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  • Sixers drop fourth straight following road loss to lowly New Orleans Pelicans

    Sixers drop fourth straight following road loss to lowly New Orleans Pelicans

    Tyrese Maxey scored 27 points, and Kelly Oubre Jr added 25, but the Sixers would ultimately lose their fourth straight game following a 126-111 loss on Saturday night.

    The Sixers still remain sixth in the Eastern Conference standings.

    Jordan Poole highlighted a 23-point performance with five three-pointers, as the Pelicans outscored Philadelphia 60-35 during the final 21 minutes.

    Zion Williamson added 21 points, Saddiq Bey had 20, and 17-year veteran center DeAndre Jordan grabbed 15 rebounds and blocked four shots.

    The Sixers led from late in the first quarter until the final two minutes of the third, and by as many as 11 points. But the Pelicans chipped away, and Jeremiah Fears’ free throws put New Orleans back in the lead at 91-89 in the third quarter.

    VJ Edgecombe scored 14 for Philadelphia, which shot 31.4% in the second half, missing 21 of 24 three-point attempts.

    Karlo Matkovic followed with a corner three and hit three free throws after being fouled on another deep shot. That gave him nine points — starting with his cutting dunk as he was fouled — during a 40-point period for the Pelicans.

    New Orleans surged to a 97-91 lead by the end of three quarters and opened the fourth quarter on a 23-8 run, capped by Poole’s three which made the score 120-99 with 5:20 left.

    New Orleans remained comfortably in front from there, with Poole’s virtually squelching any chance of a late Sixers comeback.

    The Sixers will look to rebound on a back-to-back to take on Minnesota on Sunday night (7 p.m., NBCSP).

  • Trump aides struggle with how to spend $500 billion more on military

    Trump aides struggle with how to spend $500 billion more on military

    Trump administration officials have struggled to figure out how to increase U.S. military spending by a whopping $500 billion in their forthcoming budget, slowing the overall White House spending plan, four people familiar with the matter said.

    President Donald Trump last month agreed to a roughly 50% funding boost sought by Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, in the White House’s annual budget proposal. The idea ran into internal criticism from several other officials, including White House budget chief Russell Vought, who warned about its potential impact on the widening federal deficit, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reflect internal deliberations.

    Since Trump agreed to the higher number, White House aides and defense officials have run into logistical challenges surrounding where to put the money, because the amount is so large, the people said. The White House is more than two weeks behind its statutory deadline to send its budget proposal to Congress, in part because it is unclear how precisely to spend the additional $500 billion, according to the people familiar with the matter.

    Senior Pentagon officials have consulted with former senior defense officials as they grapple with the challenge, said one person familiar with the matter. Part of the discussion centers on how much emphasis should go into buying weapons the military already uses versus investing in high-end technologies, such as artificial intelligence, that the Pentagon envisions as part of its future.

    The roughly $900 billion defense budget approved last year was the largest in U.S. history. While other nations have also increased their military spending, the United States already spends more on defense than the next nine countries combined, according to 2023 data from the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank.

    “I’m not surprised they’re having difficulty doing that,” said G. William Hoagland, senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank. “That’s an awful lot of money in one year.”

    Spokespeople for the White House and the Defense Department declined to comment.

    Trump, Hegseth, and many congressional Republicans have defended the proposed increase in the military budget as necessary to pay for an array of new priorities and confront foreign adversaries. Hegseth has said that the money would be spent “wisely” and that the larger budget would send “a message to the world.”

    The forthcoming White House budget for fiscal 2027 will spell out the administration’s proposed spending levels across the government. It requires congressional approval to be enacted and faces long odds.

    “This will allow us to build the ‘Dream Military’ that we have long been entitled to and, more importantly, that will keep us SAFE and SECURE, regardless of foe,” Trump said in a Truth Social post this month confirming his support for the $1.5 trillion budget number.

