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The U.S. economy shrank in the first quarter despite underlying strength in consumer and business spending. Gross domestic product contracted at an annualized rate of 0.3 percent, the Department of Commerce said on Wednesday. The decline in U.S. gross domestic product marks a sharp reversal from the 2.4 percent growth rate recorded at the end of last year. This was the lowest rate of growth since 2022, when the economy avoided an official recession but contracted for two consecutive quarters. Final sales to private domestic purchasers, a closely watched measure of business and consumer health, expanded at a healthy pace...

Thursday on FNC’s “America’s Newsroom,” Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) declined to support former Fox News host Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for defense secretary. The Iowa Republican said that the vetting process needed to continue. “I did have a very long, lengthy discussion with Pete yesterday,” she said. “I appreciate his service to the nation. I, too, am also a combat veteran. So we talked about a number of those issues and will continue with the vetting process. I think that is incredibly important. So again, all I’m saying is we had a very frank and productive discussion. And...

Melania Trump declined an offer to head to the White House Wednesday and meet with Jill Biden, citing the Biden administration’s raid on Mar-a-Lago as part of the federal government’s investigation into classified documents. “She ain’t going,” a source familiar with Melania’s decision told The Post. “Jill Biden’s husband authorized the FBI snooping through her underwear drawer. The Bidens are disgusting,” the source said. “Jill Biden isn’t someone Melania needs to meet,” the source added. Melania’s husband, President-elect Donald Trump, will sit with President Biden in the Oval Office Wednesday for a traditional post-election meeting.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday held off from calling for Sen. Bob Menendez’s resignation after the New Jersey Democrat was charged by federal prosecutors with bribery and corruption. Schumer told reporters that he was “deeply disappointed” and “disturbed” when he read the indictment released late last week, which alleges that Menendez and his wife accepted bribes in order to enrich three New Jersey businessmen and benefit Egypt. “I’ve known Sen. Menendez a very long time and was truly, truly upset. But we all know that … for senators, there’s a much, much higher standard, and clearly when...

The percentage of Americans who say patriotism, religious faith, family, and other traditional American values are “very important” is on the decline, a Wall Street Journal-NORC poll found. Support for every traditional American value included in the poll has receded since 1998 besides “money,” which has grown in importance. The data also shows young people and Democrats tend not to highly rank traditional American values as much as older adults and Republicans.

Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake (R) declined to concede governor race to Democrat Katie Hobbs Thursday, raising concerns about the election process. The Associated Press and other outlets projected that Hobbs won the race on Monday. But Lake indicated she is assembling a legal team that is “collecting evidence and data” pertaining to the electoral process. “Rest assured, I have assembled the best and brightest legal team and we are exploring every avenue to correct the many wrongs that have been done this past week,” Lake said in a video address posted Thursday morning. “I’m doing everything in my power...

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) has declined to run for U.S. Senate in Ohio to replace Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), who announced he will not seek re-election next year. In a statement to Cleveland.com, a spokesperson for Jordan said that the lawmaker “is solely focused on representing the great people of Ohio’s Fourth District, and will not be running to fill the seat of retiring Senator Rob Portman.”

As the number of cases has expanded, the mortality rate has declined. It will likely decline even further if and when those without symptoms can be diagnosed and counted. US #CoronaVirusDeathRate by date: 4.06% March 8 (22 deaths of 541 cases) 3.69% March 9 (26 of 704) 3.01% March 10 (30 of 994) 2.95% March 11 (38 of 1,295) 2.52% March 12 (42 of 1,695) 2.27% March 13 (49 of 2,247) 1.93% March 14 (57 of 2,954) 1.84% March 15 (68 of 3,680)

New analysis of projected provincial gas tax revenues in Ontario has revealed that that source of provincial funding will fall much more dramatically than predicted just five years ago due to increased use of electric vehicles and other factors. And so, concludes Trent University professor emeritus Harry Kitchen in a new report titled Ontario’s Downward Trend for Fuel Revenue: Will Road Pricing Fill the Gap?, the provincial government must look for other sources of revenues to build transportation infrastructure. Kitchen recommends road pricing, such as tolls and HOT lanes, with funds raised earmarked for future transportation improvements, and dynamic parking...

A federal judge denied the federal government's request to lift a hold on President Obama's controversial immigration actions in an opinion released Tuesday night. Judge Andrew Hanen wrote that the government misled the court by revealing last month it had granted expanded work permit renewals to 100,000 illegal immigrants before the court blocked the administration from implementing its new policies. ADVERTISEMENT He added a new hearing in March only “reinforced” his February decision to issue a “stay” to block those new policies, meant to delay deportations for millions of undocumented immigrants and provide them with the opportunity to apply for...

