Live from NPR news in Washington, I'm Rylan Barton.
Todd Blanche's nomination to become attorney general has stalled.
“Key Republicans have demanded more assurances about the settlement that gave President Trump”
and members of his family protection from tax audits. The Senate Judiciary Committee had been scheduled to vote tomorrow to advance Blanche's nomination to the floor, but it's been delayed. But Republican senators John Cornan and Tom Tellis have threatened to withhold their support. Blacks fell today after the Federal Reserve held interest rates steady and PR's Scott
Horsey reports all of the major stock indexes tumbled more than one and a half percent. The Federal Reserve's rate setting committee voted nine to three to leave the Central Bank's benchmark interest rate unchanged. The three dissenters said they would have preferred a quarter point rate increase in an effort to curb stubborn inflation.
Fed Chairman Kevin Wars notes that market-based interest rates are already clotting, even though the Fed's benchmark hasn't changed, that's encouraging for wars she wants the Fed to play a smaller role in the U.S. economy.
After all the Central Bank need not always and everywhere be the center of attention.
With inflation still elevated and the war with Iran still rattling energy markets,
“investors see a better than even chance that the Fed will raise interest rates at its next”
policy meeting in September. Scott Horsey, in PR News, Washington. The U.S. military says it's launching strikes on Iranian targets a day after it thwarted a missile attack on American forces in Jordan. PR's Jane Araf says the escalation comes after a low in fighting.
The U.S. and Iran paused those attacks to give diplomacy a chance, meaning messages were being exchanged through mediators. But early Wednesday, which is Tuesday evening, U.S. time, Iran fired ballistic missiles at U.S. military installations on Jordanian bases. One of them Iran said was a military command and control center.
So St. Com, the U.S. military said this was a surprise attack and President Trump told Fox News in words we frankly cannot repeat on air that the U.S. would give Iran a beating. And PR's Jane Araf reporting, the Trump administration is ending subsidies for Medicare drug plans. And PR's Sydney Lovekin reports some seniors will face higher premiums.
“Under the inflation reduction act, Medicare started capping patients out of pocket drugs”
spending at $2,000 last year. Not change and others that changed how plans would pay for drugs, men insurers were on the hook for more money.
At first, they didn't know how much more they'd be spending or how high to set premiums.
To ease the transition for insurers, the Biden administration created temporary subsidies to stabilize premiums. The subsidies were expected to last three years, but are ending a year early at the end of 2026. Dr. Mehmet Oz, who oversees the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, said on the social media platform
X, that it's because the subsidies are no longer needed. But the change means beneficiaries could be paying higher monthly premiums next year. Sydney Lupkin and PR News. It's NPR. Elon Musk's social media company X has launched X money, a bank account like service for
users to send money to each other. Musk aims to turn X into an everything app entering a market dominated by services like Venmo and Cash App. Tesla's share price slumped in after hours trading after the company reported weaker than expected profits, as NPR's John Ruach reports a social media giants revenue hit
a record, but AI spending spooked investors. Seeing one way, Mehmet had a pretty good quarter.
It's revenue rose 28% year on year to a record 60.8 billion dollars, and it turned
a multi-billion dollar profit. But it's spending on artificial intelligence is growing quickly, and that's making investors nervous. The company's costs and expenses were up 55% during the quarter, and it raised the bottom end of an expected range for capital expenditures or capex this year.
That's an indicator of how much it expects to spend building AI data setters. On an analyst call CEO Mark Zuckerberg made the case that AI is helping Mehmet out across its businesses, like Instagram and Facebook, but the news prompted investors to sell, pushing Mehmet to share price down by as much as 11%. John Ruach and PR News.
From Major League Baseball's Seattle Mariners have announced a "Gymethy" night for their game next Wednesday. It's an honor of a curious raccoon from the city's ballard neighborhood that's believed to have a rare congenital spinal deformity, though he's surprisingly agile in appears to be thriving.
Fans can get a Mariners' "Gymethy" t-shirt, and the first 20,000 in the stadium will get an exclusive "Gymethy Rookie" card. I'm Rylan Barton, you're listening to NPR News from Washington. Rylan seems like everything is being called a "recession indicator these days." Yeah, like the box of hamburger helper in my pantry.
Or the new Apple Neo book? Or the resurgence of press on nails, or lipstick, or no lipstick, I've lost track. There is only one way to know if these are actual economic warning signs, though. Listen to the indicator from Planet Money on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
