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Sales of new US homes slumped more than expected in January, government data showed Wednesday, with cold weather and stubborn cost-of-living pressures weighing on buyers as Donald Trump returned to office.New home sales came in at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 657,000, 10.5 percent down from December’s revised level of 734,000.This was significantly lower than the 681,000 figure a Briefing.com consensus of analysts expected, as bad weather kept potential homebuyers home and mortgage rates remained elevated.Sales of new properties have been helped in recent years as existing homeowners have been reluctant to enter the market with interest rates high.This has pushed some buyers towards new properties — new home sales hit their highest in three years in 2024.But there are risks to sales and residential investment this year, noted Ryan Sweet, chief US economist at Oxford Economics, in a note.This is due to “high mortgage rates, potential for tariffs on imported building materials from Canada and Mexico along with potential labor supply issues stemming from the Trump administration’s immigration policies,” he noted.On the upside, inventories are not an issue, Sweet said, adding that builders could still boost sales via incentives.The Federal Reserve rapidly lifted the benchmark lending rate in 2022 to curb surging inflation but has since started to cautiously lower it.In January, the median sales cost for new houses was $446,300, a pick-up from December’s figure and the highest in more than two years.Demand for new homes appears to be flagging, analysts at Pantheon Macroeconomics said in a recent note.”Sales likely were also weighed down by the weather; last month was the coldest January since 1988,” Pantheon added.

After last year’s Oscars gala wowed viewers with a glitzy, star-studded “I’m Just Ken” karaoke, the producers of Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony knew exactly where to turn for this year’s showstopping musical moment.The pink hues of “Barbie” will be swapped for the pink (and green) colors of “Wicked,” the smash-hit movie version of the Broadway show that is up for 10 Oscars, including best picture.”Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo will be on our stage — it’s going to be a moment,” Oscars executive producer and showrunner Raj Kapoor told AFP.”With ‘I’m Just Ken,’ I feel like every celebrity was singing along, so it’d be great to have that energy again this year,” added executive producer Katy Mullan.The producers have not revealed which hits will be featured, although safe bets for any “Wicked” medley would include Erivo belting out “Defying Gravity,” and Grande delivering the bubbly “Popular.”The songs from “Wicked” are so well-known and beloved by Hollywood attendees that “our biggest challenge” will be to stop the A-listers in the aisles drowning out the onstage talent, Mullan joked.”But, I mean, we encouraged it last year. We should probably encourage it again,” she said.This year’s musical lineup has drawn some controversy.As the “Wicked” songs were not written specifically for the film, they were not eligible for the best original song Oscar.In recent years, all the nominated songs have been performed on Oscars night.But this year, Kapoor said producers had “opened up the potential for different music performances.”Best song nominee Diane Warren has called the move “extremely disrespectful.”But Kapoor said nominated songwriters will instead be honored with a “really beautiful” video montage.”This is the 97th year already of the Oscars, so a little change is good,” he added.- Conan, firefighters -Following back-to-back stints by Jimmy Kimmel, fellow late-night comedian Conan O’Brien will take over hosting duties on Sunday.”Having Conan, it’s this whole new world of discovery… We are re-energized. We’re recharged. We’re refocused in a different way. Because Conan wants to do things a little differently,” said Kapoor.Though always carefully stage managed, recent Oscars galas have been hit with twists, like “La La Land” incorrectly being announced as best picture in 2017, or Will Smith slapping Chris Rock on stage in 2022.”Whatever happens in that room that evening, I think Conan is… going to be able to react to it,” said Kapoor. Firefighters have been VIP guests at Hollywood awards shows all season, and the Oscars will be no different. The night will salute all the first responders who tackled the devastating recent Los Angeles fires, while also honoring the resilience of the city itself.Kapoor promised a “really touching moment” that will celebrate “this city we love, and what happened to it earlier this year,” including to Los Angeles’s vast filmmaking community.As part of an overall theme of collaboration, the show will feature “moments of behind-the-scenes” from movies that will highlight everyone “from the people who build it with their hands, to the people who have the vision, like a director or a production designer,” said Mullan.- Chalamet -Like the award winners themselves, many elements of the show remain under wraps.But that has not stopped frenzied speculation.Other musical performers announced so far include Doja Cat, Queen Latifah, Raye and K-pop sensation Lisa from the band Blackpink.Will there be any further musical surprises? Perhaps best actor nominee Timothee Chalamet, who portrayed Bob Dylan in “A Complete Unknown,” will pick up a guitar alongside a certain folk music legend?”We really tried to make that happen! If you can get to Bob, we would love for that to happen!” said Kapoor, laughing.The Oscars begin on Sunday at 4:00 pm (0000 GMT Monday), and will be broadcast on ABC and Hulu.

