US mortgage rates have risen to 6.30%, ending a three-week decline just as more buyers return for the spring housing season. Freddie Mac said the average 30-year fixed mortgage increased from 6.23% last week, while purchase applications are running more than 20% above last year’s level. The squeeze for homebuyers is brutally simple. Borrowing is…
This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here. Welcome to The Logoff: President Donald Trump told Congress the Iran war is over. Is it? What happened? Friday marks a legal deadline for Trump, after which…
Our Lebanese colleague Amal Khalil was a member of the 2016 Women In News Leadership Accelerator programme, the first in the MENA region. She was killed following an Israeli airstrike on 22 April. Multiple reports indicated shelling and direct fire prevented emergency teams from reaching her. Obstructing rescue operations constitutes a violation of international humanitarian…
Global Finance: Over the past four decades, how has TDB Group’s mandate and geographical footprint evolved, and what have been the most significant milestones in advancing trade, regional integration and sustainable development across member states? Admassu Tadesse: TDB Group is an MDB that has evolved into a group with different subsidiaries and strategic business units…
People on a motorbike watch a damaged car being towed by a tow truck, with a mural in the background depicting the US embargo on Cuba, on a street in Havana on April 28, 2026. | Yamil Lage/AFP via Getty Images “We may stop by Cuba after we’re finished with this,” President Donald Trump mused…
Streaming UIs are an easy concept on the surface, but are quite complicated in practice. There are many considerations that need to be accounted for, from layout shifts and motion preferences to proper markup and various states, that may not be instantly obvious. What happens if the stream is interrupted? Can users tab through the…
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is considering scaling back the pass-through entity tax (PTET) credit to help close a growing budget gap, and business leaders warn the move could push companies and high earners out of the city. The short answer: reducing the PTET credit increases the effective tax burden on thousands of S…
By Mirko Petricevic Co-ordinator, Ink-stained Wretches Like the great cities of the world, Pride Month wasn’t built in a day. Growing up in 1970s Canada, we didn’t fly rainbow flags to show solidarity with LGBTQ+ communities. That was a time before decades of advocacy created a widespread – admittedly, not universal – culture of appreciation…
Two months into the US-Iran war, the fighting has hardened into a standoff, with no end in sight. Both countries claim to have the upper hand, but there is only one clear winner so far — and it isn’t either of them. “China’s watching this war very closely,” James Palmer, deputy editor of Foreign Policy…
The White House’s long-anticipated cannabis regulatory shake-up may ease rules on paper, but for banks, processors, and payment networks, little changes in practice. While the rescheduling of cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III has sparked hope for industry reform, the reclassification doesn’t change the ongoing banking hurdles for smaller cannabis businesses in the U.S….