    The Pentagon has been grappling with how to rapidly replenish expensive munitions that it has relied on heavily, including Tomahawk cruise missiles, Patriot missile-defense interceptors, and ship-launched munitions known as Standard Missile-6s, or SM-6s.

    It also is wrestling with how to upgrade its Cold War-era nuclear weapons program with expensive next-generation systems like the B-21 bomber and the Columbia-class submarine. The aircraft, with an estimated cost of about $700 million each, is expected to replace the Air Force’s fleet of B-1 and B-2 bombers. The Columbia-class submarines are expected to cost at least $9 billion each.

    Hegseth, upon taking office, directed each military service to look for budget reductions of 8%; the money could then be invested in other Pentagon priorities better aligned with Trump’s agenda. Hegseth bristled at the suggestion that such reprogramming should be considered cuts, saying he would be “reorienting” about $50 billion in defense spending that the Biden administration had planned.

    More recently, Hegseth has called for “supercharging” the U.S. industrial base, seeking to speed up how quickly the military can field new weapons and other capabilities, in part by not relying as heavily on traditional defense contractors.

    With such a significant jump in spending planned, it now appears that the Pentagon budget is detached from a new national defense strategy that Hegseth’s team released in January, said Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel and senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. That strategy calls for the Pentagon to focus first on defense in the Western Hemisphere, with less emphasis on Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.

    It’s a “head-scratcher” that the Pentagon wants to spend so much money while also cutting back in those areas, Cancian said.

    “If you’ve got a 50% budget increase, you don’t have to do any of that,” he said. “You’d be talking about all the new places you’d be making investments.”

    The federal deficit, or the gap between what the government spent and what it collected in tax revenue, was $1.8 trillion last year. That number was down from the surges of red ink during the COVID years but up significantly from the standard deficit before the pandemic.

    Vought, a deficit hawk, has long called for reducing federal spending while also supporting Trump’s general goal of rebuilding the American military. He was instrumental in securing additional funding for the military last year in the GOP’s tax bill, which bypassed the typical bipartisan process for setting military spending.

    The increase in military spending alone would amount to one of the biggest federal programs. One Democratic plan to expand Medicare to cover dental, vision, and hearing benefits would cost $350 billion over the next decade, by comparison. If Congress were to spend an additional $500 billion every year on the military, the cost would be $5 trillion over the next decade. It is unclear if the Trump administration’s proposal is for an additional $500 billion just for next year, or $500 billion each year for a decade.

    “I’m sure there are very difficult conversations happening right now. Obviously, it would have a huge impact,” said Charles Kieffer, who spent several decades across administrations in the White House Office of Management and Budget and working for Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee. “A 50% increase requires a completely different formulation for your priorities.”

    Some experts in military spending panned the proposed increase as likely to increase fraud and waste. Julia Gledhill, a research analyst for the national security reform program at the nonpartisan Stimson Center, pointed to failed audits at the Pentagon and a lack of clear guardrails on much of the new military spending approved last year in the GOP’s One Big Beautiful Bill, which she said has been used like a “slush fund.”

    “We don’t know what we’re already spending money on. We don’t have details on how the Pentagon is using its trillion-dollar budget,” Gledhill said. “How are you supposed to make educated, informed decisions about the military budget if you don’t know where it’s already going?”

  • ICE’s purchases for big detention centers are marked by secrecy, frustrating towns

    ICE’s purchases for big detention centers are marked by secrecy, frustrating towns

    SOCORRO, Texas — In a Texas town at the edge of the Rio Grande and a tall metal border wall, rumors swirled that federal immigration officials wanted to purchase three hulking warehouses to transform into a detention center.

    As local officials scrambled to find out what was happening, a deed was filed showing the Department of Homeland Security had already inked a $122.8 million deal for the 826,000-square-foot warehouses in Socorro, a bedroom community of 40,000 people outside El Paso.

