Author: News Room

Michael S. Jeffries, the former chief executive of Abercrombie and Fitch who was charged with running an international sex-trafficking ring, on Friday was found unfit to stand trial because of an Alzheimer’s diagnosis.In a three-page order, Judge Nusrat J. Choudhury of the Eastern District of New York, wrote that Mr. Jeffries was “suffering from a mental disease or defect rendering him mentally incompetent.” Judge Choudhury also ordered that Mr. Jeffries be hospitalized for four months to observe whether his condition improves.The ruling followed a letter filed last month by Mr. Jeffries’s lawyers, Brian H. Bieber and Alek Ubieta. They wrote…

Google plans to roll out its Gemini artificial intelligence chatbot next week for children under 13 who have parent-managed Google accounts, as tech companies vie to attract young users with A.I. products.“Gemini Apps will soon be available for your child,” the company said in an email this week to the parent of an 8-year-old. “That means your child will be able to use Gemini” to ask questions, get homework help and make up stories.The chatbot will be available to children whose parents use Family Link, a Google service that enables families to set up Gmail and opt into services like…

Stocks were on track on Friday to erase their losses from the days after President Trump’s chaotic rollout of tariffs in early April, bolstered in part by a healthy report on the labor market.The S&P 500 rose 1.6 percent by Friday afternoon, climbing back above where it stood before chaos descended on financial markets after April 2 — Mr. Trump’s so-called “Liberation Day,” which featured his most sweeping tariffs to date.Friday’s boost to stock prices followed a stronger-than-expected report on hiring in April. But the S&P 500 has been edging higher for days — Friday’s gain would be its ninth…

President Trump’s executive order to defund NPR and PBS was met with fiery pushback on Friday, as the organizations challenged the legality of the move and said it could jeopardize access to vital information.The order issued late Thursday instructed the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which receives and distributes over $500 million in taxpayer money to public TV and radio stations annually, to eliminate millions of dollars in federal funding to the two public media organizations. It amounts to perhaps the most significant threat in a decades-long campaign by Republicans to weaken NPR and PBS.Patricia Harrison, the chief executive of the…

President Trump said on Friday that Harvard would lose its tax-exempt status, repeating his intent to enlist the Internal Revenue Service in his feud with the wealthy research university and upend the school’s finances. “We are going to be taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status. It’s what they deserve!” Mr. Trump wrote on social media. It was not immediately clear if the I.R.S. was in fact moving forward with revoking Harvard’s tax-exempt status, a change that could only typically occur after a lengthy process. Federal law prohibits the president from directing the I.R.S. to conduct tax investigations, and I.R.S. employees…

So you’re about to graduate from college. Congratulations. But now you have to think about finding a job and, sooner than you may prefer, starting to repay your student loans.It’s especially important to understand your options, experts on student borrowing say, because many aspects of the federal student loan system are in flux.The system, which has always been challenging to navigate, is only now creaking back into full operation after years of Covid-era pauses on payments and collections. And court challenges to a low-cost repayment option, along with program changes floated by the Trump administration and House Republicans, have created…

It was easy to miss, but last weekend President Trump floated a fundamental rewrite of the American tax code. In a social media post, and again in remarks to reporters, Mr. Trump suggested the United States could stop taxing income under $200,000 and instead rely on revenue from his extensive tariffs.“It’ll take a little while before we do that, but we’re going to be cutting taxes, and it’s possible we’ll do a complete tax cut,” Mr. Trump told reporters on Sunday. “Because I think the tariffs will be enough to cut all of the income tax.”The idea was news to…

A solid labor market has for months given the Federal Reserve comfort that it could hold off on interest rate cuts until it had more clarity about how President Trump’s policies would impact the economy. New data released on Friday reinforced that patient approach.Officials at the central bank are widely expected to keep interest rates steady when they announce their next decision on May 7. After lowering interest rates by a percentage point last year, the Fed has since January opted against making additional reductions. That has left interest rates at a range of 4.25 percent to 4.5 percent.Until this…

President Trump on Friday plans to unveil his budget for the 2026 fiscal year, proposing billions of dollars in cuts targeting child care, education, health, housing and nutrition programs, including those that benefit the poor.The blueprint is likely to showcase Mr. Trump’s conservative vision for Washington while formalizing his disruptive reorganization already underway, as he shutters entire offices and dismisses scores of federal workers without the explicit approval of Congress.Here’s what else to know:Safety net cuts: Mr. Trump is expected to slash some federal safety net programs, according to early budget documents reviewed last week by The New York Times.…

The economy is contracting, companies are reporting losses and consumers are tightening their belts.As dour as the economic data has been this week, President Trump continues to insist his policies are working.Ahead of a closely watched — and unpredictable — jobs report released Friday morning, Mr. Trump has sought to take an early victory lap for his first 100 days in office, dismissing the many signs indicating the U.S. economy may be on the cusp of a painful downturn.Instead, Mr. Trump has heralded his pursuit of steep tariffs and tax cuts as the ingredients for an imminent boom. And he…