LONDON (AP) — Official figures Friday showed that the British economy, the world's sixth-largest, enjoyed a growth spurt in February, the month before U.S. President Donald Trump started to roll out tariffs on imported goods.
The Office for National Statistics found that the British economy grew by 0.5% in February, ahead of market expectations for a more modest increase of 0.2%. It also revised up January's figure to no change from the previous estimate of a 0.1% decline.
Were these more normal times, hopes for the year ahead would be high. But the recent market turmoil prompted by Trump's tariff policies — and subsequent abrupt changes — is expected to lead to a downturn around the world, as businesses and consumers retrench in the face of the heightened economic uncertainty.
China's decision to raise tariffs on U.S. goods from 84% to 125% from Saturday has only added to fears that the world's two biggest economies are heading for a drawn-out and damaging trade war.
While welcoming Friday's growth figures, British Treasury chief Rachel Reeves acknowledged the uncertain outlook.
“The world has changed and we have witnessed that change in recent weeks," she said. “I know this is an anxious time for families who are worried about the cost of living and British businesses who are worried about what this change means for them."
The Labour government has said raising the U.K.’s economic growth is the number one priority over the next five years. Since the global financial crisis in 2008-9, the British economy’s growth performance has been historically lackluster.
Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves speaks during a visit to the Jaguar Land Rover car factory in Birmingham, England, Monday, April 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, Pool)
DENVER (AP) — A soldier present at an after-hours nightclub where more than 100 immigrants suspected of being in the U.S. illegally were taken into custody last weekend has been charged with distributing cocaine, court records show.
Staff Sgt. Juan Gabriel Orona-Rodriguez, who is assigned to Fort Carson, an Army post near the illegal club in Colorado Springs, was arrested Wednesday evening, the FBI said in a statement.
Orona-Rodriquez has been charged with conspiracy to distribute cocaine and distribution and possession with intent to distribute cocaine, according to an arrest affidavit. It said he allegedly sold cocaine to an undercover agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration days before the raid.
Orona-Rodriguez — a member of the 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team in the 4th Infantry Division — appeared briefly in federal court in Denver Thursday afternoon.
Dressed in camouflage pants and a khaki T-shirt and holding court documents in his handcuffed hands, Orona-Rodriguez listened as the magistrate judge explained his rights and agreed to appoint a public defender to represent him.
At the request of a federal prosecutor, Orona-Rodriguez will continue to be held until a hearing to discuss his detention on Tuesday. His lawyer, Josh Lilley, did not address the allegations against him during the hearing.
The FBI said the arrest followed an investigation by the DEA, the Department of the Army Criminal Investigation Division and officials at Fort Carson.
More than 300 law enforcement officers and officials from multiple agencies participated in Sunday’s operation at the nightclub, which had been under investigation for months for alleged activities including drug trafficking, prostitution and “crimes of violence,” said Jonathan Pullen, special agent in charge of the DEA’s Rocky Mountain Division.
Cocaine was among the drugs found, Pullen said at a news conference.
Orona-Rodriquez was one of about 17 active-duty U.S. Army service members who were at the club, known as Warike, when it was raided early Sunday, the affidavit said.
He appears to have held a leadership role in a business that provides armed security at nightclubs, including at Warike, according to the document. However, it did not say whether he was working security there at the time of the raid. It notes that he had been warned by his commanding officer this spring that he could not work for the security company.
Rodriguez received more than a dozen Army awards during his almost nine years in service, including an Army Commendation Medal with combat device, which is earned during a deployment where the soldier was “performing meritoriously under the most arduous combat conditions,” according to Army descriptions of the award.
Of the 17 soldiers who were at the venue at the time of the raid, 16 were patrons and one was working there in a security role, a U.S. official said on the condition of anonymity to provide details not yet made public. Sixteen of the soldiers there were assigned to Fort Carson, the official did not know where the seventeenth was assigned.
Investigators suspect Orona-Rodriguez was getting cocaine from an unidentified Mexican citizen who is “unlawfully present in the United States without admission,” according to the affidavit.
President Donald Trump posted a link to the DEA video of the raid on his social media site, Truth Social. “A big Raid last night on some of the worst people illegally in our Country — Drug Dealers, Murderers, and other Violent Criminals, of all shapes and sizes,” the president wrote.
Associated Press writer Tara Copp in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.
In this image taken from video released by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, officers stop a patron from a nightclub where a raid occurred Sunday, April 27, 2025, in Colorado Springs, Colo. (U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration via AP)
In this image taken from video released by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, a law enforcement officer with a weapon drawn is shown at a nightclub where a raid occurred Sunday, April 27, 2025, in Colorado Springs, Colo. (U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration via AP)