    “Nobody from the federal government bothered to pick up the phone or even send us any type of correspondence letting us know what’s about to take place,” said Rudy Cruz Jr., the mayor of the predominantly Hispanic town of low-slung ranch homes and trailer parks, where orchards and irrigation ditches share the landscape with strip malls, truck stops, recycling plants, and distribution warehouses.

    Socorro is among at least 20 communities with large warehouses across the U.S. that have become stealth targets for Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s $45-billion expansion of detention centers.

    As public support for the agency and President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown sags, communities are objecting to mass detentions and raising concerns that the facilities could strain water supplies and other services while reducing local tax revenue. In many cases, mayors, county commissioners, governors, and members of Congress learned about ICE’s ambitions only after the agency bought or leased space for detainees, leading to shock and frustration even in areas that have backed Trump.

    “I just feel,” said Cruz, whose wife was born in Mexico, “that they do these things in silence so that they don’t get opposition.”

    Communities scramble for information

    ICE, which is part of DHS, has purchased at least seven warehouses in Arizona, Georgia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Texas, signed deeds show. Other deals have been announced but not yet finalized, though buyers scuttled sales in eight locations.

    DHS objected to calling the sites warehouses, stressing in a statement that they would be “very well structured detention facilities meeting our regular detention standards.”

    The process has been chaotic at times. ICE this past week acknowledged it made a “mistake” when it announced warehouse purchases in Chester, N.Y., and Roxbury, N.J. Roxbury then announced Friday that the sale there had closed.

    DHS has confirmed it is looking for more detention space but hasn’t disclosed individual sites ahead of acquisitions. Some cities learned that ICE was scouting warehouses through reporters. Others were tipped off by a spreadsheet circulating online among activists whose source is unclear.

    It wasn’t until Feb. 13 that the scope of the warehouse project was confirmed, when the governor’s office in New Hampshire, where there is backlash to a planned 500-bed processing center, released a document from ICE showing the agency plans to spend $38.3 billion to boost detention capacity to 92,000 beds.

    Since Trump took office, the number of people detained by ICE has increased to 75,000 from 40,000, spread across more than 225 sites.

    ICE could use the warehouses to consolidate and to increase capacity. The document describes a project that includes eight large-scale detention centers, capable of housing 7,000 to 10,000 detainees each, and 16 smaller regional processing centers. The document also refers to the acquisition of 10 existing “turnkey” facilities.

    The project is funded through the big tax and spending cuts bill passed by Congress last year that nearly doubled DHS’ budget. To build the detention centers, the Trump administration is using military contracts.

    Those contracts allow a lot of secrecy and for DHS to move quickly without following the usual processes and safeguards, said Charles Tiefer, a professor emeritus of law at the University of Baltimore Law School.

    Socorro facility could be among the largest

    In Socorro, the ICE-owned warehouses are so large that 4½ Walmart Supercenters could fit inside, standing in contrast to the remnants of the austere Spanish colonial and mission architecture that defines the town.

    At a recent city council meeting, public comments stretched for hours. “I think a lot of innocent people are getting caught up in their dragnet,” said Jorge Mendoza, an El Paso County retiree whose grandparents immigrated from Mexico.

    Many speakers invoked concerns about three recent deaths at an ICE detention facility at the nearby Fort Bliss Army base.

    Communities fear a financial hit

    Even communities that backed Trump in 2024 have been caught off guard by ICE’s plans and have raised concerns.

    In rural Pennsylvania’s Berks County, commissioner Christian Leinbach called the district attorney, the sheriff, the jail warden, and the county’s head of emergency services when he first heard ICE might buy a warehouse in Upper Bern Township, 3 miles from his home.

    No one knew anything.

    A few days later, a local official in charge of land records informed him that ICE had bought the building — promoted by developers as a “state-of-the art logistics center” — for $87.4 million.

    “There was absolutely no warning,” Leinbach said during a meeting in which he raised concerns that turning the warehouse into a federal facility means a loss of more than $800,000 in local tax dollars.

