An American pastor and missionary who was kidnapped in South Africa last week was rescued on Tuesday after three suspects were killed in a shootout with police officials.
In a Wednesday press release, the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation announced, “A multi-disciplinary law enforcement operation led by the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, known as the Hawks, has resulted in the successful rescue of the 45-year-old American citizen, reportedly a local pastor who had allegedly been kidnapped and held at a safe house in KwaMagxaki, Gqeberha, on 15 April 2025.”
The Associated Press reported that American pastor and missionary Josh Sullivan was rescued on Tuesday after being kidnapped in South Africa last Thursday. The outlet noted that Sullivan has been serving as a pastor at the Fellowship Baptist Church in Motherwell along with his wife and two children since 2018.
In a Wednesday Facebook post, Tom Hatley, the pastor of Fellowship Baptist Church in Maryville, Tennessee, wrote, “Josh has been released. I just got ‘the go ahead to let it be known’. SA media has started broadcasting. American media will follow. Thank you for your support and prayers. Please do not stop praying for The Sullivans. Praise The Lord Jesus Christ!”
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According to The Associated Press, Sullivan was kidnapped after four men broke into his church last Thursday. The outlet noted that the four kidnappers stole two cell phones from members of the South African church before removing the missionary from the pulpit and taking him away from the church building. The Associated Press added that the pastor’s truck was found abandoned just a few hours after the kidnapping.
According to The Associated Press, multiple law enforcement agencies formed a task force, which included the Serious Organised Crime Unit, the Hawks, the Crime Intelligence, the Tactical Response Team, and the Anti-Gang Unit, to investigate last week’s kidnapping. The outlet noted that law enforcement officials “moved swiftly” on Tuesday night after identifying the pastor’s location at a safe house in KwaMagxaki.
“As officers approached the house, they observed a vehicle on the premises. The suspects inside the vehicle upon seeing law enforcement allegedly attempted to flee and opened fire on the team,” the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation said. “The officers responded with tactical precision, leading to a high-intensity shootout in which three unidentified suspects were fatally wounded.”
“The victim was found inside the same vehicle from which the suspects had launched their attack,” the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation added. “Miraculously unharmed, he was immediately assessed by medical personnel and is currently in an excellent condition.”
U.S. military planners are building an army of deadly but relatively cheap drones, as part of an emerging “unmanned hellscape” strategy to stymie a hypothetical Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
This drone army concept is an attempt to overcome some of the apparent challenges the United States would face if it were to come to Taiwan’s defense in a future conflict.
The hellscape strategy has emerged as successive war games have shown the U.S. military is likely to face a costly fight to defend the de facto independent island territory. One set of 2022 war games conducted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) found that the United States could win, but at a cost of up to two aircraft carriers, 20 other warships, 400 warplanes, and around 3,000 troops in just three weeks of fighting.
With U.S. lawmakers and military leaders unsettled by these findings, some strategists have begun to focus on a battle plan that could preserve their most exquisite weapons warships and weapons systems, and keep the human casualties to a relative minimum, by instead sacrificing thousands of rapidly producible air and sea drones.
Adm. Samuel Paparo, the commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, began to articulate this battle plan in a June 2024 interview with The Washington Post. As he explained it, the moment Chinese leaders order their troops to attack Taiwan, U.S. commanders will begin deploying as many small aerial, surface, and submersible drones as possible into the Taiwan Strait, to gather intelligence and harass the Chinese force as much as possible.
“I want to turn the Taiwan Strait into an unmanned hellscape using a number of classified capabilities, so that I can make their lives utterly miserable for a month, which buys me the time for the rest of everything,” Paparo.
The Taiwan Challenge
Since normalizing ties with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the 1970s, the U.S. policymakers have described the overall approach policy toward Taiwan as one of “strategic ambiguity.”
The United States treats it contacts with the de facto Taiwanese government as informal interactions, and continues to supply the island with weapons it could potentially use to resist a Chinese invasion, but still leaves unclear whether it will sail to Taiwan’s defense in a worst-case scenario.
