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The economy contracted at a 0.2% annual rate in the first quarter of 2025, the Bureau of Economic Analysis said Thursday in a revision to its estimate of GDP.
A preliminary report from the agency found that the economy contracted at a 0.3% rate in the quarter, so Thursday’s report represented an upward revision in the growth rate of a tenth of a percentage point.
While it is a slight improvement, the new report highlights the challenges the economy and President Donald Trump face in the coming months. They also raise concerns about the potential for a recession.
This is the second of three GDP estimates the BEA has published for the first quarter as more data are analyzed. The final report will come in late June.
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The court found the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which Trump has cited as his basis for ordering massive increases in import duties, does not authorize the use of tariffs.A three-judge panel ruled on several lawsuits arguing Trump exceeded his authority, casting doubt on trade policies that have jolted global financial markets, frustrated trade partners and raised uncertainty over the outlook for inflation and the global economy. The Trump administration filed an appeal, and it was unclear if the White House will respond to the ruling by pausing all of its emergency power tariffs in the interim.
Many of Trump’s double-digit tariff hikes are paused for up to 90 days to allow time for trade negotiations, but the uncertainty over their eventual outcome has stymied businesses and left consumers wary about what lies ahead.
“Just when traders thought they’d seen every twist in the tariff saga, the gavel dropped like a lightning bolt over the Pacific,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary.
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Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) signed legislation on Tuesday to start the process of allowing Floridians to pay for goods and services with precious metals such as gold and silver.
A report will be given to the state legislature, which has until November 1, 2025, to ratify the rules. The law would take effect on July 1, 2026.
If ratified, the law would establish precious metals as a legal form of tender, but it specifies that accepting them would be optional, except for check cashers and money service businesses. Any business seeking to accept precious metals as payment must obtain a license.
“That means these precious metals can start functioning like real currency again, not just investment vehicles for the wealthy,” DeSantis said.
Purchases of precious metals will be exempt from sales tax.
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“This also strengthens Telegram’s financial position: we will receive $300M in cash and equity from xAI, plus 50% of the revenue from xAI subscriptions sold via Telegram.”
Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov announced on Wednesday that the company has teamed up with Elon Musk’s xAI to bring the AI chatbot Grok to the messaging platform.
Durov wrote that he and Musk have agreed to a one-year partnership to bring Grok to Telegram’s users, and Grok will be integrated across all Telegram apps. “This also strengthens Telegram’s financial position: we will receive $300M in cash and equity from xAI, plus 50% of the revenue from xAI subscriptions sold via Telegram,” Durov wrote.
A video posted by Durov stated that the partnership will see Grok pinned for all users on Telegram, will appear in the search bar when asking a question, provide message editing and chat summaries, summarize documents posted in Telegram chats, and can serve as a moderator. The inclusion of Grok will begin in the “summer of 2025,” the video stated.
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US embassies across the world have been ordered by the Trump Administration to put an immediate halt to visa interviews for foreign students.
According to reporting by US news site Politico, the US is planning to monitor social media posts of all foreign students planning to study in the country.
A briefing issued from Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent on Tuesday ordered embassies to stop arranging future interviews.
Trump administration halts US student visa interviews
The message sent by the state department said: “Effective immediately, in preparation for an expansion of required social media screening and vetting, consular sections should not add any additional student or exchange visitor (F, M, and J) visa appointment capacity until further guidance is issued septel (separate telegram), which we anticipate in the coming days”.
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GLENN: Carol Roth, the author of The War on Small Business and former investment banker who started to use her gifts for the good, instead of the evil, is joining me now. She’s also got a new book coming out, the week after mine. And they are great hand-in-glove books. You Will Own Nothing.
Could the dollar get knocked off the top spot, as the world’s reserve currency? Challenges are emerging, and history shows, that countries whose currency has dominated the globe, can fall from that global reserve, that top spot, pretty fast, even over the course of a few days. We didn’t luck our way into this position. Listen to me carefully, it was a carefully engineered plan that unfolded in the mountains of New Hampshire, nearly 80 years ago. At the time, the British pound sterling, was the international currency. A title it had held for texting. But Bretton Woods changed everything. Now, this is actually — these are not my words. These are the words of NPR. They just came out with this story. The US dollar conquered the world. Is it at risk of losing its top spot? I know because I’ve been talking about this for a long time. And everyone has said, that will never happen….