US President Donald Trump holds his first cabinet meeting Wednesday, joined by billionaire adviser Elon Musk, who is in charge of radically downsizing the US government and wields more power than anyone else in Trump’s inner circle.Musk is not part of the cabinet and did not have to go through Senate confirmation.Yet as the force behind his so-called Department of Government Efficiency, the Tesla and SpaceX chief has been given a free hand to enact unprecedented — and brutally abrupt — cuts to government programs and staffing.His presence at the formal White House meeting alongside Trump’s actual department heads follows signs of growing tension within the government over his dominance.Trump downplayed this shortly before the meeting, posting on his social media platform: “ALL CABINET MEMBERS ARE EXTREMELY HAPPY WITH ELON.””The Media will see that at the Cabinet Meeting this morning!!!” Trump wrote.The cabinet meeting will be a chance for Trump to tout the dramatic start to his second term, while flanked by aides openly chosen in many cases for their lavish declarations of loyalty.Many of these top figures were successfully confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate despite unusually extensive questions over their experience or behavior.Among the most contentious are Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a noted vaccine skeptic, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who has a history of backing Kremlin talking points, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News host who has faced allegations of sexual assault.Trump’s Republican Party holds a narrow majority in the Senate, and the refusal of more than a couple Senators to vote against Trump’s picks shows his iron grip on the party, where dissenters have largely quit or been cowed.Former Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell was the sole Republican dissenter to Kennedy’s confirmation as health secretary, an appointment that caused alarm among the medical community over his history of promoting vaccine misinformation and vows to suspend research on infectious diseases.And in a situation with no real parallel in modern US history, all of these powerful officials are overshadowed by Musk, who helped bankroll Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.While classified as a mere “special government employee” and “senior adviser to the president,” the South African-born tycoon is seen more often at Trump’s side than Vice President JD Vance or even First Lady Melania Trump.As owner of the X social media platform and a key leader in the US space program, his influence percolates through almost every corner of current Washington politics.However, Musk has faced some pushback to his slash-and-burn methods that have already seen the gutting of the USAID humanitarian aid department, mass layoffs, and menacing emails sent to all federal employees asking them to justify their jobs.Government departments on Monday largely told staff to either ignore the latest email or downplayed the risks of not answering it. According to US media reports, senior officials across the government have expressed frustration and anger over what they see as interference in their agencies.