    ICE has touted the income taxes its workers would pay, though the facilities themselves will be exempt from property taxes.

    Georgia center could house twice the population of town

    In Social Circle, Ga., which also strongly supported Trump in 2024, officials were stunned by ICE’s plans for a facility that could hold 7,500 to 10,000 people after first learning about it through a reporter.

    The city, which has a population of just 5,000 and worries about the infrastructure needs for such a detention center, only heard from DHS after the $128.6 million sale of a 1-million-square-foot warehouse was completed. Like Socorro and Berks County, Social Circle questioned whether the water and sewage system could keep up.

    ICE has said it did due diligence to ensure the sites don’t overwhelm city utilities. But Social Circle said the agency’s analysis relied on a yet-to-be built sewer treatment plant.

    “To be clear, the City has repeatedly communicated that it does not have the capacity or resources to accommodate this demand, and no proposal presented to date has demonstrated otherwise,” the city said in a statement.

    And in the Phoenix suburb of Surprise, Ariz., officials sent a scathing letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem after ICE without warning bought a massive warehouse in a residential area about a mile from a high school. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, raised the prospect of going to court to have the site declared a public nuisance.

    Crowds wait to speak in Socorro

    Back in Socorro, people waiting to speak against the ICE facility spilled out of the city council chambers, some standing beside murals paying tribute to the World War II-era Braceros Program that allowed Mexican farmworkers to be guest workers in the U.S. The program stoked Socorro’s economy and population before President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s administration in the 1950s began mass deportations aimed at people who had crossed the border illegally.

    Eduardo Castillo, formerly an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, told city officials it is intimidating but “not impossible” to challenge the federal government.

    “If you don’t at least try,” he said, “you will end up with another inhumane detention facility built in your jurisdiction and under your watch.”

  • U.S. pays tribute to the late Johnny and Matthew Gaudreau at the Winter Olympics

    U.S. pays tribute to the late Johnny and Matthew Gaudreau at the Winter Olympics

    MILAN — Johnny Gaudreau was working hard to make the U.S. team heading to the 2026 Winter Olympics. He and brother Matthew watched the event growing up in South Jersey, always with eyes on playing in it.

    “It was their dream,” Jane Gaudreau said her sons.

    Johnny and Matthew died on Aug. 29, 2024, when they were struck by an SUV while riding bicycles near their hometown of Salem County on the eve of their sister Katie’s wedding. Their deaths shocked the hockey community, and the Gloucester Catholic High School graduates have been honored since by retired numbers, a memorial 5K, and more.

    An elite player a decade into his NHL career and the all-time U.S. leading scorer in international play, Johnny Gaudreau was on track to be in Milan for the tournament that wraps up Sunday when the Americans play rival Canada for the gold medal. Guy Gaudreau said USA Hockey was gracious enough to tell the family their oldest son was on the projected roster.

    Friends and family honor Matthew and Johnny Gaudreau at the inaugural Gaudreau Family 5K

    “He wanted to be on this team,” Guy Gaudreau said during the third period of the U.S. semifinal win on Friday night. “And it would’ve been nice if he’d been here.”

    The U.S. is honoring the Gaudreau brothers with a tribute to them in their locker room at the Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena. A blue No. 13 Gaudreau jersey hangs there as a reminder of the player known as “Johnny Hockey,” who was beloved by so many on the national team and beyond.

    “It means everything — we all know he should be here with us,” said Dylan Larkin, who played with Gaudreau at multiple world championships. “He should be with us. We love him, and I like that we continue to think about him and I wouldn’t imagine it any other way.”

    Jane and Guy Gaudreau, along with Johnny’s widow, Meredith, and their two oldest children arrived in Milan on Friday. The Gaudreau parents had been planning a trip to Las Vegas and initially hesitated after USA Hockey invited them to attend.

