GMG POLITICS

DAMASCUS (AP) — The lifting of economic sanctions onSyriawill allow the government to begin work on daunting tasks that include fighting corruption and bringing millions of refugees home, Hind Kabawat, the minister of social affairs and labor, told The Associated Press on Friday. Kabawat is the only woman and the only Christian in the 23-membercabinet formedin March to steer the country during a transitional period after the ouster of former PresidentBashar Assadin a rebel offensive in December. Her portfolio will be one of the most important as the country begins rebuilding after nearly 14 years of civil war. She saidmoves by the U.S. and the European Unionin the past week to at least temporarily lift most of the sanctions that had been imposed on Syria over decades will allow that work to get started. Before, she said, "we would talk, we would make plans, but nothing could happen on the ground because sanctions were holding everything up and restricting our work." With the lifting of sanctions they can now move to "implementation." One of the first programs the new government is planning to launch is "temporary schools" for the children of refugees and internally displaced people returning to their home areas. Kabawat said that it will take time for the easing of sanctions to show effects on the ground, particularly since unwinding some of the financial restrictions will involve complicated bureaucracy. "We are going step by step," she said. "We are not saying that anything is easy -- we have many challenges — but we can't be pessimistic. We need to be optimistic." The new government's vision is "that we don't want either food baskets or tents after five years," Kabawat said, referring to the country's dependence on humanitarian aid and many displacement camps. That may be an ambitious target, given that 90% of the country's population currently lives below the poverty line, according to theUnited Nations. Thecivil warthat began in 2011 also displaced half the country's pre-war population of 23 million people. The U.N.'s refugee agency, UNHCR, estimates that about half a million havereturned to Syriasince Assad was ousted. But the dire economic situation and battered infrastructure have also dissuaded many refugees from coming back. The widespread poverty also fed into a culture of public corruption that developed in the Assad era, including solicitation of bribes by public employees and shakedowns by security forces at checkpoints. Syria's new rulers have pledged to end the corruption, but they face an uphill battle. Public employees make salaries far below the cost of living, and the new government has so far been unable to make good on a promise to hike public sector wages by 400%. "How can I fight corruption if the monthly salary is $40 and that is not enough to buy food for 10 days?" Kabawat asked. Women and minorities The country's new rulers, led by PresidentAhmad al-Sharaa— the former head of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, a Sunni Islamist insurgent group that spearheaded the offensive against Assad — have been under scrutiny by western countries over the treatment of Syrian women and religious minorities. In March, clashes between government security forces and pro-Assad armed groups spiraled into sectarian revenge attacks onmembers of the Alawite sectto which Assad belongs. Hundreds ofcivilians were killed. The government formed a committee to investigate the attacks, which has not yet reported its findings. Many also criticized the transitional government as giving only token representation to women and minorities. Apart from Kabawat, the cabinet includes only one member each from the Druze and Alawite sects and one Kurd. "Everywhere I travel… the first and last question is, 'What is the situation of the minorities?'" Kabawat said. "I can understand the worries of the West about the minorities, but they should also be worried about Syrian men and women as a whole." She said the international community's priority should be to help Syria to build its economy and avoid the country falling into "chaos." 'Rebuilding our institutions' Despite being the only woman in the cabinet, Kabawat said "now there is a greater opportunity for women" than under Assad and that "today there is no committee being formed that does not have women in it." "Syrian women have suffered a lot in these 14 years and worked in all areas," she said. "All Syrian men and women need to have a role in rebuilding our institutions." She called for those wary of al-Sharaa to give him a chance. While the West has warmed to the new president -- particularly after his recenthigh-profile meetingwith U.S.President Donald Trump— others have not forgotten that he fought against U.S. forces in Iraq after the invasion of 2003 or that his HTS group was formed as an offshoot of al-Qaida, although it later cut ties. "People used to call (Nelson) Mandela a terrorist, and then he became the first leader among those who freed South Africa, and after that suddenly he was no longer a terrorist," Kabawat said. She urged skeptics to "give us the same chance that you gave to South Africa."