For decades, this policy of strategic ambiguity has allowed a peaceful but uneasy status quo. But in that time, China has vastly increased the size of its military, and modernized its fighting capabilities.
In 2020, China officially overtook the United States as the country with the largest naval force, by sheer number of vessels. The country is also making advances with modern fighter jets, and missiles.
U.S. military planners have concluded a major component of this Chinese force modernization is the development of what’s known as anti-access, area denial (A2/AD) capabilities. As U.S. planners see it, the Chinese military is built to assert control over a sphere of influence in the Indo-Pacific region, and use their A2/AD components to block any outside forces from intervening.
Adding to the challenge in a Taiwan conflict scenario is the sheer distance from which the U.S. has to move. The Taiwan Strait puts about 100 miles distance between the island and the Chinese mainland, well within range of many advanced Chinese weapons systems.
U.S. forces, by contrast, would have to cross hundreds or even thousands of miles come to Taiwan’s defense.
With hundreds of miles of coastline to choose from, Chinese forces could easily array their A2/AD capabilities to fire on the avenues of approach leading up to Taiwan. In essence, the United States and any coalition of willing allies will have to sail into a veritable shooting gallery to get to Taiwan.
In a Taiwan conflict scenario, there is a real risk that China could make significant progress overwhelming the island’s defenses, or even capture the island outright, before the United States and its allies will have mobilized enough forces to fight back.
If Chinese forces have significant control over the island, the fight becomes much more difficult for the U.S. side. The 2022 CSIS found that Taiwan’s ability to contain a Chinese beachhead was one of four requisite components to a relatively successful defense of the island.
As Paparo explained it, his hope is that this “unmanned hellscape” strategy will provide a rapidly-deployable mass of drones that can stall and degrade a Chinese invasion force.
The ‘Hellscape’ Drone Army
The U.S. military is already taking some steps to build up the drone army needed to fulfill Paparo’s hellscape vision for Taiwan.
In 2023, then-Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks revealed a program, dubbed “Replicator,” which aims to develop a portfolio of expendable unmanned systems for grinding down China’s military.
“Replicator is meant to help us overcome the PRC’s biggest advantage, which is mass. More ships, more missiles, more people,” Hicks said at the time.
Hicks indicated the plan took inspiration from the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, where both sides have rapidly weaponized relatively cheap drone systems to devastating effect.
Last May, the Pentagon announced it had chosen the AeroVironment Switchblade-600 as its first Replicator system, and had begun looking for vendors to produce unmanned surface vessels. The Switchblade-600 is a loitering munition that has already seen use in Ukraine. With a set of spring-loaded wings and a pusher prop, the Switchblade can be launched from a tube and hang around over a battlefield, searching for a target.
In November, Hicks announced the first batch of replicator drone systems would be ready to ship to the fighting forces by August of this year.
Other systems are also moving toward delivery. The Pentagon has chosen the Anduril Dive-LD as its first drone submarine.
The Army has chosen another two drone systems as part of the Replicator program. The first is the Anduril Industries Ghost-X drone; an autonomous operating drone helicopter for surveillance, which troops can pack down into a rifle case and assemble for flight in as little as two minutes. For their second new drone, the Army has chosen the Performance Drone Works C-100; an autonomous quad-copter drone capable of carrying and releasing munitions weighing up to 10 pounds.
The Marine Corps has chosen the Anduril Industries Altius-600; a tube-launched autonomous pusher-prop plane that can carry a variety of payloads, including explosive ordnance. The Altius-600 is a loitering munition with similarities to the Switchblade-600.
Alongside the main batch of Replicator systems, the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit is also working to develop Air Force’s Enterprise Test Vehicle (ETV). The service is seeking an autonomous system that can fly for up to 500 nautical miles, at a speed of over 100 miles per hour, with the capability to carry a variety of different payloads.
