The Federal Reserve on Wednesday held interest rates steady for the fourth straight time‚ and cracked open the door to reducing rates later this year if inflation continues to subside. The widely expected decision left interest rates unchanged at a range of 5.25% to 5.5%‚ the highest level in 22 years.   Policymakers also made substantial changes to their post-meeting statement‚ softening some of its hawkish language. Officials dropped a sentence that suggested additional hikes may...

Officials at the US central bank have left interest rates at a 23-year high‚ while offering little certainty about the path ahead for borrowing costs. The decision from the Federal Reserve again kept the target range for its benchmark rate‚ which helps set borrowing costs for mortgages‚ credit cards and other loans‚ at 5.25%-5.5%. That is sharply higher than two years ago‚ when the Fed started raising rates to fight inflation. Investors expect rate cuts this year. Exactly when the...

The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady Wednesday for the fourth-straight meeting‚ keeping its benchmark lending rate at a 23-year high‚ as Wall Street eagerly awaits rate cuts sometime this year. The central bank has raised rates 11 times since March 2022 in a bid to combat the fastest inflation in decades. Price hikes have eased substantially since then‚ inching closer to the Fed’s 2% target. That means the Fed is due to cut...

House Speaker Mike Johnson‚ R-La.‚ is coming out in support of a bipartisan tax deal scheduled for a vote later on Wednesday. "The Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act is important bipartisan legislation to revive conservative pro-growth tax reform‚" Johnson said in a statement. "Crucially‚ the bill also ends a wasteful COVID-era program‚ saving taxpayers tens of billions of dollars." "Chairman Smith deserves great credit for bringing this bipartisan bill through...

Five CEOs of some of the most prominent social media companies felt pressure from lawmakers and parent advocates on Wednesday at a high-profile Senate Judiciary Committee hearing‚ at which they were confronted about the harms suffered by teenagers on their platforms and asked to back new rules for the industry. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg‚ X CEO Linda Yaccarino‚ TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew‚ Snap CEO Evan Spiegel‚ and Discord CEO Jason Citron were questioned about their companies’ policies regarding...

U.S. senators on Wednesday grilled leaders of the biggest social media companies and said Congress must quickly pass legislation‚ as one lawmaker accused the companies of having "blood on their hands" for failing to protect children from escalating threats of sexual predation on their platforms. The hearing marks the latest effort by lawmakers to address the concerns of parents and mental health experts that social media companies put profits over guardrails that would ensure their platforms...

The chief executives of the nation's top social media companies were grilled on Wednesday on Capitol Hill over child safety‚ with the tech leaders seeking to defend their companies from accusations that they've failed to protect kids from exploitation and abuse. "Mr. Zuckerberg‚ you and the companies before us -- I know you don't mean it to be so‚ but you have blood on your hands‚" Sen. Lindsey Graham‚ R-S.C.‚ said as the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing kicked off. The comment prompted...

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