US President Donald Trump, furious over a disparaging new tell-all book about him, threatened Wednesday to sue authors and media outlets that use anonymous sources.Trump has made suing people an integral part of his brand as he made his way up from New York real estate mogul to the US presidency twice, and this time he is taking aim at the common practice of books and news stories using unnamed sources.Trump is also famously contemptuous of mainstream media in America, which he routinely labels the “fake news” media.His latest move comes after the publication of a new expose by journalist Michael Wolff that has Trump and his team livid.Among other assertions the book says that after surviving an assassination attempt last summer during the election campaign, Trump “seemed possibly on the verge of cracking,” unable to finish sentences and flying into rages that were stunning even for the famously thin-skinned former reality TV star.In a social media post Trump said that after what he called his wildly successful first month back in power, “Fake books and stories” with anonymous sources are coming out and “at some point I am going to sue some of these dishonest authors and book publishers” to determine if these sources exist, “which they largely do not.”Trump added: “They are made up, defamatory fiction, and a big price should be paid for this blatant dishonesty. I’ll do it as a service to our Country. Who knows, maybe we will create some NICE NEW LAW!!!The new book by Wolff — he had a bestseller that came out in 2018 called “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House” — among other bombshell claims also quotes a Mar-a-Lago source as saying Trump’s wife Melania hates him.The Trump White House is skirmishing early and often with the news media as the president presses relentlessly his hard-right agenda targeting immigrants and gutting the federal government through the free-wheeling work of billionaire Elon Musk, an adviser with an outsize role in Trump’s so far very busy second term.On Tuesday the administration broke decades of tradition by announcing that the White House itself would pick which media get close access to the president in confined quarters like the Oval Office as part of what is known as a press pool.Until now an independent association of American media organizations covering the White House made this selection.

Freedom declined around the world last year with authoritarians solidifying their grip, but South Asia led a series of bright spots, Freedom House said Wednesday in its annual report.The Washington-based pro-democracy research group elevated two countries to the status of “free” — Senegal, where the opposition triumphed after the outgoing president’s attempt to delay elections was defeated, and Bhutan, the Himalayan kingdom which consolidated a transition to democracy with competitive polls.Tiny Bhutan gained the distinction of being the only South Asian country classified as free. But others in the region made strong gains in the index without changing categories — Bangladesh, where iron-fisted leader Sheikh Hasina fled in the face of a revolt, and Sri Lanka, where Anura Kumara Dissanayake was elected president on an anti-corruption platform after breaking the stranglehold of the two long-dominant parties.The largest score improvement in the index, which tracks both countries and territories, was in Indian-administered Kashmir, which held elections for the first time since the Hindu nationalist government in New Delhi revoked the Muslim-majority region’s special status in 2019.But Freedom House said India as a whole saw further deterioration as it pointed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts to gain influence over judicial appointments. The group downgraded the world’s largest democracy from “free” to “partly free” in 2021.Yana Gorokhovskaia, the co-author of the report, said it was the 19th consecutive year that freedom fell on a global level, but that 2024 was especially volatile due to the high number of elections.”The big picture is that this was another year of the same trajectory of a global decline in freedom but because of all the elections, it was more dynamic than previous years,” she said.She said that both Bangladesh and Syria, where Islamist-led fighters toppled longtime strongman Bashar al-Assad in December, saw immediate improvements in civil liberties — but that it would be a longer road to see gains in political representation.Political rights largely “depend on institutions. And those are easy to destroy but very hard to build up,” she said.- Four countries become ‘not free’ -A rare bright spot in the Middle East was Jordan, which was upgraded from “not free” to “partly free.” Freedom House pointed to reforms that allowed more competitive elections in the kingdom.On the other hand, four countries were downgraded from “partly free” to “not free” — Kuwait, Niger, Tanzania and Thailand.Thailand — which has repeatedly shifted in the Freedom House categories — saw a court disband the party which won the most votes in elections and then dismiss the prime minister from the second-ranking party after an ethics complaint by senators backed by the powerful military.Kuwait’s emir disbanded parliament after elections, while in Tanzania, Freedom House pointed to a crackdown on protesters under President Samia Suluhu Hassan.Niger came under full grip of the military after a 2023 coup ousted elected president Mohamed Bazoum.Tunisia, El Salvador and Haiti also saw steep declines. The only country given a perfect 100 score on freedom was Finland, with New Zealand, Norway and Sweden all right behind at 99.Freedom House, founded in 1941 with bipartisan US support, receives US government funding but is independently administered. The non-profit group has planned layoffs after President Donald Trump froze money aimed at democracy promotion.