Last month, the Air Force narrowed the ETV program to two finalists: the Anduril 500 Barracuda, and the Zone 5 Rusty Dagger Open Weapon Platform. Both companies have presented their offerings as relatively low-cost, rapidly-producible small cruise missiles.
It remains to be seen whether this Replicator drone army will ever be called into action, and whether it will be effective.
As with any widely publicized strategy, China is likely developing its own answers. A January paper by the China Landpower Studies Center at the U.S. Army War College notes China is preparing a range of systems to counter drones, including laser interceptor systems.
This article was originally published by FreeBase News and is reprinted with permission.
A United Airlines airplane flying from Denver, Colorado, to Edmonton, Canada, on Sunday appeared to experience a major engine fire due to a “possible wildlife strike,” which forced the airplane to return to the Denver International Airport.
In a statement obtained by The New York Post, United Airlines said, “Our flight from Denver to Edmonton (UA2325) returned safely to Denver to address a possible wildlife strike.” United Airlines confirmed to Fox Business that the airplane involved in Sunday’s incident was a Boeing 737-800.
According to Fox Business, none of the 153 passengers and six crew members aboard the Boeing 737-800 were injured in Sunday’s incident. The outlet noted that the airline later arranged for a different aircraft to transport the passengers to Edmonton following the airplane’s safe return to the airport.
In a video shared by ABC News, the Boeing 737-800’s flight crew can be heard requesting that the aircraft be inspected for an engine fire, while the pilot claimed that the “possible wildlife strike” was caused by a rabbit. The pilot can be heard saying, “Rabbit through the number 2 [engine], that’ll do it.”
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Describing what happened on the United Airlines flight, passenger Scott Wolff told ABC’s “Good Morning America,” “There was a loud bang, and a significant vibration in the plane.”
“Every few moments there was a backfire coming from the engine, a giant fireball behind it,” Wolff added. “Everyone in the plane then started to panic.”
Wyatt McCurry, who witnessed the engine fire from the ground at the Denver International Airport, told “Good Morning America,” “My stomach dropped and I just thought, ‘I’m going to see a plane go down.’”
The video of Sunday’s airplane incident shows bright flashes of light repeatedly coming from the engine due to the engine fire caused by the “possible wildlife strike.” The flashes of light were seen from the ground at the Denver International Airport.
United Airlines flight experienced an engine fire shortly after takeoff that was apparently caused by a rare rabbit strike.
The flight had departed Denver International Airport en route to Edmonton, Alberta, on Sunday when the incident occurred. pic.twitter.com/6KgH9cCqXS
Another video shared on X, formerly Twitter, shows the flashes of light from the perspective of the passengers on the United Airlines airplane. Multiple passengers can be heard panicking in the video, while other passengers can be heard repeatedly shouting, “Fire!”
United Airlines flight experienced an engine fire shortly after takeoff that was apparently caused by a rare rabbit strike.
The flight had departed Denver International Airport en route to Edmonton, Alberta, on Sunday when the incident occurred.
A new body camera video released by law enforcement officials shows officials discovering the dead bodies of Gene Hackman, a legendary Oscar-winning actor, and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, in their home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in February.
According to Fox News, Santa Fe Fire Chief Brian Moya confirmed that officials were able to immediately locate Arakawa’s body in a bathroom in the couple’s New Mexico house; however, it took officials almost 30 minutes to discover Hackman’s body in another part of the house. In a search warrant affidavit obtained by Fox News, police detectives described the deaths of the Hollywood legend and his wife as “suspicious enough in nature to require a thorough search and investigation.”
According to Fox News, New Mexico officials confirmed that Arakawa died from hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, while Hackman died from hypertensive atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer’s disease.
READ MORE: Hollywood legend, wife, and dog found dead in their home
In the bodycam video, Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Department officers and paramedics can be seen searching the Hollywood legend’s home. Fox News reported that officials found two live dogs in the couples’ home and one dead dog that was in a create approximately “10 to 15” feet away from Arakawa’s body. One of the dogs can be seen guarding and lying next to Arakawa’s body on the floor in the police body camera video.