Updated: Fri, Mar 13th 2015 @ 4:34 pm EDT The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals today denied the Obama Administration's request for an expedited ruling on Judge Andrew Hanen’s injunction blocking President Obama's executive amnesties. Justice Department attorneys asked the court to rule within seven days but the court allowed the normal 10-day period for states to respond to the Administration's request. Politico reports this could be an early sign that the 5th Circuit may not want to overturn Judge Hanen’s injunction quickly.

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, who is visiting the United States this week, has declined to meet with Barack Hussein Obama. Rivlin will be in New York this week to speak at UN Headquarters, for an International Holocaust Remembrance Day event. The President’s Residence had informed U.S. Ambassador Dan Shapiro in early December of Rivlin’s planned visit, and the information was conveyed to the White House.A senior Israeli official said that at first Rivlin did not want to impose himself on Obama, and that he would be happy to go to Washington if invited by the White House. The deputy...

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, phoned President Obama this morning and asked him to send members of his economic team to the Capitol to end the political stalemate and negotiate a path toward a one-year extension of the payroll tax credit. The president declined the offer. “With Sen. Reid having declined to call his members back to Washington this week to join the House in negotiating a full-year extension of the payroll tax cut, the speaker proposed that the president send members of his economic policy team up to Congress to

The State Department on Wednesday declined to describe the raging conflict in Libya as a civil war, after a key lawmaker used the term to characterize the ongoing battle between rebels and forces loyal to Muammar al-Qaddafi. "I would just say that what we have is a leader who used not just arms but heavy weaponry against his people and is now in a situation where he's lost all legitimacy," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said, when asked whether the fighting had escalated into a civil war.

In 1995, Christie Whitman, a New Jersey governor who was a rising Republican Party star, delivered the GOP’s response to President Bill Clinton’s State of the Union address in front of a cheering crowd in the Assembly chamber. Once again, New Jersey has a rising Republican star in the Statehouse, and a Democratic president about to give a State of the Union address. But history won’t repeat itself this year — even though Republicans were interested in making that happen. William Palatucci, Gov. Chris Christie’s close personal and political confidante, told The Auditor that Republican leadership had inquired with the...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The nation's labor unions saw another steep decline in membership last year, even as the economy showed signs of recovery and job losses slowed. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday that unions lost 612,000 members in 2010, dropping the unionized share of the work force to 11.9 percent from 12.3 percent in 2009. That follows a loss of 771,000 workers in 2008, continuing a steady decline from the 1950s when more than a third of workers belonged to unions.

The Interior Department’s top drilling declined to give details on when the department will begin issuing new deepwater drilling permits for the Gulf of Mexico. “I don’t want to hazard a guess as to exactly when the first deepwater permits will be issued,” Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement Director Michael Bromwich said Wednesday. He added that he hopes new deepwater permits “will be approved before too long.” Bromwich said last week that he expects to begin issuing permits before the second half of the year. Asked by reporters for a more specific date, Bromwich

The ratings declines for Countdown with Keith Olbermann continue. Year over year declines for the first 3 months of 2010 ranged from 40-45% in the cable news advertiser target adults 25-54 demo, and between 21-29% among average viewership.While it’s hard to completely attribute cause and effect to TV ratings, it’s interesting to note that Countdown had better ratings (and a less severe year to year ratings and viewership loss) during the month of March, when Keith wasn’t on the air (he was off from 2/24 until last night) than it did during February (and was approximately on par with...

Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman has declined an invitation from The Sacramento Bee editorial board and FOX 40 to participate in a debate with GOP rival Steve Poizner. The Bee offered four possible dates in April, all of which the Whitman campaign rejected. The national FOX News Network had offered anchor Brett Baier to moderate the debate, and Poizner had agreed to attend.

WASHINGTON — The Central Intelligence Agency is refusing to make public hundreds of pages of internal documents about the agency’s defunct detention and interrogation program, saying such disclosures would jeopardize national security by revealing classified intelligence sources and operations. The C.I.A.’s argument to withhold the material, laid out Monday in a declaration to a federal court in New York, comes a week after the Obama administration declassified documents about abuses in the C.I.A.’s secret overseas prisons and the Justice Department began investigating the actions of C.I.A. operatives.