“How many seconds do we have?””Forty-five!” shouted back Hollywood’s biggest stars, from Timothee Chalamet and Ariana Grande to Ralph Fiennes and Isabella Rossellini.Just five days before the Oscars, this year’s nominees gathered in Los Angeles on Tuesday for an intimate dinner — and a few words of warning about the length of their acceptance speeches.Nobody really expects Oscar winners to stick to those exact limits, but it is the job of Academy President Janet Yang to at least try.”I feel like a schoolmarm,” joked Yang, as she politely requested this year’s crop of movie stars to keep their moments in the spotlight “heartfelt, humorous if you’d like, poignant, inspirational, but brief.”As if to exemplify the challenge, “A Complete Unknown” director James Mangold arrived several minutes late for the annual nominees “class photo,” which had finally been taken, forcing a hasty reshoot.”It’s the Mangold edition!” quipped one star, as “Wicked” actors Grande and Cynthia Erivo sat politely, side-by-side and front-and-center of the group, while “A Complete Unknown” star Chalamet chatted to “Anora” director Sean Baker in the back rows.In a typical year, the Academy holds a celebratory, champagne-soaked luncheon for nominees and invites press in early February.This year, it was scrapped in the wake of the devastating Los Angeles wildfires.Instead, a smaller, scaled-back dinner was held at the last minute, with Yang emphasizing “an atmosphere of support for so many amongst us who are recovering from the fires that devastated large swaths of Los Angeles.”Still, the event allowed nominees the chance to catch up and swap stories at the end of the lengthy campaign trail.”Well, here we are!” said Mikey Madison, taking a brief break from chatting to Rossellini.”I’ve never gone before” to the Oscars, she told AFP. “I’m excited. We’ll see what happens”.Madison is a favorite to win best actress for her role as a sex worker in “Anora,” up against Demi Moore for gory body-horror “The Substance.”Moore was concerned that she had not brought her dog Pilaf, a minuscule Chihuahua who accompanied her to the Cannes film festival last May.”They were expecting her, I should have!” she told AFP.Fiennes, twice an Oscar nominee in the 1990s without winning, praised a “great crop of movies this year.”His twisty Vatican-set thriller “Conclave” now appears to be locked in a two-horse race for best picture, Hollywood’s ultimate accolade, with “Anora.”Insisting the dinner was “good fun,” British actor Fiennes admitted he had been flying back and forth across the Atlantic “quite a bit.”Indeed, other than excitement for Sunday’s gala, a repeated sentiment among the Oscar nominees was relief that soon the campaigning marathon would be over.”What am I working on next? I’m working on sleeping for a week,” said “Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl” director Merlin Crossingham.

US President Donald Trump is set on Wednesday to convene his first Cabinet meeting since returning to office last month, in an effort to further his agenda with most of his nominees now having been confirmed by Congress. Billionaire supporter and advisor Elon Musk, tasked with overseeing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has sought to fire thousands of federal workers, will be among those in attendance at the meeting.Despite Musk’s lack of ministerial portfolio or formal decision-making authority, he is classified as a “special government employee” and “senior adviser to the president” by heading DOGE, according to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.Musk, Trump’s top donor during the 2024 presidential campaign, will not be the only controversial member of the Trump administration at the meeting.Among the most contentious are Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a noted vaccine skeptic, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who has espoused conspiracy theories, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News host who has faced allegations of sexual assault.The US Senate has approved all of Trump’s cabinet picks so far, despite outcry from Democrats over their trackrecords and lack of experience.Trump’s Republican Party holds a narrow majority in the Senate, and the refusal of more than a couple Senators to vote against Trump’s picks shows his iron grip on the party, where dissenters have largely quit or been cowed.Former Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell was the sole Republican dissenter to Kennedy’s confirmation as health secretary, an appointment that caused alarm among the medical community over his history of promoting vaccine misinformation and vows suspend research on infectious diseases.A few Trump cabinet appointees still await confirmation by the Senate, including Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer, a former congresswoman, and Linda McMahon, who helmed the Small Business Administration for part of Trump’s first term.Musk, meanwhile, has already been dealing with upheaval within DOGE. One-third of his staff resigned in protest on Tuesday, days after he engineered a mass email to the federal government’s two million workers, ordering them to justify their work or risk being fired.Government departments on Monday largely told staff to either ignore the DOGE-inspired email or downplayed the risks of not answering it.So far, thousands of mainly probationary workers — employees who are recently hired, promoted or otherwise changed roles — have been terminated since Trump’s inauguration.

