--:-- Tracy Mumford: From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Thursday, May 1st. Here's what we're covering.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: This is Biden's economy because we took over on January 20th. And I think you have to get us a little bit of time to get moving. But this is the Biden economy.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: President Trump is on defense after new data from the Commerce Department showed the U.S. economy shrank in the first three months of this year, as his economic and trade policies rattled consumers and businesses.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: There are some quirks to how the data is measured, but overall, the new figures show a reversal from the strong growth the quarter before. And they don't even offer a full picture of the disruption, since the data only runs through March, before most of Trump's tariffs took effect.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: After the numbers came out yesterday, stocks dropped, continuing a rocky trend on Wall Street. Looking at the S&P 500, it's now had the worst performance for the start of any president's term in more than 50 years.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The president loves to talk about how this isn't his economy. It's an economy inherited from President Biden. But to the extent that there is a slowdown looming on the horizon, most of that is about the president's policies.
--:-- Ben Castleman: If we see higher prices because of tariffs, if we see slower growth because of tariffs, if we see higher unemployment, that is really a direct result of President Trump's policies.
--:-- Ben Castleman: I had an economist say to me this week that if we get a recession, it will be a voluntary recession, a recession that functionally the president chose to cause. And that's a pretty remarkable place for the economy to be.
--:-- Ben Castleman: The president so far has seemed to dismiss rising concerns that his trade war could be hard on Americans, even as business owners have tried to raise the alarm.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Toy stores, for example, have already said they're worried about empty shelves at Christmas as it gets too expensive to bring in any more inventory.
--:-- Ben Castleman: Maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls. And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally. But we're not talking about something that we have to go out of our way.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill yesterday, the joint resolution failed passage. A bipartisan attempt to try and undo Trump's global tariffs died in the Senate.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Trump's been able to roll out the tariffs because he declared a national emergency, which gives presidents the power to single-handedly impose levies.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Three Republicans joined with Democrats to try and end that emergency declaration. And the count was close enough that ultimately Vice President J.D. Vance had to go to the Capitol to cast the deciding vote to kill the measure.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Even if it had passed the Senate, it had no chance of getting through the House or the White House, which could veto it.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: But Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon said, quote, The United States Senate cannot be an idle spectator in the tariff madness.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: After months of talks and one televised shouting match in the Oval Office, the Trump administration has announced it's reached a deal with Ukraine to share revenues from the country's mineral reserves.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Ukraine's president, Vladimir Zelensky, first proposed the plan last year as a way of keeping the U.S. invested in his country's future.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: President Trump had been complaining that the U.S. should get something in return for the billions it spent supporting Ukraine's war effort.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: A version of the deal was supposed to be signed in February, but when Zelensky went to the White House to finalize it, Trump berated him for not showing enough gratitude, and Zelensky was asked to leave.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Now, details of the new agreement are being worked out, but the biggest question is whether it will include any guarantee that the U.S. will continue to support Ukraine.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Critics of the deal say that without that explicit promise, the U.S. is basically just taking advantage of a country under attack.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Still, some of Ukraine's allies celebrated the signing, saying it shows that Zelensky and Trump are able to work together.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: In Vermont yesterday, a federal judge ordered the release of a Columbia University student who the Trump administration has been trying to deport.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The case is over, but Mosin Madawi is now out on bail. He spoke to a crowd of supporters as he left the courthouse.
--:-- Mosin Madawi: I am saying it clear and loud to President Trump and his cabinet. I am not afraid of you.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Madawi was a prominent organizer of the protests on Columbia's campus against the war in Gaza.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: He grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank and is a permanent legal resident of the U.S.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Last month, the government detained him as part of a crackdown on student protesters and accused him of promoting anti-Semitism, the same justification they're using to try and deport Mahmoud Khalil, who was also involved in the Columbia protests.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: In granting him bail, the judge overseeing Madawi's case called the government's attempt to strip him of his green card chilling and said he received more than 90 submissions from community members, many of them Jewish, attesting to his character.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: His lawyer says he'll continue studying at Columbia as his case works its way through the courts.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Pakistan says it expects India to launch a military strike on the country any day now, as tensions continue to escalate after a deadly terrorist attack.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Last week, militants opened fire at a popular mountain getaway in the border region of Kashmir, killing 26 people.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: India has accused Pakistan of supporting the attack, an accusation Pakistan denies.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: These two countries, both nuclear-armed, have been in sort of a state of managed hostilities for a long time, for decades.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: My colleague Mujib Mishal is based in New Delhi. Every now and then there's a spark, there's a military confrontation, and every time the stakes go higher.
--:-- Mujib Mishal: On the one hand, people move on about their lives thinking, okay, this has been the nature of this relationship for decades. They just managed to live with each other in sort of this managed hostility.
--:-- Mujib Mishal: On the other hand, every single time of it is a reminder of how volatile this dynamic is between two nuclear-armed neighbors who continue to engage every few years in military confrontation where nobody knows how far that confrontation can go.
--:-- Mujib Mishal: Beyond the threat of war with Pakistan, the militant attack has also raised concerns about a religious crackdown inside India.
--:-- Mujib Mishal: The attack happened in a Muslim-majority region, and nearly all the victims were Hindus. Now, he says, some hard-right Hindu nationalists in India have been intensifying their harassment of Muslims.
--:-- Mujib Mishal: With reports of several Muslims being killed and thousands detained.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And finally, we're so excited to be able to release the information that Valerie has been secured. She's safe and sound after what was a rollercoaster ride.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: After 529 days lost in the wild, Valerie the Dachshund has been rescued.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The little dog slipped out of her pen and into the bush on Australia's Kangaroo Island over a year and a half ago when her owners were visiting.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: It set off a frenzied search. The odds did not seem good.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: According to her owners, she was, quote, not a very outside rough and tough dog.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: There were occasional sightings of Valerie in her little pink collar, but she ran when anyone got close.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The rescue group that ultimately helped recover Valerie said it was a long process.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Once they got a sense of where she was, they had to set a trap with her favorite food and pieces of a t-shirt from her owner and just wait.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Valerie's a little thinner now with a few scars, and there's more to be done before she can really go home.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: She's got lost dog syndrome. Basically, she spent so long in survival mode, she's got to get used to people again.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The rescue group said they hoped to get her back to her owners next week.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: For anyone surprised that a Dachshund made it through the wilderness, perhaps because you've seen them be pushed around in baby carriages wearing sweaters, you should know that the American Kennel Club says the breed has some real survival skills and can be, quote, brave to the point of rashness.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Those are the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.