By Brad Heath, Jason Lange, Andy Sullivan, Grant Smith WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Elon Musk once famously wielded a chainsaw on stage in a theatrical demonstration of his effort to drastically cut U.S. federal spending under President Donald Trump. As he leaves government, official data shows he achieved something closer to a trim with scissors. In the four months since Musk's Department of Government Efficiency began slashing federal spending and staffing, a handful of the agencies he has targeted trimmed their combined spending by about $19 billion compared with the same period last year, according to U.S. Treasury Department summaries reviewed by Reuters. That is far below Musk's initial goal of $2 trillion in savings and amounts to about a half of 1% of total spending by the federal government. Musk said on Wednesday he is leaving the administration but that its cost-cutting work will "only strengthen over time." It remains to be seen, however, how enthusiastically Trump's cabinet secretaries will continue to downsize their departments. DOGE says it pulled the plug on more than 26,000 federal grants and contracts that are worth about $73 billion, while more than 260,000 government workers have been bought out, taken early retirement or been fired. But the DOGE tallies have been riddled with errors, according to reviews by numerous budget experts and media outlets, including Reuters. That has made them difficult to verify, and some of the announced cuts are not saving the government any money because judges have reversed or stalled them. That leaves the Treasury Department's daily reports on how much the government is spending as the clearest window into the scope of the administration's cost-cutting. The view they offer so far is modest: The government has spent about $250 billion more during the first months of Trump's administration than it did during the same period of time last year, a 10% increase. And even some parts of the government Trump has cut the most deeply are, for now at least, spending more money than they did last year. One big factor driving costs is largely outside Trump's immediate control: interest payments on the United States' growing pile of debt, which amount to about $1 in every $7 the federal government spends. Debt interest payments are up about 22% from a year ago. Spending on Social Security, the safety-net program for the elderly and disabled, totaled about $500 billion since Trump's inauguration, up 10% from a year earlier. To be sure, the view offered by the Treasury Department's daily reports is incomplete. Many of the cuts DOGE has made to the federal workforce, grants and contracting will reduce what the government will spend in the future but do not show up in its checkbook today. For example, while thousands of workers have taken buyouts, the government will continue to pay their wages until October. So far, the Labor Department has estimated there were only about 26,000 fewer people on federal payrolls in April than were on the books in January, after adjusting the figures for typical seasonal swings. Tallying savings from future cuts, however, is seldom straightforward. "It could be that in the future we never replace these workers and we save billions of dollars, or it could be that they come back and it's even more expensive than before," said Martha Gimbel, executive director of the Budget Lab at Yale, a nonpartisan budget analysis organization at Yale University. The White House declined to offer an explanation for DOGE's figures. Spokesman Harrison Fields said in a statement that "DOGE is working at record speed to cut waste, fraud, and abuse, producing historic savings for the American people." Reuters estimated the administration's impact by tallying outlays at agencies that had been targeted for cuts and whose spending had dropped from the same time last year. Among the agencies hardest hit are the Department of Education, State Department, U.S. Agency for International Development, National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other independent agencies. Rachel Snyderman, an expert on fiscal policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, said the spending declines at agencies could be reversed if the Trump administration doesn't get congressional approval to cancel outlays from this year's federal budget, as required by law. AN $11 BILLION EDUCATION CUT The most obvious sign that the Trump administration is making a dent in federal spending is in the Education Department, which Trump has ordered shut down. The administration cut the department's staff by about half in March. DOGE's website lists 311 Education Department grants and contracts it says it has eliminated for a savings of about $1.6 billion, though it is not clear how it arrived at those figures. Some cuts have not stuck. A federal judge in March ordered the administration to restore some of the grants it had cut, and another judge this month ordered it to rehire 1,400 workers. Still, the Education Department under Trump has spent close to $11 billion less than it did over the same period last year, the Treasury reports show, far more than what DOGE says it has cut. One reason could be that layoffs have made it harder for the government to process payments for special education and low-income schools. School districts that have sued over the cuts alleged that states were already experiencing slowdowns in receiving money. Another factor for the reduced outlays: The department has stopped handing out the $4.4 billion that remains to be distributed from the hundreds of billions of dollars approved in previous years to help schools weather the COVID-19 crisis. The Education Department did not respond to a request for comment. OTHER AREAS DOGE HAS CUT Other agencies targeted in Trump's overhaul are also starting to show declines in their spending compared with the same time last year. Spending is down about $350 million at the CDC and about $1 billion at the National Institutes of Health. The Trump administration has moved to slash spending across those agencies, cancelling grants and ending leases for office space. The Department of Health and Human Services has