Business News

Could Trump really return DOGE savings to taxpayers?

WASHINGTON (AP) — An idea first proposed on social media has bubbled up to the White House and received President Donald Trump’s enthusiastic endorsement: Take some of the savings from billionaire Elon Musk’s drive to cut government spending and return it to taxpayers. If Musk’s target of $2 trillion in spending cuts is achieved by next year, supporters of the idea say that about one-fifth of those funds could be distributed to taxpaying households in checks of about $5,000. 

Stock market today: Discouraging economic reports knock Wall Street further from its record

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is pulling further from its record after reports showed worries about President Donald Trump’s policies may be hitting the U.S. economy. The S&P 500 fell 1% Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 506 points, and the Nasdaq composite fell 1.3%. Indexes fell after a report suggested U.S. business activity is nearing stall-speed, with optimism slumping because of worries about tariffs and other potential policies coming from Washington. Akamai Technologies helped lead stock indexes lower after giving financial forecasts that fell short of analysts’ expectations. Treasury yields fell, while stocks jumped in Hong Kong following an encouraging profit report from Alibaba.

January home sales fall as high mortgage rates, prices freeze out would-be buyers

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes fell in January as rising mortgage rates and prices put off many would-be homebuyers despite a wider selection of properties on the market. Existing home sales fell 4.9% last month from December to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.08 million units, the National Association of Realtors said Friday. Sales rose 2% compared with January last year, marking the fourth straight annual increase. The latest home sales fell short of the 4.11 million pace economists were expecting, according to FactSet. Home prices increased on an annual basis for the 19th consecutive month. The national median sales price rose 4.8% in January from a year earlier to $396,900.

Luigi Mangione set for first court appearance since his arraignment in UnitedHealthcare CEO’s death

NEW YORK (AP) — The man accused of fatally shooting the CEO of UnitedHealthcare in New York City and leading authorities on a five-day manhunt is scheduled to be in court for the first time since his December arraignment on state murder and terror charges. Luigi Mangione is set for a hearing Friday in state court in Manhattan. Prosecutors and Mangione’s defense lawyers are expected to provide updates on the status of the case and Judge Gregory Carro could set deadlines for pretrial paperwork and possibly even a trial date. The 26-year-old has pleaded not guilty to multiple counts of murder, including murder as an act of terrorism, in the Dec. 4 killing of Brian Thompson.

Chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen broke a dress code with jeans. Now he’s selling them for charity

NEW YORK (AP) — Top-ranked chess player Magnus Carlsen is turning his controversial denim into some greens — for charity. The Norwegian chess grandmaster announced that he is auctioning off the Italian luxury brand jeans that started a dress code dispute at December’s World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships. Carlsen ultimately quit the New York competition after accepting a $200 fine while refusing to change his pants. Chess fanatics and #JeansGate followers now have the chance to own the Size 32 regular fit Corneliani jeans. The auction for Big Brothers Big Sisters of America is scheduled to end March 1. The pants’ highest offer was $8,200 as of the morning of Feb. 21.

EU official meets with Trump counterparts to resolve tariff threats

WASHINGTON (AP) — A top European Union official, who is trying to head off a potential trade conflict, stressed the importance of active engagement and fairness in trade during a four-hour meeting with Trump administration officials on Wednesday. President Donald Trump has thrown the decades long partnership between the U.S. and Europe into turmoil by pledging to charge higher taxes on imports from Europe that he says would match the tariffs faced by American products. Trump’s plan for fair tariffs would also include the value added tax — which is akin to a sales tax — charged in Europe that could drastically push up import taxes and potentially trigger a broader trade conflict if the EU imposed retaliatory measures.

Supreme Court clears the way for a lawsuit over COVID-19 pandemic-era unemployment claims in Alabama

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court says people left waiting for months on their unemployment claims during the coronavirus pandemic in Alabama must be able to sue the state over the delay. The Friday ruling reverses an Alabama Supreme Court decision that found the plaintiffs must go through an unemployment agency appeals process before they can sue. The plaintiffs said they’d waited for months for a decision on whether they qualified for benefits, while others never got a decision or saw their benefits stop without explanation. The lawsuit said one man’s claim was dismissed after he missed a deadline because he was on a ventilator. Alabama said a skyrocketing number of unemployment claims overwhelmed the understaffed agency.

Argentina’s crypto scandal dings Milei, involves strange mix of characters

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Argentine President Javier Milei is facing a corruption probe into his promotion of a meme coin, which is a highly speculative form of cryptocurrency that’s seen a recent surge in popularity after President Donald Trump and his wife launched tokens of their own. The budding scandal in Argentina has been dubbed locally as “cryptogate” and has links to a diverse cast of characters, including a high-profile U.S. influencer, a crypto developer who uses the pseudonym “Meow,” and a 28-year-old American entrepreneur who said he helped launch First Lady Melania Trump’s meme coin last month.

Refugees and their sponsors feel stuck after halt to programs letting communities resettle newcomers

MIAMI (AP) — Refugees had been arriving in the United States at levels unseen in nearly three decades, aided by nonprofits and ordinary people across the political spectrum. More than 160,000 Americans across every state signed up to resettle newcomers through the Welcome Corps, a public-private effort launched two years ago. More than 800,000 new arrivals were welcomed with help from U.S. financial supporters through a legal tool known as humanitarian parole. That stopped after President Donald Trump’s administration issued a three-month suspension of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program — a move that stranded thousands of vetted refugees, cut nonprofits’ staffing and left sponsors uneasy about the future of fledgling programs they felt had enriched their own lives.

IRS layoffs could hurt revenue collection and foil efforts to go after rich tax dodgers, experts say

WASHINGTON (AP) — Experts say the layoffs of roughly 7,000 IRS probationary workers likely mean the end of the agency’s plans to go after high-wealth tax dodgers and could spell disaster for revenue collections. The majority of employees shown the door at the federal tax collector this week are newly hired workers focused on ensuring taxpayers are following the tax code and paying debts. But Thursday’s layoffs upend previous efforts to collect from high-income tax cheats and cut off a revenue generating stream at a time when Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is trying to shrink the size of the federal workforce to cut spending and restructure the government’s priorities.