The US House of Representatives passed on Tuesday a budget blueprint designed to deliver President Donald Trump’s hardline agenda on immigration, tax reform and deep government spending cuts. It was the first real test of Trump’s agenda in Congress, and after a nail-biting session, the Republicans’ resolution passed by 217 to 215, with a lone ruling party holdout joining all of the chamber’s Democrats in voting against.The resolution sets the blueprint for the 2025 federal government budget, with House committees now tasked with finding more than $1.5 trillion in spending reductions and $4.5 trillion in extended tax cuts over a decade.Democrats say the cuts, as mandated in the resolution, will target social welfare programs, including Medicaid, which many lower-income US families rely on.Republicans, however, touted the resolution as being necessary to fund President Trump’s agenda.”Today, House Republicans moved Congress closer to delivering on President Trump’s full America First agenda — not just parts of it,” said Speaker Mike Johnson. It had not been plain sailing for Johnson, a key Trump ally who spent days corralling members of his own party to back the bill.Some Republicans had suggested the proposed cuts did not go deep enough, while others were focused on stopping the ever-growing US national debt or worried about Medicaid cuts.In a dramatic turn of events, Republican leaders pulled the vote at the last minute on Tuesday night, as they held intense negotiations with holdouts from their own party. Then, minutes later, they called it once again.- ‘Not one’ vote -Looming over Tuesday’s debate was the March 14 deadline for Congress to agree a budget proposal outline or face a US government shutdown.Democrats had set a defiant tone ahead of the vote, vowing not to provide their opponents with a single vote.”Let me be clear, House Democrats will not provide a single vote to this reckless Republican budget. Not one,” said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. One of the Democratic unmet demands was an assurance that funding approved by Congress is actually spent — rather than being chopped by Trump’s billionaire adviser Elon Musk, whose so-called Department of Government Efficiency is seeking to slash the entire US budget.While Democrats held the line, it proved ultimately not to matter, with at least three Republican holdouts choosing to flip their votes to back the bill.The lone remaining Republican ‘no’ vote was from Representative Thomas Massie, who consistently criticized the proposal as not cutting the budget deficit enough.”Their own numbers, if the Republican plan passes, under the rosiest assumptions which aren’t even true, we’re going to add $328 billion to the deficit this year,” he said ahead of the vote.- ‘Big beautiful bill’ -The debate on the resolution boiled down to where the more than $1.5 trillion in spending cuts that will fund Trump’s extended tax credits — which he put in place in his first term, and which expire at the end of the year — and programs will come from.With the resolution in its current form, Republicans appear set to make up to $880 billion in cuts to Medicaid and other social safety net programs, including food stamps, if they want to extend the tax cuts. Such a move could weaken Republican lawmakers in politically vulnerable districts for the midterm elections, due in two years. Johnson has suggested factoring Musk’s spending cuts and revenue earned from Trump’s rash of trade tariffs into the budget to address the deficit.Last week, the Senate passed a competing budget blueprint that did not include the tax cuts, but President Trump had pushed for “one big beautiful bill” to come from the House.On Tuesday, he appeared to soften his stance, but would no doubt be pleased with the final outcome, with the House now tasked with building and passing a budget bill, before it goes to the Senate.Speaker Johnson said he expected to have the budget on Trump’s desk at the White House by early May. 

