The U.S. economy shrank at a 0.5% annual pace from January through March as President Donald Trump’s trade wars disrupted business, the Commerce Department reported Thursday in an unexpected deterioration of earlier estimates. First-quarter growth was weighed down by a surge of imports as U.S. companies, and households, rushed to buy foreign goods before Trump could impose tariffs on them. The Commerce Department previously estimated that the economy fell 0.2% in the first quarter. Economists had forecast no change in the department’s third and final estimate. The January-March drop in gross domestic product — the nation’s output of goods and services — reversed a 2.4% increase in the last three months of 2024 and marked the first time in three years that the economy contracted.

The head of the federal government agency that oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac wants the mortgage giants to consider accepting a homebuyer’s cryptocurrency holdings in their criteria for buying mortgages from banks. William Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie and Freddie, ordered the agencies Wednesday to prepare a proposal for consideration of crypto as an asset for reserves when they assess risks in single-family home loans. Pulte also instructed the agencies that their mortgage risk assessments should not require cryptocurrency assets to be converted to U.S. dollars.

JERUSALEM – Ofra Keidar was laid to rest today at Kibbutz Be’eri, followin

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea next week will op

Zohran Mamdani says socialism can “absolutely” work in the United States.

Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Radosław Sikorski on the landmark NATO agreement: “We should give credit where credit is due. President Trump was right in his first term when he said that allies were not fulfilling their own commitments from previous summits.”

A ‘Mornings with Maria’ panel discusses the Iran strike intel leak following Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s press conference on the matter.
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A New York state assemblyman took aim at Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Tuesday, mocking her for identifying as a “Bronx girl” while reminding the public of her suburban upbringing in Westchester County.
Assemblyman Matt Slater, a Republican from Yorktown, highlighted the congresswoman’s background by sharing a high school yearbook photo of her as a freshman at Yorktown High School, situated in a quiet suburb roughly 40 minutes north of the Bronx.
Slater’s response came after Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat representing portions of the Bronx and Queens, found herself in a heated exchange with President Trump. The clash began after she demanded his impeachment for carrying out airstrikes in Iran without first seeking congressional authorization.

After months of job cuts, leadership turnover and other turmoil at the Social Security Administration, the agency’s newly minted commissioner faced pointed questions from lawmakers about the future of the agency and its ability to pay Americans their benefits and protect their privacy. Frank Bisignano, who was sworn in last month as President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the agency, told lawmakers he intends to improve accuracy in payments and raise morale at the agency, which has already lost 7,000 workers since billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency embarked on a cost-cutting mission at the agency earlier this year.