Author: News Room

The Federal Reserve’s efforts to orchestrate a “soft landing” for the United States economy are facing a torrent of uncertainty as the central bank makes its first decision of the year on interest rates this week.Economic policymaking in the United States is in the midst of a sharp change of course. The Fed is considering a pause to interest rate cuts as President Trump is poised to impose tariffs on Canada, Mexico and, potentially, China on Saturday. The Trump administration has rebuked the idea that these levies would fuel inflation, but the prospect of blanket tariffs are expected to raise…

new video loaded: Powell Says There Is No ‘Hurry’ to Adjust Policy StancetranscriptBacktranscriptPowell Says There Is No ‘Hurry’ to Adjust Policy StanceJerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, characterized policy settings as still “meaningfully restrictive,” suggesting that interest rates at their current levels were continuing to weigh on the economy and help stamp out remaining price pressures.“With our policy stance significantly less restrictive than it had been and the economy remaining strong, we do not need to be in a hurry to adjust our policy stance. At today’s meeting, the committee decided to maintain the target range for the federal funds…

Moments before flames erupted below transmission towers near Altadena, Calif., high-voltage power lines faulted in the area, new sensor data shows, offering fresh clues about whether utility equipment may have failed as the deadly Eaton fire broke out on Jan. 7. Where voltage dropped on Jan. 7 as electrical equipment faulted Source: Whisker Labs Note: Data is anonymized readings from homes that have installed Whisker Lab sensors. About three seconds later, another major fault was registered near Altadena, according to Whisker Labs, which has a network of sensors installed in homes around the country that are collectively able to measure…

A former Postal Service worker admitted this week that he stole valuable sports collectibles, including Michael Jordan trading cards, an autographed photo of the tennis star Rafael Nadal and a Mickey Mantle card, while he was working as a sorting clerk at a post office in New Jersey, federal prosecutors said.The items, collectively estimated to be worth more than $100,000, were taken from parcels destined for an auction house in Clifton, N.J., and sold to individual buyers or sports collectibles stores, prosecutors said.The former clerk, Shelby Dozier, 34, of the Bronx, pleaded guilty to a charge of theft of mail…

Meta said on Wednesday that it had agreed to pay President Trump $25 million to settle a 2021 lawsuit he filed over the suspension of his Facebook and Instagram accounts after the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.The move was a significant concession by a major tech company and a victory for Mr. Trump, who had previously criticized social media platforms for censoring him but has lately wooed tech titans including Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive.Mr. Zuckerberg has thrown his support behind Mr. Trump and has been remaking his company for the new administration. This month, Mr.…

Tesla on Wednesday reported a sharp drop in profit for 2024 as rivals in China, Europe and the United States chipped away at its lead in the market for electric cars.The company, which is led by Elon Musk, said it made a profit of $2.3 billion during the last three months of 2024. That was a decline compared with $7.9 billion a year earlier, but 2023’s profit included a one-time tax benefit of $5.9 billion. Tesla’s operating profit, which excludes that special gain, fell 23 percent in the final three months of the year.Sales rose 2 percent to $25.7 billion…

Howard Lutnick, a wealthy donor to President Trump who has been picked to lead the Commerce Department, defended Mr. Trump’s plans to impose broad tariffs and said he would take a tough stance on technology sales to China during his Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday.If confirmed, Mr. Lutnick would lead on trade policy and oversee a broad portfolio of government programs touching on business promotion, technology and science. He told lawmakers that he favored “across the board” tariffs to equal out America’s trading relationships. He insisted that tariffs would not be inflationary, in contrast to forecasts by many economists.Mr. Lutnick…

The Federal Reserve is expected to keep its key rate steady on Wednesday, after a series of cuts that lowered rates by a full percentage point last year.And with inflation ticking slightly higher, economists do not expect another cut for a while, which has implications for rates on credit cards, home equity and other loans that are influenced by Fed policy.The Fed’s benchmark rate stands at about 4.6 percent. In an effort to tamp down sky-high inflation, the central bank began lifting rates rapidly — from near zero to a high of 5.33 — between March 2022 and July 2023.…

The path of interest rates over the next year doesn’t just affect the cost of mortgages and car loans. It also makes it more expensive for the federal government to borrow.And in recent years, that borrowing has become very expensive.Interest payments on government debt have risen from 1.2 percent of gross domestic product in 2015 to an estimated 3.2 percent in 2025, according to the Congressional Budget Office, topping the previous highs from the 1980s. That’s $952 billion — more than the budget of the Department of Defense.According to the nonpartisan budget scorekeeper, interest payments are forecast to continue rising,…

In technology, many entrepreneurs get only one defining act. Liang Wenfeng, the founder of DeepSeek, is already on his second.The engineer, described by colleagues as introspective, first made his mark in China’s investment world in the late 2010s, cofounding a hedge fund that used artificial-intelligence models to deliver strong returns and attracted billions of dollars in capital.Buoyed by profits and wary of Beijing’s tightening grip on speculative trading, Mr. Liang pivoted in 2023. He poured money into artificial intelligence, betting on A.I. chips and assembling a team to build China’s answer to the Silicon Valley front-runner OpenAI.Now, just two years…