US President Donald Trump unveiled plans Tuesday to sell new “gold card” residency permits for a price of $5 million each — and said Russian oligarchs may be eligible.Trump said sales of the new visa, a high-price version of the traditional green card, would bring in job creators and could be used to reduce the US national deficit.”We’re going to be selling a gold card. You have a green card, this is a gold card. We’re going to be putting a price on that card of about $5 million,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.The Republican president, who has made the deportation of millions of undocumented migrants a priority of his second term, said the new card would be a route to highly prized US citizenship.”A lot of people are going to want to be in this country, and they’ll be able to work and provide jobs and build companies,” Trump said. “It’ll be people with money.”Sales of the cards would start in about two weeks, Trump added.”We’ll be able to sell maybe a million of these cards. We have it all worked out from a legal standpoint,” Trump added.The billionaire former real estate tycoon said that all applicants for the new gold cards would be carefully vetted.But asked if wealthy Russians would also be able to apply, Trump said it was a possibility.”Possibly. I know some Russian oligarchs that are very nice people. It’s possible,” Trump said. “They’re not as wealthy as they used to be. I think they can. I think they can afford $5 million.”A number of Russian oligarchs have been hit by western sanctions since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine three years ago.Trump has caused shock in European capitals by suddenly opening negotiations with Russia to end the war, amid fears that he could be willing to sell Ukraine short.The US president told reporters that lifting sanctions on Russia was possible “at some point” but was not currently on the table.US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, standing at Trump’s side in the Oval Office, said of the gold cards that “we can use that money to reduce our deficit.”Trump, who has branded a series of hotels and casinos in a long business career, even suggested the new cards could also be named after him.”Somebody said, ‘Can we call it the Trump gold card?’ I said, ‘If it helps, use the name Trump,'” he said.

An exclusive menu of cocktails for Hollywood’s hottest night was unveiled Tuesday, as the drinks for the Oscars after party were announced.Tequila will feature heavily as Mexico-set narco musical “Emilia Perez” vies for a number of Academy Awards.Celebrities partying it up at the Governors Ball after scooping a statuette — or looking to drown their sorrows after missing out to a rival — will be offered a slate of drinks underpinned by the spirit.They include “The Clear Winner,” which features a block of ice with a white Oscar figurine inside, bathed in tequila, lime juice, tamarind and flor de Jamaica tea.”Standing Ovation” offers a pick-me-up for those looking to party the night away, blending espresso and tequila with fig syrup and smoked salt water.”Class Act” matches lemon juice, milk, syrup and tequila, while “Golden Age Gimlet” offers rosemary-infused Lillet Blanc, apple cordial, syrup and tequila.For those on the wagon, “The Thespian” blends agave, lime and mango syrup.Mixologist Charles Joly, who created the menu with Eric Van Beek, told AFP the drinks were a celebration.”We’re celebrating actors, were celebrating directors, we’re celebrating cinema,” he said.The drinks, which were crafted specially for Hollywood’s biggest evening, begin with a simple idea, said Joly.”What’s important this year? What do we want to kind of get through to people? And it’s the flavors of Mexico. It’s highlighting the tequilas,” he said.Stars will also be able to help themselves to Lallier champagne, which is making its debut at the party this year. And for those rare celebs who are not on a diet, there will be all manner of sumptuous offerings from top-notch Austrian chef Wolfgang Puck, whose Spago restaurant in Los Angeles is very much a place to be seen.Puck, who has been feeding stars at the Oscars party for three decades, will serve appetizers including small smoked salmon statuettes, tuna tartare and mini Wagyu burgers.There will also be chicken pot pie, macaroni and cheese, and agnolotti with peas. More than thirty different desserts will be on offer at the gala.And for those who didn’t get their hands on the real thing, there will be plenty of solid chocolate statuettes, which can be savored slowly, taken home for the kids, or have their heads bitten off, depending on how the evening went.The 97th Oscars takes place in Hollywood this Sunday.