The police body camera video shows that Hackman and Arakawa’s residence was very cluttered when officials arrived at the scene of the dead bodies, with clothing and other items scattered throughout the home. The video also shows police officials walking through the home and discovering Hackman’s body in a completely separate area from his wife. A female police officer can be heard noting, “Two totally separate areas.”
According to TMZ, an environmental assessment conducted by the New Mexico Department of Public Health confirmed that the Hollywood legend’s New Mexico property was infested by rodents. The New Mexico Department of Public Health reportedly found rodent nests and dead rodents in eight buildings that were detached from the main house.
Popular Gen Z retailer Revolve is facing a $50 million lawsuit alleging that the brand’s social media marketing tactics deceived at least a million consumers.
A class-action lawsuit, filed Friday in California Central District Court, accuses the Cerritos-based online retailer of violating federal trade law by operating an advertising “scheme” in which influencers disguised paid product endorsements as genuine recommendations in order to boost Revolve’s sales.
“For many years, Revolve used its position, payments and free merchandise to entice influencers to endorse and promote its products while failing to disclose any material relationship with the brand,” the lawsuit said.
Representatives for Revolve did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Lead plaintiff Ligia Negreanu said in the lawsuit that had she known the influencers’ posts were sponsored, she would not have purchased Revolve’s products at the prices she paid, which at times were 10% to 40% higher than those of other retailers selling the same items.
The lawsuit is seeking $50 million in damages. Revolve’s affiliate companies, as well as three influencers, were listed as co-defendants.
FTC-mandated disclosures should be “difficult to miss,” like the “paid partnership” label advised by Meta or the #ad hashtag, the lawsuit states. Instead, Revolve’s paid influencers often merely tagged the fashion brand’s Instagram account in their posts, according to the complaint.
“The problem comes when you don’t disclose,” said Bogdan Enica, one of Negreanu’s attorneys. He added that guidelines established by the Federal Trade Commission require influencers endorsing a product on social media to disclose any “material connection” with the brand.
In its 2023 annual report, Revolve warned about the risk of litigation should its thousands of social media influencer-partners fail to follow FTC guidelines.
The National Advertising Division of BBB National Programs, a nonprofit that oversees industry self-regulation programs, recommended earlier this year that Revolve “modify influencer posts to clearly and conspicuously disclose the material connections between Revolve and influencers in its product gifting program.”
The lawsuit alleges that Revolve violated the Florida Deceptive Trade Practices Act, the Consumers Legal Remedy Act and the Unlawful Business Practices Act as well as consumer protection laws in more than 20 states.
Revolve Group’s business has been growing. The company reported net sales of $1.1 billion in 2024, up 6% from a year earlier. Profits rose 73% to $48.8 million during the same period.
A 32-year-old father of two was “nearly decapitated in front of his wife” earlier this month by a “hatchet-wielding menace” in Tucson, Arizona.
A GiveSendGo fundraiser page states, “A father of two was nearly decapitated in front of his wife and left in critical condition by a hatchet-wielding menace as the couple were in the middle of a cross-country trip home — one year after their son’s death. Jacob Couch, 32, was sitting on a bus stop bench with his wife, Kristen, in Tucson, Arizona when 25-year-old Daniel Michael confronted the pair and attacked them unprovoked. He is fighting for his life.”
According to Pima County court documents obtained by 13 News, the incident took place on April 25. The court documents indicate that Couch sustained a major wound to the back of his neck after being struck with a hatchet.
“Seeing your husband get almost decapitated and being the only one to help like it’s, hard,” Kristen Couch, the victim’s wife, told 13 News. Luke Couch, Jacob Couch’s brother, told the outlet, “He’s not expected to make it right now. We’ve just been taking it how we can.”
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According to a GoFundMe page launched by the 32-year-old victim’s family, Jacob Couch remains in “critical condition” in the ICU at Banner University Medical Center, which is located in Tucson.
