police” seizing boxes from the building housing Have A Nice Stay, a bookshop founded by former journalists. A bookseller was seen being taken away.

A few streets away a similar scene played out, with boxes taken from the building housing Greenfield Book Store, according to a video by online news outlet The Collective.

Police later said they raided two stores in Mong Kok district, without identifying them. They arrested two men and three women on suspicion of breaching the 2024 national security law, according to their statement.

This is the third round of arrests linked to independent bookstores after similar operations in March and June that were widely seen as stifling dissent in the Asian financial hub.

The new police statement said an investigation showed the five people were suspected of displaying seditious materials and selling seditious publications on the premises. The publications’ content includes stirring up hatred against the city’s government, judiciary and law enforcement agencies, it said.

Customs officials referred the case after the discovery of allegedly seditious books in a batch of goods shipped to Hong Kong from overseas, police said, without specifying titles.

The bookstores were closed during usual opening hours on Wednesday. Calls to Greenfield and a founder of Have A Nice Stay were unanswered.

Have A Nice Stay had already announced it would shut down on Aug. 30. In a social media post, it said financial difficulties and an elusive red line were among the factors.

Hong Kong was once known for its freedom of publication and freedom of expression. Some Chinese residents crossed the border to buy books deemed to be too politically sensitive on the mainland.

Lam Wing-kee, the owner of Causeway Bay Books until his death earlier this month, made international headlines in 2016 when he revealed that he was held by Chinese authorities after crossing from Hong Kong to the city of Shenzhen. Four others affiliated with the bookstore in Hong Kong disappeared in late 2015.

Lam’s account shocked many people in the former British colony, which Beijing promised would maintain its Western-style civil liberties for 50 years after its return to China in 1997.

Following political changes after anti-government protests in 2019, independent bookstores have been operating in an even more challenging environment.

Amnesty International’s Asia deputy regional director Sarah Brooks said the use of “sedition” offenses to target bookstores demonstrated how the city’s national security framework “is being weaponized to silence dissenting voices and eradicate spaces for free thought.”

“This year’s escalating attacks on Hong Kong’s independent bookstores hammer home the chilling reality of what the city has become: a place where you can be criminalized simply for what’s on your bookshelf,” she said.

Authorities say the national security laws are crucial for the city’s stability. Hong Kong’s Secretary for Security Chris Tang has said the government would not set up a list of banned books, saying it would be pointless to implement in reality.

In March, police arrested the owner and staff of the independent Book Punch store, reportedly on suspicion of selling seditious publications. They included the biography of former pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison in his national security case.

In June, Hong Kong police arrested two booksellers on suspicion of selling seditious publications and receiving funds from foreign political organizations.

All were later released on bail.