Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai and several executives at the media company he founded have been arrested for colluding with foreign forces, the highest profile arrests thus far under a sweeping national security law imposed by Beijing just over a month ago.

Lai, 71, is the chairman and majority owner of the staunchly pro-democratic newspaper Apple Daily and its publishing company, Next Digital. Share prices for Next Media surged 300 percent within hours of his arrest, as pro-democracy supporters urged each other online to support the company.

Lai’s two sons Timothy Lai and Ian Lai were also arrested Monday morning for, respectively, conspiracy to defraud and collusion with foreign forces. Hong Kong police said a total of seven individuals — among them Next Media executives — had been arrested on Monday under the national security law for colluding with foreign forces.

“It’s a combination of charges. Most are being arrested on some type of conspiracy to commit fraud charges…but really it’s just an effort to decapitate the management as they took out the top senior management with those charges,” Mark Simon, a senior executive at Next Digital, told NPR.

Livestreams of the ensuing police raid on Apple Daily’s newsroom showed about two hundred police entering the Next Digital building Monday morning. The police sealed off the newsroom and searched through documents on reporters’ desks while Lai, handcuffed, was led through the building. Police also raided a restaurant owned by Ian Lai.

The senior Lai first made his fortune in clothing and retail and soon parlayed his wealth into a media business, which he resolved would help uphold Hong Kong’s then-nascent but robust civil liberties. Hailing from an older generation of activists, Lai is both a political firebrand and unique figure who commands respect across the pro-democracy camp in Hong Kong.

That generation includes fellow pro-democracy advocates and veteran politicians Martin Lee and Margaret Ng, who were among 15 individuals, including Lai, arrested in April for “organizing and participating in unauthorized assemblies.”

Lai’s prominence in Hong Kong’s business community and his political activism made him an obvious target in Beijing’s ongoing efforts to tighten its control over the region. In May, Lai was singled out by the nationalistic Chinese state tabloid Global Times as potentially subject to criminal prosecution for subversion because of his Twitter account, which he largely devotes to upholding Hong Kong’s civil liberties.

“I have always thought I might one day be sent to jail for my publications or for my calls for democracy in Hong Kong,” Lai wrote soon afterwards in an op-ed published in The New York Times. “But for a few tweets, and because they are said to threaten the national security of mighty China? That’s a new one, even for me.”

Lai was also arrested in February for participating in an illegal assembly and faces additional charges of incitement for joining in this year’s annual June 4 vigil commemorating the victims of China’s Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989.

But Lai faces much more serious penalties under the national security law, which Beijing implemented June 30. The law criminalizes what it calls collusion with foreign forces, subversion, secession and terrorism, with penalties of up to life in prison and potential extradition to mainland China in particularly “complex” cases.

In June, Hong Kong’s chief executive and a number of Beijing-backed officials defended the law, saying it would be applied to a very narrow group of individuals.

But Beijing’s national security law has had an enormous chilling effect on Hong Kong civil society, particularly in schools and universities as people self-censor out of fear of prosecution.

Police made their first wave of arrests under the law the day after its implementation, seizing protesters who attended a demonstration despite a police ban on doing so. In July, four people between the ages of 16 to 21 were arrested in a second wave after being accused of separatism due to their alleged links to a new pro-independence political party and statements posted on their social media pages.

International leaders at a virtual summit Sunday pledged $298 million in aid to help Lebanon in the aftermath of the catastrophic blast that killed at least 158 people and devastated large swaths of Beirut.

In his opening remarks, French President Emmanuel Macron — co-host of the summit along with the U.N. — said “Lebanon’s future was at stake” and urged attendees “to come together in support of Lebanon and its people.”

Among attendees were officials with some 30 international bodies and nations, including President Trump, who had announced his participation on Twitter.

Reuters quotes Macron’s office as saying the approximately $298 million would not be conditional on governmental reforms in Lebanon, but longer-term support would be. During Sunday’s summit, Macron urged Lebanon’s leaders to act in the best interest of the country, making apparent allusion to outrage at the country’s ruling class following the blast.

“It is up to the authorities of the country to act so that the country does not sink, and to respond to the aspirations that the Lebanese people are expressing right now, legitimately, in the streets of Beirut,” Macron said, according to a translation by France 24.

Unrest in Lebanon has been at a high following last week’s explosion at Beirut’s port. Anger over the blast has been directed at corruption and negligence by the country’s politicians. A day ahead of the virtual summit, massive demonstrations drew thousands into the streets of downtown Beirut, with protesters even assembling a mock gallows for cut-outs of prominent politicians.

Prior to the explosion — caused by 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate stored at Beirut’s port — the country had already been undergoing a major economic collapse. Lebanon had also been struggling under the COVID-19 pandemic.

The BBC reports that 15 leaders at the summit released a joint statement, insisting the aid must be “directly delivered to the Lebanese population, with utmost efficiency and transparency.”

“Assistance should be timely, sufficient and consistent with the needs of the Lebanese people,” the statement said.

The European Commission — the executive body of the European Union — pledged some $35 million on top of an already promised $39 million. The United Kingdom also pledged $26 million during the summit.

Earlier on Sunday, the acting administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development specified that the agency would avoid pledging money through Lebanon’s government. John Barsa told reporters on a conference call that $15 million would instead go through universities trusted by the United States.

Democrats on Sunday slammed President Trump’s executive actions aimed at providing economic relief during the coronavirus pandemic, saying the measures are both ineffective and unconstitutional.

Trump signed three memoranda and one executive order at his Bedminster, N.J., golf resort on Saturday amid stalled negotiations with Congress over a new COVID-19 relief package.