reported terminating close to 2,000 grants that planned to disperse more than $20 billion. Many of the grants were to boost labs that fight new infectious diseases, or to fund state mental health programs. Some $14 billion of the grant money had already been spent prior to the termination, with roughly $7 billion effectively frozen, according to a Reuters analysis of the government's tallies. The administration has effectively dismantled USAID, which handled most U.S. foreign assistance, firing nearly all of the agency's employees and cancelling most of its humanitarian aid and health programs, though federal courts have forced the government to continue making some payments. USAID spending is down about 40%, to about $4.6 billion, from last year. Spending at the State Department – where DOGE says it has cut nearly $1 billion in grants and contracts – is also down about 20% from 2024. WHY WE CAN'T KNOW MORE Measuring the impact of the administration's actions is difficult because many cuts will not yield savings for months or years even as spending elsewhere increases. Spending on federal employee salaries, for example, is up by more than $3 billion under Trump. Some of the grants and contracts DOGE cut were due to be paid out over several years, and many remain the subject of lawsuits that will determine whether they can be cut at all. DOGE says it has saved taxpayers $175 billion, but the details it has posted on its website, where it gives the only public accounting of those changes, add up to less than half of that figure. It says the figure includes workforce cuts, interest savings and other measures it has not itemized. It is also hard to know exactly how much the government would have spent if the administration had not started cutting. (Reporting by Brad Heath, Jason Lange and Andy Sullivan in Washington and Grant Smith in New York, Editing by Ross Colvin and Matthew Lewis)

People hold up signs during the Harvard Students for Freedom rally in support of international students at the Harvard University campus in Boston, Mass., on May 27, 2025. Credit - Rick Friedman—AFP/Getty Images "Economists don't like tariffs not only because of the tariff itself but because of the uncertainty it creates," Fangzhou Jiang, a Chinese student at Harvard Kennedy School and co-founder of higher education consulting firm Crimson Education, tells TIME. "It's the same situation." The uncertainty Jiang is dealing with is his education: while his student visa has so far not been affected, thechanging situationaround Harvard's enrollment authorization and now new restrictions on Chinese students have made it difficult to navigate decisions around things like housing for the next academic year. Secretary of State Marco RubiosaidWednesday the U.S. would start "aggressively" revoking Chinese student visas and "enhance scrutiny" of applications from mainland China and Hong Kong. Rubio gave sparse details on what exactly the criteria would be but said it would include "those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields." China on Thursday condemned the decision, calling it "discriminatory." "The U.S. decision … seriously hurts the lawful rights and interests of international students from China, and disrupts people-to-people exchanges between the two countries. China firmly opposes it and has protested to the U.S. over the decision,"saidChinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning. "This politically motivated and discriminatory move exposes the U.S. hypocrisy over freedom and openness. It will further damage the image and reputation of the U.S. itself." The U.S. move comes at a time when the Trump Administration has imposedrestrictions on the sales of chip design softwareandsome jet engine partsto China, and soon after it warned that the sale of Huawei semiconductors "anywhere in the world" would violate U.S. export controls—prompting China tothreaten legal action. It's also come amid the Administration's war on U.S. colleges, which has included slashing federal funding for a number of universities and an attempt tobar Harvard University from enrolling international studentsover the school's alleged noncompliance with a list of demands. The decision was celebrated by some. Ashley Moody, a Republican Senator from Florida,postedon X, "the U.S. is no longer in the business of importing espionage." Moodyintroduceda bill in March to ban all Chinese students from the U.S. Others, however, condemned the move. "The wholesale revocation of student visas based on national origin—and without an investigation—is xenophobic and wrong," the Democratic-led Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucuspostedon X. "Turning these students away—many of whom simply wish to learn in a free and democratic society—is not just shortsighted but a betrayal of our values." This policy "doesn't come from nowhere," says David Weeks, co-founder and chief operating officer of Sunrise International, a consulting firm that advises overseas universities on recruiting Chinese students. "You have adverse policies tracing back all the way to" President Donald Trump's first term, Weeks says. In 2020, Trump's first-term Administration implemented Proclamation 10043, arestrictive visa policyon Chinese graduate students and researchers with ties to China's "military-civil" universities. Around 1,000 Chinese scholars had their visasrevokedunder the policy, which persisted under the Biden Administration. The new restrictions may appear more expansive, but it's "a lot of chest thumping," Weeks says, adding that without further details, it doesn't appear to be substantively different from what's been in place for the last five years. "It's almost domestic political posturing. There's folks in the State Department that may want to seem tough on China, but this idea of limiting visas for students pursuing critical fields is nothing new." The ambiguity around the new policy and other recent decisions has thrown some Chinese students into a precarious position. The main change is that the criteria has been expanded from alleged military ties to ties to the CCP—but in effect, Weeks says, this will be logistically difficult to implement. A huge number of