    “Our two daughters, for 24 hours, they just kept at us: ‘You have to go. The boys would want you to do this. This would mean so much to John,’” Jane said. “It just means so much to our family, and we’re so excited to remember what our boys meant to hockey.”

    The Gaudreau family connections to players on the roster run deep, from Boston College to the NHL. In addition to the world championships, Johnny played with Noah Hanifin on the Calgary Flames and Zach Werenski on the Columbus Blue Jackets.

    “Johnny was close to a lot of guys in that room,” Hanifin said. “We know he’d be here with us, so we’ve been thinking about him and carrying him with us.”

    Werenski said after he and his teammates advanced to the final that Meredith reached out to his wife a few days earlier to let them know they were coming.

    “It’s great having them here, and it’s super special,” Werenski said. “We’re happy that we made it to the gold-medal game so they can watch that and be a part of it. It’s on us to make them proud.”

    Not that it would have been much of a debate, but coach Mike Sullivan confirmed what management told the Gaudreaus: Johnny would have been on the team if he were still alive, based on his body of work and how well he has played in a U.S. uniform.

    “He was one of America’s very best,” Sullivan said. “He’s just a good person on the ice and off the ice, and I think he’s an inspiration to our players to this very day.”

    Nearly a year after the Gaudreau brothers’ deaths, their sister made sure Johnny and Matt were at her wedding

    Players still talk about Gaudreau, and “all the stories are funny,” according to Charlie McAvoy, who played alongside him at worlds.

    “Just an amazing person, just an infectious personality,” McAvoy said. “The detail, really, with our staff and our equipment staff especially to make sure that he’s always with us, little reminders of him in the room, and they just go a long way. You always see them. They’re just gentle. They’re right there. But we know that he’s always with us.”

    Along with Johnny’s No. 13 jersey is that number on the wall alongside Matthew’s No. 21. It’s similar to what USA Hockey did a year ago at the 4 Nations Face-Off, when Guy Gaudreau took part in practice as a guest coach.

    This would have been Johnny Gaudreau’s first chance to play at the Olympics after the NHL did not participate in 2018 and 2022. But it almost certainly won’t be the last time his jersey hangs in the U.S. locker room at the game, a tradition that could continue for years to come.

    “I hope so,” Larkin said. ”I sure hope so.”

  • U.S. ambassador causes uproar by claiming Israel has a right to much of the Middle East

    U.S. ambassador causes uproar by claiming Israel has a right to much of the Middle East

    TEL AVIV, Israel — Arab and Muslim nations on Saturday sharply condemned comments by the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, who said Israel has a right to much of the Middle East.

    Huckabee made the comments in an interview with conservative commentator Tucker Carlson that aired Friday. Carlson said that according to the Bible, the descendants of Abraham would receive land that today would include essentially the entire Middle East, and asked Huckabee if Israel had a right to that land.

    Huckabee responded: “It would be fine if they took it all.” Huckabee added, however, that Israel was not looking to expand its territory and has a right to security in the land it legitimately holds.

    His comments sparked immediate backlash from neighboring Egypt and Jordan, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and the League of Arab States, which in separate statements called them extremist, provocative, and not in line with the U.S. position.

    Egypt’s foreign ministry called Huckabee’s comments a “blatant violation” of international law, adding that “Israel has no sovereignty over the occupied Palestinian territory or other Arab lands.”

    “Statements of this nature — extremist and lacking any sound basis — serve only to inflame sentiments and stir religious and national emotions,” the League of Arab States said.

    There was no immediate comment from Israel or the United States.

    Since its establishment in 1948, Israel has not had fully recognized borders. Its frontiers with Arab neighbors have shifted as a result of wars, annexations, ceasefires, and peace agreements.

    During the six-day 1967 Mideast war, Israel captured the West Bank and east Jerusalem from Jordan, Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, and the Golan Heights from Syria. Israel withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula as part of a peace deal with Egypt following the 1973 Mideast war. It also unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005.