Erica Sims, the victim’s sister-in-law, said, “The injury cut the artery in the back of his neck in half it went so deep that it hit his skull.”
According to 13 News, law enforcement officials were able to use surveillance cameras to identify Michael as the suspect responsible for the recent attack. The outlet reported that law enforcement officials located Michael at his home just three days following the incident and that officials discovered the clothes Michael wore and the hatchet he used in the attack at his apartment.
Court records obtained by 13 News show that the 25-year-old suspect has been charged with two counts of aggravated assault. The outlet noted that Michael could face additional charges, including a state homicide charge, if Couch dies from his injuries. 13 News reported that Michael currently remains in custody at Pima County Jail on a $1 million bond.
This article was originally published by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and is reprinted with permission.
Military leaders from several nations are quietly holding under-the-radar talks at the headquarters of the Turkish Navy in Ankara this week, focusing on Black Sea security in the event of a cease-fire between Russia and Ukraine.
The meetings come days after two European diplomatic sources told RFE/RL that Turkey had declared it was willing to “assume responsibility for the maritime dimension” of a multinational military deployment in Ukraine.
There are practical reasons for Turkey to do this.
The 1936 Montreux Convention places strict limits on the tonnage that non-littoral navies can deploy in the Black Sea and for how long. This makes Turkey, which has one of NATO’s strongest militaries, the natural key player.
It has 17 frigates, for example, compared to just three in Romania’s navy.
“It’s impossible to solve this without Turkey on the side of the Europeans,” Sam Greene of the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) said at a recent briefing.
British and French vessels could also be expected to rotate through the Black Sea as part of a peacekeeping or reassurance force.
But as with the land-based force envisaged by the “coalition of the willing,” the naval mission might also rely on a “US backstop.”
How Is This Different?
According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), this would consist of air- and space-based intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. Although, as the CSIS notes, US Navy ships regularly patrol the Black Sea anyway and could therefore also play a role.
In this regard, a Black Sea mission would take place under very different conditions to a land one — in that NATO already has a well-established presence there with regular multinational exercises.
In fact, NATO just completed drills involving naval forces from 12 nations, including Turkey, the United States, Britain, and Romania. Over 12 days, forces simulated responses to hybrid, naval, and air attacks in the region.
Naval patrols would be focused on multiple missions, such as securing freedom of navigation for commercial shipping (including Ukraine’s vital grain exports), monitoring cease-fire compliance, and mine clearance.
Andriy Ryzhenko, a reserve captain in the Ukrainian Navy, told RFE/RL’s Current Time that “many ports are completely blocked at the moment,” due to mines.
“They are Mykolayiv, Ochakiv, Kherson. Other ports are officially open but with limitations…. Mines need to be found and neutralized,” he said.
‘Ukraine Has Won’
Unlike on land, Ukraine feels it is winning or indeed has already won the war at sea.
A series of spectacular attacks that sank numerous Russian vessels has already pushed Russia’s numerically superior navy out of its bases in occupied Crimea and back to Novorossiysk.
“Ukraine has won on the sea and now has a complete advantage. That is, it does not allow the enemy near its coasts and it ensures civilian navigation,” Oleksiy Neizhpapa, head of the Ukrainian Navy, told RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service on April 8.
“But the enemy has the ability, has weapons that can hit civilian objects, civilian ships directly in ports or at sea. So, of course, the danger remains.”
This was amply demonstrated by overnight Russian drone attacks on Odesa on April 16.
Ryzhenko also pointed out that shipping in the Black Sea is not operating along peacetime routes and that these need to be restored.
“It needs to be possible to go directly from Odesa to the Bosphorus across the middle of the Black Sea and not hiding in the territorial waters of neighboring countries,” he said.
Ryzhenko added that the talks in Ankara would be focused on these details.
Low-Profile Talks
The talks were first announced by the Turkish Defense Ministry on April 13, but officials would not reveal which countries were taking part.
Later, it was reported that NATO members Bulgaria and Romania would be involved, along with Georgia.