The measures would extend some federal unemployment benefits, continue the suspension of student loan repayment, defer payroll tax collection for many workers, and task federal officials with reviewing “resources that may be used to prevent evictions and foreclosures.”

Some lawmakers and experts are voicing concerns about the president’s moves to control federal spending, which is a power reserved for Congress.

Andrew Rudalevige, chair of the Department of Government and Legal Studies at Bowdoin College, told NPR on Saturday that the unemployment benefits measure is particularly controversial because it is “really using appropriated funds by Congress in ways that Congress might not have intended.”

Trump calls for using billions of unused dollars from the Department of Homeland Security’s Disaster Relief Fund for the unemployment payments.

Rudalevige added that he expects legal challenges to move “fairly rapidly,” citing the specific measures regarding unemployment appropriations and the payroll tax, which funds Social Security and Medicare.

“The president can defer the payroll tax, but he can’t forgive it,” Rudalevige said. “He talked about terminating the tax [if he wins reelection], but that would certainly require a law to do that. So I think you will see pushback here.”

Pushback from lawmakers was swift, and mounted over the weekend. Mostly it came from Democrats, but from some conservatives too.

“Our Constitution doesn’t authorize the president to act as king whenever Congress doesn’t legislate,” said Libertarian-leaning Michigan Congressman Justin Amash, who left the Republican Party last year to become an independent.

Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska wrote in a statement that Trump does not have the power to “unilaterally rewrite the payroll tax law.”

“The pen-and-phone theory of executive lawmaking is unconstitutional slop,” he said.

But several members of the Trump administration defended the president’s actions on Sunday.

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow responded to Sasse’s comments about the payroll tax deferral on ABC’s This Week. “I appreciate those things, maybe we’re going to go to court on them,” Kudlow said. “We’re going to go ahead with our actions anyway. Our counsel’s office, the Treasury Department believes it has the authority to temporarily suspend tax collections, so we’re banking on that.”

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said all of the actions cleared the administration’s Office of Legal Counsel. He warned against potential challengers.

“If Democrats want to challenge us in court and hold up unemployment benefits to those hard-working Americans that are out of a job because of COVID, they’re going to have a lot of explaining to do,” Mnuchin said on Fox News Sunday.

Rudalevige told NPR that it is “conceivable” that Congress itself could have standing to sue over the question of unemployment appropriations, and noted that the House sued then-President Barack Obama over spending on the Affordable Care Act.

In an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called Trump’s executive actions unconstitutional but sidestepped a question about whether she would sue to block them.

“My constitutional advisers tell me they’re absurdly unconstitutional, and that’s a parallel thing,” Pelosi said. “Right now the focus, the priority, has to be on … meeting the needs of the American people.”

In response to a question about whether a future stimulus package would make the executive actions null and void, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro told NBC’s Meet the Press that there would be no need for the president to act if Congress could come to an agreement.

“The Lord and the Founding Fathers created executive orders because of partisan bickering and divided government,” he said.

Several GOP lawmakers, including Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, praised the president for taking action but said they would prefer a congressional agreement, with Alexander calling on Democrats to “stop blocking commonsense proposals.”

Democratic leaders also called for a return to negotiations, saying the president’s measures fall short.

In a joint statement issued Saturday evening, Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called the executive actions “unworkable, weak and narrow.”

They said the measures will cut families’ unemployment benefits from the recently expired $600-a-week benefits, exacerbate states’ budget crises, and endanger seniors’ Social Security and Medicare. And they said Trump’s actions ignore important issues like increasing testing, reopening schools and safeguarding elections.

The leaders urged Republicans to “return to the table, meet us halfway and work together to deliver immediate relief to the American people.”

Talks on Capitol Hill to reach a new COVID-19 relief bill have stalled, with Republicans and Democrats still trillions of dollars apart after weeks of negotiations.

Schumer said on ABC’s This Week that Democrats had been willing to compromise on their $3.4 trillion bill, with Pelosi suggesting to White House negotiators that Democrats go down $1 trillion and Republicans go up $1 trillion.

“They said absolutely not,” Schumer said. “I said to them, ‘This means it’s your way or the highway?’ And they basically said yes. That is not the way to create a deal.”

Both Schumer and Pelosi reiterated on Sunday that they hope talks will resume.

Mnuchin told Fox that Democrats refuse to negotiate on state and local aid and enhanced unemployment benefits, but that on almost every other issue “we’ve come to an agreement.”

The U.S. has hit 5 million confirmed coronavirus cases — just 17 days after crossing the 4 million mark — as lawmakers and states continue to grapple with how to chart a path back to normal as the pandmic continues to rage on.

The grim milestone was reached on Sunday, according to tracking by Johns Hopkins University. It came after President Trump announced Saturday he would take executive action to extend coronavirus relief efforts that expired after negotiations with Congress stalled out.

The last time the country surpassed a million new cases many states had been seeing record surges of new infections, including California, Florida and Texas. An NPR analysis shows that cases in at least 33 states were on the decline last week.

But current figures do not offer a full picture of the crisis. Two states that reported declines saw recent interruptions to testing efforts. In California, where COVID-19-related deaths stand at more than 10,000, state health authorities say a technical glitch caused under-reporting of test results. In Florida, state officials closed down testing sites in multiple counties in preparation for Hurricane Isaias.

The U.S. continues to lead the world in deaths from the coronavirus. With more than 162,400 deaths, the U.S. accounts for roughly 22% of global deaths from COVID-19.

Brazil, the country with the second most cases, is currently at just over 3 million cases and more than 100,000 deaths.

Back in the U.S., states continue weighing their options for the academic year. On Friday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said schools throughout his state will be allowed to resume in-person learning for the upcoming school year.

Pien Huang contributed to this report.