    Israel has attempted to deepen control of the occupied West Bank in recent months. It has greatly expanded construction in Jewish settlements, legalized outposts, and made significant bureaucratic changes to its policies in the territory. U.S. President Donald Trump has said he will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank and has offered strong assurances that he’d block any move to do so.

    Palestinians have for decades called for an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza with east Jerusalem its capital, a claim backed by much of the international community.

    Huckabee has long opposed the idea of a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinian people. In an interview last year, he said he does not believe in referring to the Arab descendants of people who had lived in British-controlled Palestine as “Palestinians.”

    In the latest interview, Carlson pressed Huckabee about his interpretation of Bible verses from the book of Genesis, where he said God promised Abraham and his descendants land from the Nile to the Euphrates.

    “That would be the Levant, so that would be Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon. It would also be big parts of Saudi Arabia and Iraq,” Carlson said.

    Huckabee replied: “Not sure we’d go that far. I mean, it would be a big piece of land.”

    Israel has encroached on more land since the start of its war with Hamas in Gaza.

    Under the current ceasefire, Israel withdrew its troops to a buffer zone but still controls more than half the territory. Israeli forces are supposed to withdraw further, though the ceasefire deal doesn’t give a timeline.

    After Syrian President Bashar Assad was ousted at the end of 2024, Israel’s military seized control of a demilitarized buffer zone in Syria created as part of a 1974 ceasefire between the countries. Israel said the move was temporary and meant to secure its border.

    And Israel still occupies five hilltop posts on Lebanese territory following its brief war with Hezbollah in 2024.

  • Trump wants to impose 15% tariff, up from 10% he announced after Supreme Court decision

    Trump wants to impose 15% tariff, up from 10% he announced after Supreme Court decision

    WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Saturday that he was raising the global tariff he wants to impose to 15%, up from 10% he had announced a day earlier.

    Trump said in a social media post on that he was making the decision “Based on a thorough, detailed, and complete review of the ridiculous, poorly written, and extraordinarily anti-American decision on Tariffs issued yesterday,” by the U.S. Supreme Court.

    After the court ruled he didn’t have the emergency power to impose many sweeping tariffs, Trump signed an executive order on Friday night that enabled him to bypass Congress and impose a 10% tax on imports from around the world. The catch is that those tariffs would be limited to just 150 days, unless they are extended legislatively.

    Trump’s post significantly ratcheting up a global tax on imports to the U.S. yet again was the latest sign that despite the court’s check, the Republican president was intent on continuing to wield in an unpredictable manner his favorite tool to for the economy and to apply global pressure. Trump’s shifting announcements over the last year that he was raising and sometimes lowering tariffs with little notice jolted markets and rattled nations.

    Saturday’s announcement seemed to a be a sign that Trump intends to use the temporary global tariffs to continue to flex.

    “During the next short number of months, the Trump Administration will determine and issue the new and legally permissible Tariffs, which will continue our extraordinarily successful process of Making America Great Again,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social media network.

    Under the order Trump signed Friday night, the 10% tariff was scheduled to take effect starting Feb. 24. The White House did not immediately respond to a message inquiring when the president would sign an updated order.

    In addition to the temporary tariffs that Trump wants to set at 15%, the president said Friday that he was also pursuing tariffs through other sections of federal law which require an investigation by the Commerce Department.

    Trump made an unusually personal attack on the Supreme Court judges who ruled against him in a 6-3 vote, including two of those he appointed during his first term, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett. Trump, at a news conference on Friday, said of the two justices: “I think it’s an embarrassment to their families.”

    He was still seething Friday night, posting on social media complaining about Gorsuch, Coney Barrett, and Chief Justice John Roberts, who ruled with the majority and wrote the majority opinion. On Saturday morning, Trump issued another post declaring that his “new hero” was Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who wrote a 63-page dissent. He also praised Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, who were in the minority, and said of the three dissenting justices: “There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that they want to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

  • Big Tech is taking on more debt than ever to fund its AI aspirations

    Big Tech is taking on more debt than ever to fund its AI aspirations

    Big Tech is taking on record levels of debt, marking a new chapter in the artificial intelligence boom as names such as Oracle, Alphabet, and Meta pour big money into massive data centers and the energy systems needed to run them.