On April 15, Britain’s Defense Ministry told RFE/RL that it would join the meetings, before Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy revealed that Ukraine and France were also attending.
“We are talking about the presence of a contingent at sea, and we believe that Turkey can have a serious place in future security guarantees for the sea,” Zelenskyy said.
“This is not about ending the war, this is about what will happen after the cease-fire — security guarantees,” he added.
As with previous discussions on a land-based contingent, the United States is not involved in the talks.
The Department of Defense was sued on Tuesday by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), multiple military students, and the family members of military students over various book bans and curriculum changes implemented amid President Donald Trump’s effort to remove diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) from the federal government and America’s military institutions.
The lawsuit, which was filed in the district court for the Eastern District of Virginia on Tuesday, states, “The Department of Defense Education Activity (‘DoDEA’) is quarantining library books and whitewashing curricula in its civilian schools. Right now, DoDEA is scrubbing references to race and gender from its libraries and lessons with no regard to how canonical, award-winning, or age-appropriate the material might be.”
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit, including 12 students from six different families at military schools in Italy, Japan, Virginia, and Kentucky, argued that the recent removal of books and curriculum at the military schools is a violation of the students’ “First Amendment right to receive information.”
The lawsuit added, “Plaintiffs bring this First Amendment lawsuit to challenge the Department of Defense’s ongoing and unconstitutional removal of books from their school libraries and suppression of topics and educational materials in their curricula.”
READ MORE: Pics: Trump places all DEI employees on leave, closes DEI offices
According to the ACLU, the Defense Department’s school system, which includes 161 schools throughout the United States and in multiple other countries, has “systemically removed books, altered curricula, and canceled events that the government has accused of promoting ‘gender ideology’ or ‘divisive equity ideology.’”
The ACLU claimed that the Defense Department has banned textbooks that discuss LGBTQ+ information, Native American history, slavery, and the prevention of sexual harassment.
Emerson Sykes, an ACLU senior staff attorney, said, “These schools are some of the most diverse and high achieving in the nation, making it particularly insulting to strip their shelves of diverse books and erase women, LGBTQ people and people of color from the curriculum to serve a political goal.”
Sykes added, “Our clients deserve better, and the First Amendment demands it.”
According to Military Times, Tuesday’s lawsuit against the Trump administration’s Defense Department is pushing for the president’s executive orders to be revoked and for the banned books and curriculum to be reinstated in the department’s military schools.
Matt Callahan, an ACLU senior supervising attorney, claimed, “The government can’t scrub references to race and gender from public school libraries and classrooms just because the Trump administration doesn’t like certain viewpoints on those topics.”
Grammy winner Lil Nas X stayed mostly calm, cool and pretty comedic as he informed fans from a hospital bed on Monday that he had “lost control” of half of his face.
The 26-year-old “Old Town Road” and “Industry Baby” singer shared a selfie video on Instagram documenting the stillness of the right side of his face as he attempts to smile. “This is me doing a full smile right now,” he says with a crooked smile and his right eye wider than his left.
“It’s like what the f—? I can’t even laugh right, bro,” he added, laughing at himself. “What the f—! Oh my God.”
Lil Nas X, whose birth name is Montero Lamar Hill, did not disclose an official diagnosis or what might have caused the paralysis but continued to speak about his condition over several Instagram stories. In one story, he reassured fans that he is doing well and requested that they “stop being sad for me!” The singer, who has endeared himself to fans with his cheeky sense of humor and his internet trolling, instead requested they “shake ur a— for me.” In the final post shared from his hospital bed, the singer told his millions of followers he will simply “look funny for a lil bit but that’s it.”
The “Hotbox” artist continued to share updates early Tuesday morning via additional stories where he jokingly accused his cat of mocking his appearance and told fans he feels his face is “already getting better.” In his most recent updates, Lil Nas X can be seen enjoying a rollerskating session in the sun.