CAROL: Right now. It’s Russia. It’s China. It’s China courting Saudi Arabia. And we have issues, not just with reserves, but also that the key piece. Because you asked me this one time offline. It’s not just the reserves. The reserves allow us to finance debt cheaply at the government level, and create some arbitrage.
But really what is this pole position as well, is being a huge piece of the payments.
We dominate, dominate. And have not lost ground, by the way, on the payment side. But China.
Jamie Dimon warned Trump would push allies to China. Greenland is reaching out now – The Independent
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon warned Trump foreign policy would push allies to China. Greenland is reaching out now – Independent UK
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Foreign governments, including Greenland, are currently considering investment alternatives to the U.S., such as China. This comes as JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon warned that President Donald Trump’s foreign policy could isolate the U.S. under what he characterized as an “America alone” doctrine.
Dimon has stressed the need to keep in place strong economic and military ties, indicating that the CEO is frustrated with U.S. diplomacy as Trump’s foreign policy has prompted concerns at home and abroad.
Renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America and making threats of annexing Canada and Greenland are just some of the issues that have created consternation. The tariffs put in place by the Trump administration on allies and foes alike
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In brief: Elon Musk puts a lot of faith in Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot. Not only does the CEO believe it will drive the EV firm’s valuation into the trillions, but he also expects thousands of the bots working at Tesla – and other companies’ – factories. However, the former Optimus team lead thinks these robots aren’t the right fit for high-speed, repetitive factory work.
In August 2021, Tesla announced that it was creating a general-purpose, bipedal, humanoid robot capable of performing tasks that are unsafe, repetitive, or boring for humans to carry out.
The robot has undergone several design changes since then, with improvements in speed, stability, weight, balance, and other areas.
Last year, Musk made the bold claim that there will be at least one humanoid robot for every person in the world and that Tesla will control a massive share of this market, pushing its value to $25 trillion. He later said that the robots would be put to work in Tesla factories helping build its vehicles – presumably lowering costs by replacing human workers.
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If you’re going to take money away from Harvard University, it’s probably worth reallocating it to places where people can learn some real skills that don’t involve critical race theory or decolonialist readings of Dickens.
You know, like trade schools, where you can learn something useful.
That seems to be the plan from President Donald Trump, who announced via a Truth Social post on Memorial Day that he would be reallocating the money he had frozen in grants or contracts to Harvard and putting it toward America’s most overlooked educational institutions.
“I am considering taking Three Billion Dollars of Grant Money away from a very antisemitic Harvard, and giving it to TRADE SCHOOLS all across our land,” Trump wrote.
“What a great investment that would be for the USA, and so badly needed!!!”
Donald J. Trump Truth Social 05.26.25 08:27 AM EST pic.twitter.com/DjPkgTfLtC
— Commentary Donald J. Trump Posts From Truth Social (@TrumpDailyPosts) May 26, 2025
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The European Union said it agreed to accelerate negotiations with the US to avoid a transatlantic trade war, signaling a more amicable approach just days after President Donald Trump criticized the bloc for taking advantage of the US and slow-walking talks.
“There’s now a new impetus for the negotiations,” Paula Pinho, a spokeswoman for the European Commission, told reporters on Monday, a day after Commission President Ursula von der Leyen spoke with Trump by phone. “They agreed both to fast track the trade negotiations and to stay in close contact.”
Following the call, Trump extended the deadline to hit the EU with 50% tariffs by more than a month to July 9 to allow for more negotiations. “We had a very nice call and I agreed to move it,” Trump told reporters Sunday.
Talks so far have been beset with a multitude of problems, with no clear path to finding a middle ground that will appease them both. The Europeans have complained that it’s not clear what the US wants or even who speaks for the American president, and the US has said the EU unfairly targets US companies with lawsuits and regulations.