Chinese citizens have ties to the CCP: the party boasts a membership ofaround 100 million members, and even if someone isn't a member, it's likely they can be linked through someone they know who is. But people join forreasons beyond direct political involvement. "To be a civil servant or work in a state enterprise, it's almost obligatory to be in the party," one membertoldAFP. "It's like a diploma. It opens doors." On top of that, "essentially every department of every Chinese university has a dual system of governance, where you've got the dean and you have the Communist Party Secretary," Weeks says. Students may have also joined the Communist Youth League at some point, but it's almost akin to joining the Boy Scouts, he adds. "The party is omnipresent in many Chinese universities," Weeks says, but that doesn't mean that students are actively politically involved. "The effort to try to disentangle and identify who has a party affiliation is practically extremely difficult." If it's about national security, Jiang says, then it "might not be the most effective move" to go after anyone with apparent affiliations with the CCP because "you would have targeted a whole bunch of people that have nothing to do with politics or with national security matters." "There's a possibility that students could be vindictively targeted, especially if they're at a university like Harvard that's picked a fight with the Administration," Weeks says. "There's certainly a risk that we could have a McCarthyist sort of sweep." Chinese students account for nearly a quarter—or more than 277,000—of all international students in the U.S., the second highest nationality behind Indian students, according to a2024 Open Doors report. Many of these students are "financially pretty self-sustaining," Weeks says, which can be a significant contribution to university revenue. Chinese students also tend to have strong backgrounds in STEM and are typically highly academically motivated, he adds. They can be "a critical lifeline for some programs." "There's just no market that is as big and as wealthy and as academically prepared as China," Weeks says. Right now, among Chinese students and their families, there's concern, Weeks says, but not yet panic. U.S. universities have long held a "tremendous amount of soft power," he adds. "In China, there's still a perception that certain other countries are easy, because they don't have as selective of admissions processes as the U.S. does, the degrees are shorter and thus less rigorous." Many U.S. universities, even non-elite ones, have a kind of brand recognition among Chinese employers, while job opportunities in large American cities are "unparalleled." Chinese families have also watched Trump's other policies go on rollercoasters, including imposing heavy tariffs on China and the rest of the world beforebacking out. "I think Chinese families are seeing that there's sometimes a lot of noise and bluster, then the final outcome is not ideal," says Weeks, "but it's certainly not apocalyptic either." Still, if punitive policies towards Chinese international students persist, students may turn to alternative destinations, experts say. Read More:These Asian Universities Are Seeking to Attract Harvard Transfers as Trump Targets International Students "Chinese parents view this environment as one of toxic uncertainty," Weeks says. "Chinese parents really gravitate towards the rule of law in a lot of these anglophone countries, so when they see that the rule of law in some places is under threat, that's deeply concerning to them." The Trump Administration's attitude towards Chinese students is a far cry from the counterpart view of Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has for years advocated for more American students to come to China. Xi in 2023 launched an initiative to bring in 50,000 Americans for exchanges and studies over five years. Last year, 16,000 Americansparticipated. "There's recognition that when you don't have people-to-people exchanges, you lose an important bulwark against populist rhetoric on both sides," Weeks says. "China thinks that we need more, not less, exchange if we have disagreements." On Wednesday evening, the same day that Rubio announced the decision, Chinese Ambassador Xie Feng touted people-to-people exchanges as foundational to U.S.-China relations. "It is people-to-people ties that invigorate China-U.S. relations," he said at his embassy. "We warmly welcome all American friends to travel in China, shop in China, succeed in China and take part in Chinese modernisation. Come and see the country with your own eyes." Jiang says when he thinks of his peers, friends, and faculty members, he feels very welcome in the U.S. But these moves by the Administration have spotlighted rhetoric that makes him feel less accepted. Some experts say the Administration's decision will lead to an erosion of trust between the two countries, which could ultimately impact trade negotiations—a key priority for the Trump Administration. "This policy is an unfair treatment of Chinese citizens, which will intensify diplomatic tensions between China and the United States, undermining the easing atmosphere that had emerged following the Geneva talks," Sun Chenghao, a fellow at Tsinghua University's Centre for International Security and Strategy,toldtheSouth China Morning Post, referencing the agreement between the U.S. and China totemporarily lower tariffs. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a ThursdayFox News interviewthat trade talks with China are "a bit stalled" and pushed for a call between Trump and Xi—who last spoke in January ahead of Trump's inauguration. "I think China has made it clear that it would like to disentangle security disagreements and trade … from people-to-people exchanges," Weeks says. Though he doesn't think the Trump Administration's education policies will ultimately undermine trade negotiations, he adds: "I don't know if Trump or Rubio actually care that much about which student from what province is studying at what U.S. university, but I do think that they see international students unfortunately not as humans, but as bargaining chips." Contact usatletters@time.com.