“It’s getting better y’all, I promise,” he said his latest video. “It’s gonna take a lot more than that to keep a bad b— down. This eye wonky, b— but I’m not.”
A representative for Lil Nas X did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for additional information and comment Tuesday.
Prior to his hospitalization, Lil Nas X got candid earlier this month about being an openly gay musician amid the anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment and executive orders of the Trump administration. The musician, who broke out in 2019 for “Old Town Road,” reflected on his controversial, Bible-inspired “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)” music video in 2021 and the backlash that came with it. In the video, the rapper notoriously pole dances from celestial heights to the depths of hell, where he gives Satan a lap dance before snapping his neck and becoming the lord of the underworld.
“Even right now, everything with the young males being taught these super conservative ways, at least in America: everything is shifting with this rebellious, hyper-masculine thing,” he told Paper.
Later in the interview, the singer said he felt conservatives would “actually try to kill me” if he had released “Montero” in the current social and political climate instead of in 2021. Still, he told the magazine he is optimistic that “things are going to be fine.”
“I’m not trying to minimize what’s happening. I just think s— is going to work itself out, especially in the generation where everything is a trend,” he added. “The second the next thing comes along, it will be like, ‘Hey, we don’t hate women and gay people anymore. Let’s do something else now.’”
Amid his hospitalization Lil Nas X received support from fellow artists in the comments of his Instagram post. Comedian Loni Love, “Pose” stars Ryan Jamaal Swain and Dominique Jackson and playwright Jeremy O. Harris were among the celebrities sending the singer well wishes.
Five Below, the 1,500-store chain that grew rapidly by selling cheap sunglasses, LED watches, and many other brightly colored Chinese-made items has paused its Chinese imports, citing the rapid rise in U.S. tariffs that have more than doubled costs on new inventory.
“In order to ensure maximum flexibility, we proactively paused orders from China, given the escalation in the tariffs, as we evaluate all options” to find “trend-right products” at attractive prices, Five Below said in a statement.
Shipping giant Moller-Maersk A/S told Five Below’s China factories to take back all shipping containers sent to ports since April 10 and not send any more, Bloomberg LP reported.
Sourcing merchandise elsewhere
The stock fell Friday on the news but closed up more than 5% Monday at $63.56, down from over $200 in early 2024. The stock has fallen over the past year as Five Below reported disappointing sales and slowed store openings and replaced top managers.
“We are utilizing several tools to help mitigate tariffs and swiftly assessing the best of many available options,” the company added in its statement.
In a filing last month with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Five Below anticipated that “tariffs imposed by the U.S. government could increase the cost to us of certain products, lower our margins, increase our import related expenses, cause us to increase our prices to consumers and reduce consumer spending,” hurting Five Below sales and profits.
“A significant majority of our merchandise is manufactured outside of the United States, with China as the single largest source of merchandise we import and source from domestic vendors,” the report said.
Five Below said it would try to fight back by negotiating lower supplier prices, finding products from any countries that don’t face U.S. tariffs, boost its own retail prices, or find new U.S. product sources.
Besides the direct impact on Five Below imports, higher tariffs by the U.S. and “retaliatory” tariffs by other countries are likely to inflate U.S. prices, causing consumers to buy less and further hurting retail sales and profits, the company said.
Struggling before tariffs
Even before President Donald Trump’s election last fall and his move to boost China tariffs — which now total 145%, or a $1.45 import tax for every dollar an item is worth — Five Below has struggled.
The chain was one of the few that kept expanding during the retail store consolidation of the late 2010s and the COVID shutdowns of the early 2020s. Last year cofounder Thomas Vellios stepped back into an executive role on the company’s board as CEO Joel D. Anderson and other senior officers departed.
Vellios slowed Five Below’s planned growth from a former target of 260 stores this year to around 150 and announced a return to offering simpler, cheaper items, reversing Anderson’s trend toward larger stores and more expensive merchandise.
Five Below appointed Winnie Park to the chief executive role in December. Park previously served in the top job at PaperSource and Forever21.