𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Fresh data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed that the U.S. economy added 177,000 jobs in April and the unemployment rate remains at 4.2 percent.

It is the first glimpse of how the economy has fared after Trump’s so-called “Liberation Day” on April 2, when he introduced sweeping tariffs that caused the biggest one-day stock market drop since the pandemic. His policies have shaken financial markets and frightened consumers.

Rhian Lubin and Eric Garcia report.

Donald Trump’s criminal defense attorney Emily Bove, now a top official at the Department of Justice, reportedly pushed for an “aggressive” criminal investigation into Columbia University student activists that fueled a mass exodus of civil rights prosecutors.

Federal prosecutors — and a judge — fought against Bove’s pursuit of student activists’ Instagram accounts and search warrants as part of an allegedly aborted criminal inquiry into student demonstrations against Israel’s war in Gaza, according to a behind-the-scenes report from The New York Times.

With Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff up for re-election next year, a new Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll pitted the four most likely Republican challengers against the incumbent in hypothetical face-offs.

Greene began by setting the stakes: “I represent the base, and when I’m frustrated and upset over the direction of things, you better be clear, the base is not happy.”

Gustaf Kilander has the story.

President Donald Trump’s first 100 days included a wide range of attacks on environmental and climate initiatives. His proposed budget does the same.

The document released Friday looks to curtail or cut billions of dollars for everything from drinking water, clean energy and weather satellites to national parks, emergency management and environmental justice, to name a few.

That aligns with Trump’s aggressive targeting of climate policy and crackdown on diversity initiatives as he pushes fossil fuel investment. Federal agencies are racing to bolster coal power and oil and gas while blocking renewable energy sources, rolling back landmark water and air regulations and attacking scientists in federal weather work tied to climate research.

The much-anticipated plan will define the Republican president’s second term, but it’s important to note that Congress will ultimately decide the spending plans.

Rubio lashed out on Friday following the decision by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency to classify the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) as a “proven right-wing extremist organization.”

Within hours, the German foreign office responded, as Gustaf Kilander reports.

State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said American envoys would no longer fly around the world “at the drop of a hat” to act as a go-between in peace talks.

It was now “between the two parties” to present concrete ideas on how the conflict would end, she insisted, although the US remained committed to helping.

The White House gave Mike Waltz a choice of jobs on Thursday when he was told his position as national security adviser was ending.

Among the jobs on the table, CBS News reports, were the role of US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, in addition to the UN ambassador role he ultimately chose.

Today was scheduled to be Waltz’s final day as national security advisor. A deputy to Waltz, Alex Wong, remains at the NSC, helping with the transition to Marco Rubio.

US stocks rose Friday, and the S&P 500 notched its longest winning streak since 2004 as China signaled openness to trade talks and investors digested a better-than-expected jobs report.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 564 points, or 1.39%. The broader S&P 500 rose 1.47% and the tech-focused Nasdaq Composite gained 1.51%.

Both the Dow and S&P 500 posted their ninth daily gain in a row — for the latter, this hadn’t happened for more than 20 years, since November 2004.

Further, the S&P 500’s rally on Friday helped the index erase its losses since President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” when he announced his “reciprocal” tariffs on April 2.

The Dow posted its first nine-day winning streak since December 2023, but is still down about 2% from its closing price on April 2. The president waited until markets closed that day before making his tariffs announcement.

Wall Street was boosted today by Labor Department data showing the economy added 177,000 jobs in April, outpacing expectations of around 135,000 jobs.

The Trump administration is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to let Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have access to Social Security Administration data.

In their filing, the government says: “The district court’s order impinges on the President’s broad authority to direct the federal workforce, to oversee government information systems, and to require agencies to identify fraud, waste, and abuse. It is ‘an improper intrusion by a federal court into the workings of a coordinate branch of the Government.’”