    Technology companies issued a record $108.7 billion in corporate bonds in the last three months of 2025, according to data from Moody’s Analytics. That’s the largest total for any quarter and roughly double that of the previous three months. And the trend is extending into 2026: Some $15.5 billion in bonds were issued in the first two weeks of the year alone.

    For now, investors are assuaged by the eye-popping cash flow numbers from major tech companies. In the past 20 years, Big Tech companies including Google, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, and Apple have built what are arguably the most profitable business models in history. In the third quarter, Google brought in just over $100 billion, with a margin of over 30%. All five are trillion-dollar companies, as are such AI darlings as Nvidia, Broadcom, and TSMC.

    But some economists and business analysts say the massive new bonds are spreading risk throughout the economy, with hundreds of billions being spent on a technology whose profit-making potential is not yet clear.

    “It’s a lot of debt, and a lot of it all of a sudden,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s. When companies are funding risky ventures with debt “it does put the broader financial system at risk. If the financial system is at risk, then the broader economy is.”

    A bond is a form of debt that companies or governments can use to raise large sums of money, typically from investment banks or private-equity firms, to be paid back with interest. They historically have been used to fund major infrastructure projects such as power plants, natural gas drilling operations, or offshore wind farms — projects with large up-front costs that are expected to generate revenue for many years. Once issued, a bond can be bought, sold, or packaged into other debt products, which can end up in the portfolios of unrelated investments such as pension funds.

    Automakers, utilities, and other mainstays of heavy industry have historically been the biggest issuers of corporate bonds, Moody’s data shows. Analysts note that in past technology build-outs, such as the rise and rapid investment in internet-based companies in the 1990s, companies didn’t have to spend nearly as much on infrastructure.

    That has now changed, given the unprecedented energy demands of running and training AI algorithms. While tech companies took on more debt, adjusting for inflation, in 2021 than in 2025 — with a total of $296.6 billion in 2025 dollars issued that year — interest rates were significantly lower at the time. That made financing debt cheaper.

    “The technology industry has gone from being an also-ran in terms of corporate debt, to becoming the largest player of investment-grade corporate debt, out of nowhere, compared to two years ago,” said venture capitalist Paul Kedrosky.

    Because training and running AI algorithms take up much more computing power and energy than previous forms of technology, staying ahead in the AI race costs billions. Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta indicated in company announcements that they planned to collectively spend well over $300 billion on AI data centers in 2025 alone.

    If they continue to spend at that rate, they may have to take on even more debt.

    “If these companies are so profitable, why are they using debt?” Kedrosky said. “It gives you a sense of the scale of what’s going on.”

    Amazon spokesperson Amy Diaz said the proceeds from Amazon’s bond issuance in November are being used to support business investments, capital expenditures, and repayment of earlier debt, adding that the company regularly evaluates its operating plan to make financing decisions. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post.)

    Representatives from Alphabet, Meta, and Oracle either declined to comment or did not answer questions. An Apple spokesperson referred to the company’s SEC filing, which states that proceeds from the bond issuance would be used for “general corporate purposes” including stock buybacks and unspecified capital expenditure, among other uses.

    Among large tech companies, Meta used the most debt to fund its data center build-out in 2025, according to Moody’s. The social media company has invested deeply in AI in a race to become the leading AI assistant for companies and everyday people, putting it in a tight race with Microsoft, Apple, and Alphabet.

    Mark Mahaney, who has covered tech companies for more than two decades and is now managing director at the investment bank Evercore ISI, views the bonds as part of a strategy by tech firms to raise money without degrading their stock price. Bond offerings are a sign that management is “confident or cocky” about their future, as they’ve taken on debt that requires steady cash flow to pay down, Mahaney said.

