The Headlines - An Economic Warning, and a Deal With Ukraine

Episode Date: May 1, 2025

Plus, a wiener dog’s 529 days in the wild. On Today’s Episode:U.S. Economy Shrank in First Quarter, in Reading Clouded by Messy Trade Data, by Ben CasselmanSenate Rejects Bipartisan Measure to Undo Trump’s Tariffs, by Robert JimisonU.S. Announces Deal to Share Ukraine’s Mineral Wealth, by Alan Rappeport, Michael Crowley, Andrew E. Kramer and Kim BarkerColumbia Student Who Was Arrested at Citizenship Interview Is Freed, by Ana LeyIndia’s Muslims Fear a Growing Backlash After Kashmir Attack, by Mujib Mashal and Hari KumarAfter 529 Days, Valerie the Dachshund Has Been Rescued, by Victor MatherTune in every weekday morning. To get our full audio journalism and storytelling experience, download the New York Times Audio app — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter.Tell us what you think at: [e-mail]. 

From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Thursday, May 1st. Here's what we're covering. This is Biden's economy because we took over on January 20th. And I think you have to get us a little bit of time to get moving. President Trump is defending his economic and trade policies after new data from the Commerce Department showed the U.S. economy shrank in the first three months of this year.

Our country is roaring like never before. Nobody's ever really seen anything like this. There are some quirks to how the data is measured, but overall, the new figures are a reversal from the strong growth the quarter before. The numbers capture some of the initial economic upset that Trump's policies have sparked. But since they only run through March, they don't yet include the period after most of Trump's tariffs took effect, setting off new waves of uncertainty. After the data came out yesterday morning, stocks dropped, continuing a rocky trend on Wall Street.

Looking at the S&P 500, it's now had the worst performance for the start of any president's term in more than 50 years. The president loves to talk about how this isn't his economy. It's an economy inherited from President Biden. But to the extent that there is a slowdown looming on the horizon, most of that is about the president's policies. Ben Castleman covers the economy for the Times. If we see higher prices because of tariffs, if we see slower growth because of tariffs, if we see higher unemployment, you know, that is really a direct result of President Trump's

policies. I had an economist say to me this week that if we get a recession, it will be a voluntary recession, a recession that functionally the president chose to cause. And that's a pretty remarkable place for the economy to be. The president so far has seemed to dismiss rising concerns that his trade war could be hard on Americans, even as business owners have tried to raise the alarm. Toy stores, for example, have already said they're worried about empty shelves at Christmas, as it gets too expensive to bring in any more inventory.

Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, you know? And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally. But we're not talking about something that we have to work on. Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill yesterday... The joint resolution fails passage. A bipartisan attempt to try and undo the tariffs died in the Senate.

Trump's been able to roll out the tariffs because he declared a national emergency, which gives presidents the power to single-handedly impose levies. Three Republicans joined with Democrats to try and end that emergency declaration. And the count was close enough that ultimately Vice President J.D. Vance

had to go to the Capitol to cast the deciding vote to kill the measure. Even if it had passed the Senate, it had no chance of getting through the House or the White House, which could veto it. But Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon said, quote, The United States Senate cannot be an idle spectator in the Oval Office, the Trump administration has announced it's reached a deal with Ukraine to share revenues from the country's mineral reserves.

Ukraine's President, Volodymyr Zelensky, first proposed the plan last year as a way of keeping the U.S. invested in its country's future, since President Trump had been complaining that the U.S. should get something in return for the billions it spent supporting Ukraine's war effort. A version of the deal was supposed to be signed in February, but when Zelensky went to the White House to finalize it, Trump berated him for not showing enough gratitude, and Zelensky walked out. Now, details of the new agreement are being finalized, but the biggest question is whether it will include any guarantee that the U.S. will continue

to support Ukraine. Critics of the deal say that without an explicit promise like that, the U.S. is basically just taking advantage of a country under attack. Still, some of Ukraine's allies celebrated the signing, saying that the fact that there's any agreement at all is a good sign that Zelensky and Trump can work together. In Vermont yesterday, a judge ordered the release of a Columbia student who the Trump administration has been trying to deport. The case isn't over, but Mohsen Madhawi is now out on bail. I am saying it clear and loud.

Yes. To President Trump and his cabinet. Yes. I am not afraid of you. Yes! Madawi was a prominent organizer of the protests on Columbia's campus against the war in Gaza. He grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank and is a permanent legal resident of the U.S.

Last month, the government detained him as part of a crackdown on student protesters and accused him of promoting anti-Semitism, the same justification they're using to try and deport another Columbia student, Mahmoud Khalil. They arrested me. What's the reason? Because I raised my voice and I said no to war, yes to peace. In granting him bail, the judge overseeing Madawi's case called the government's attempt to strip him of his green card, chilling, and said he received more than 90 submissions

from community members, many of them Jewish, attesting to his character. His lawyer says he'll continue studying at Columbia as his case works its way through the courts. In India and Pakistan, tensions are high as the fallout continues from a deadly attack on a group of tourists. Last week in the border region of Kashmir, militants opened fire on civilians at a popular mountain getaway, killing 26 people. India has accused Pakistan of supporting the attack, an accusation Pakistan denies. And Pakistan says it's now expecting India to launch a military strike on the country any day. These two countries, both nuclear armed,

have been in sort of a state of managed hostilities for a long time, for decades. My colleague, Mujeeb Mashal, is based in New Delhi. Every now and then there's a spark, there's a military confrontation, and every time the stakes go higher. And it feels like one of those moments again, because India has promised to retaliate

for this terror attack, and then Pakistan has promised that they will hit back. And this back and forth puts us in a moment of escalation. On the one hand, people move on about their lives thinking, okay, this has been the nature of this relationship for decades. They just managed to live with each other in sort of this managed hostility. On the other hand, it's every single time of it is a reminder of how volatile this dynamic is

between two nuclear armed neighbors who continue to engage every few years in military confrontation, where nobody knows how far that confrontation can go. was how far that confrontation can go. And finally, after 529 days lost in the wild, Valerie the dachshund has been rescued. The little dog slipped out of her pen and into the bush on Australia's Kangaroo Island over a year ago when her owners were visiting. That set off a frenzied search and a story that really defies the odds. According to her owners, Valerie was, quote,

"...not a very outside, rough and tough dog, but she may have survived by scavenging and eating plants." There were scattered sightings of Valerie along the way, where they could see her still wearing her little pink collar, but she ran whenever anybody got close. The rescue group that ultimately helped recover Valerie said it was a long process. They had to set a trap with her favorite food and pieces of a t-shirt from her owner. Eventually, that did the trick. She seemed to remember her old life, they said. Valerie's a little thinner now with a few scars, and there's more to be done before

she can really go home. She's got lost dog syndrome. Basically she spent so long in survival mode she's got to get used to people again. The rescue group said they hope to get her back to her owners next week. For anyone surprised that a dachshund made it through the wilderness, perhaps because you've seen them be carried around wearing sweaters, the dogs do have some real survival skills. In what was maybe foreshadowing for Valerie's big adventure, the American Kennel Club says the dogs can be, quote, brave to the point of rashness.

Those are the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.