President Donald Trumpis holding a rally in Pennsylvania on Friday to celebrate a details-to-come deal for Japan-based Nippon Steel to invest in U.S. Steel, which he says will keepthe iconic American steelmaker under U.S.-control.ICE, the agencytasked with carrying out Trump's mass deportation campaign is undergoing a major staff reorganization.The White House says its fixing errorsin a much-anticipated federal reportled by Health and Human Services SecretaryRobert F. Kennedy Jr.decrying America's food supply, pesticides and prescription drugs. And billionaireElon Muskfaces big challenges as he leaves Washington after an Oval Office appearance Friday afternoon. Each of his numerous businesses havetheir own set of issues. Here's the Latest: Trump accuses China of violating agreement on trade but doesn't offer details Trump declared that he'll no longer be "Mr. NICE GUY" with China on trade. He said the country had broken an agreement with the United States. It's unclear what agreement Trump was referring to in his post on Truth Social. But the president's rhetoric was a sharp break from the optimism expressed recently when Trump lowered his 145% tariffs on Chinese goods to 30% for 90 days so that talks could happen. Trump said the tariff reduction had "quickly stabilized" the economy. But he then said "that China, perhaps not surprisingly to some, HAS TOTALLY VIOLATED ITS AGREEMENT WITH US. So much for being Mr. NICE GUY!" Trump to appear with Musk in Oval Office When Musk announced that he wasleaving the administrationearlier this week, Trump was conspicuously quiet. But now the two men are scheduled to appear together in the Oval Office. "This will be his last day, but not really, because he will, always, be with us, helping all the way," Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thursday evening. "Elon is terrific!" The event is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. ET. Musk is leaving his job having accomplished far less than he set out to do, althoughhis tumultuous tenurewill likely leave a lasting mark on the federal government. White House acknowledges problems in RFK Jr.'s 'Make America Healthy Again' report The White House will fix errors in a much-anticipated federal government report spearheaded by U.S. Health and Human Services SecretaryRobert F. Kennedy Jr., which decried America's food supply, pesticides and prescription drugs. Kennedy's wide-ranging "Make America Healthy Again"report, released last week, cited hundreds of studies, but acloser look by the news organization NOTUSfound that some of those studies did not actually exist. Asked about the report's problems, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the report will be updated. Kennedy has repeatedly said he would bring "radical transparency" and "gold-standard" science to the public health agencies. But the secretary refused to release details about who authored the 72-page report, which calls for increased scrutiny of the childhood vaccine schedule and describes the nation's children as overmedicated and undernourished. Leavitt said that the White House has "complete confidence" in Kennedy. ▶ Read moreabout Kennedy's report Trump's big plans on trade and more run up against laws of political gravity, separation of powers On Wednesday, an obscure but powerful court in New Yorkrejected the legal foundation of Trump's most sweeping tariffs, finding that Trump could not use a 1977 law to declare a national emergency on trade imbalances and fentanyl smuggling to justify a series ofimport taxesthat have unsettled the world. Reordering the global economy by executive fiat was an unconstitutional end-run around Congress' powers, the three-judge panel of Trump, Obama and Reagan appointees ruled in a scathing rebuke of Trump's action. The setbacks fit a broader pattern for a president who has advanced an extraordinarily expansive view of executive power. The laws of political gravity, the separation of powers and geopolitical realities are proving to be tougher to conquer than Trump will publicly admit. As various legal skirmishes play out, he may have to choose between bowing to the limits of his power or trying to ignore the judicial system. ▶ Read more onreality checks on Trump's assertions of authority Trump's latest pardons benefit an array of political allies and public figures A governor who resigned amid a corruption scandaland served two stints in federal prison. A New York Republican whoresigned from Congress after a tax fraud convictionand who made headlines for threatening to throw a reporter off a Capitol balcony over a question he didn't like.Reality TV stars convicted of cheating banksand evading taxes. FILE - Todd Chrisley, left, and his wife, Julie Chrisley, pose for photos at the 52nd annual Academy of Country Music Awards on April 2, 2017, in Las Vegas. Todd and Julie Chrisley, who are in prison after being convicted on federal charges of bank fraud and tax evasion, are challenging aspects of their convictions and sentences in a federal appeals court.(Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File) All were unlikely beneficiaries this week of pardons, with Trump flexing his executive power to bestow clemency on political allies, prominent public figures and others convicted of defrauding the public. The moves not only take aim at criminal cases once touted as just by the Justice Department but also come amid a continuing Trump administration erosion of public integrity guardrails, including thefiring of the department's pardon attorneyand thenear-dismantling of a prosecution unitestablished to hold public officials accountable for abusing the public trust. ▶ Read moreabout Trump's pardons Trump has long warned of a 'deep state.' Now in power, he's under pressure to expose it Four months into his second term, Trump has continued to stoke dark theories involving his predecessors and other powerful politicians and attorneys — most recently raising the specter of nefarious intent behind former President Joe Biden's use of an autopen to sign papers. The administration has pledged to reopen investigations and has taken steps to declassify certain documents, including releasingmore than 63,000 pages of recordsrelated to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Yet many of Trump's supporters say it's not enough. Some who take him at his word are beginning to get restless as they ask why his administration, which holds the keys to chasing down these alleged government secrets, is denying them the evidence and retribution they expected. His Justice Department has not yet arrested hordes of "deep state" actors as some of his supporters had hoped it would, even as the president has been posting cryptic videos and memes about Democratic politicians. ▶ Read moreabout Trump and the "deep state" Trump holding Pennsylvania rally to promote deal for Japan-based Nippon to 'partner' with US Steel Trump is holding a rally in Pennsylvania on Friday to celebrate a details-to-come deal for Japan-based Nippon Steel to invest in U.S. Steel, which he says will keepthe iconic American steelmaker under U.S.-control. Though Trump initially vowed to block the Japanese steelmaker's bid to buy Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel, he changed course andannounced an agreement last weekfor what he described as "partial ownership" by Nippon. It's not clear, though, if the deal his administration helped broker has been finalized or how ownership would be structured. Trump stressed the deal would maintain American control of the storied company, which is seen as both a political symbol and an important matter for the country's supply chain, industries like auto manufacturing and national security. U.S. Steel has not publicly communicated any details of a revamped deal to investors. Nippon Steel issued a statement approving of the proposed "partnership" but also has not disclosed terms of the arrangement. ▶ Read moreabout the deal

WASHINGTON (AP) — A key U.S. inflation gauge slowed last month asPresident Donald Trump'stariffshave yet to noticeably push up prices, while American incomes jumped. Friday'sreportfrom the Commerce Department showed that consumer prices rose just 2.1% in April compared with a year earlier, down from 2.3% in March and the lowest since September. Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core prices rose 2.5% from a year earlier, below the March figure of 2.6%. Economists track core prices because they typically provide a better read on where inflation is headed. The figures show inflation is still declining from its post-pandemic spike, which reached the highest level in four decades in July 2022. Economists andsome business executiveshave warned that prices will likely head higher as Trump's widespread tariffs take effect, though the timing and impact of those duties are now in doubt after they werestruck down late Wednesdayincourt. At the same time, incomes — before adjusting for inflation — rose a healthy 0.8%. Much of that gain reflected an increase in Social Security benefits for some retired teachers, fire fighters, and federal workers whose incomes previously weren't fully counted toward Social Security benefits. The inflation-fighters at the Federal Reservesaid at their most recent meetingMay 6-7 that inflation is still elevated, compared to their target of 2%. Fed officials, who focus more on core prices, broadly support keeping their key interest rate steady while they evaluate the impact of the tariffs on inflation and jobs. Consumer spending rose 0.2% in April from March, the report said, but that's down from the big 0.7% rise in March. Thecourt rulinglast Wednesday said that most of Trump's tariffs were unlawful, including his duties on imports from Canada, Mexico, and China, as well as those on more than 50 other countries. Tariffs on steel, aluminum, and cars were implemented under different laws and remain in place. But the duties were allowed to remain in effect while the Trump administration appeals the ruling against them. And administration officials say they will find other legal authorities, if needed, to implement the tariffs. As a result, what tariffs will end up in place and for how long remains highly uncertain.