    Also loading up on debt is Oracle, which issued some $25.75 billion in bonds last year as it seeks to become the AI computing power provider of choice. In September it disclosed a $300 billion deal with OpenAI, prompting an immediate 36% spike in its stock price that briefly made founder Larry Ellison the richest man in the world. (The Post has a content partnership with OpenAI.)

    But in the ensuing weeks investors became uncomfortable with Oracle’s debt. Citi analyst Daniel Sorid told CNBC in December that there was something “inherently uncomfortable” about the “enormous” amount of capital Oracle will require.

    The stock has declined about half from its Sept. 10 peak. Bondholder Ohio Carpenters’ Pension Plan recently sued Oracle and several investment banks, alleging that Oracle failed to disclose how much debt it needs.

    “The sheer scale of new debt issuance has forced investors to reassess whether the economics of relentless AI [spending] are truly sustainable,” said Thomas Urano, chief investment officer at Sage Advisory in Austin.

    Urano added that many of the companies getting AI-driven investment are part of the infrastructure that enables today’s AI chatbots and other applications, which cannot be immediately monetized.

    “This creates a paradox: The strategic case for AI is compelling, but the revenue model is still evolving,” Urano said.

    At least one firm has raised the prospect of getting government support to build out more data centers. OpenAI’s chief financial officer, Sarah Friar, said in November that it will require “innovation” on the finance side, with government providing a “backstop” or “guarantee.” Her comments triggered backlash from politicians and tech critics, who questioned whether taxpayers should take on some of these private companies’ risk. Friar and CEO Sam Altman both later clarified that they weren’t seeking federal guarantees for OpenAI data centers specifically, although Altman did say in a lengthy social media post that a government-funded “strategic national reserve of computing power” would make sense.

    The Trump administration has gone all in on AI, pushing aside concerns within the MAGA movement and seeking to sweep away regulations that it says hamper innovation. But neighbors of the vast warehouses of computer chips that form the technology’s backbone — including in conservative states — have objected to how the facilities sap power from the grid, guzzle water to stay cool, and secure tax breaks from local governments. President Donald Trump has recalibrated his approach, pushing tech companies to fund their own power.

    “Historically, when we’ve had major bubbles they’ve tended to be about real estate, or technology, or government policy,” Kedrosky said. “This is the first bubble in history that combines all of these things.”

  • U.S. economic growth weaker than thought in fourth quarter with government shutdown, consumer pullback

    U.S. economic growth weaker than thought in fourth quarter with government shutdown, consumer pullback

    WASHINGTON — U.S. economic growth slowed in the final three months of last year, dragged down by the six-week shutdown of the federal government and a pullback in consumer spending.

    The nation’s gross domestic product — the total output of goods and services — increased at a 1.4% annual rate in the fourth quarter, the Commerce Department reported Friday, down from 4.4% in the July-September quarter and 3.8% in the quarter before that.

    The figures point to what could be a more modest pace of growth in the coming quarters, as consumers have taken on more debt and saved less to maintain their spending, a process that may be difficult to sustain. Business investment, other than data centers and equipment dedicated to artificial intelligence, grew at only a moderate pace.

    Supreme Court strikes down Trump’s sweeping tariffs

    Still, a measure of underlying growth that focuses on consumer and business spending was mostly healthy at 2.4%, economists said. The sharp slowdown in government outlays because of the shutdown shaved a full percentage point from growth.

    Consumers and companies spent at a “reasonably solid” pace, said Martha Gimbel, executive director of the Budget Lab at Yale and former economist in the Biden White House. “This is not a disastrous report.”

    Also Friday, the Supreme Court struck down many of President Donald Trump’s tariffs, which have lifted inflation slightly and likely discouraged many companies from hiring by raising their costs. At a news conference, Trump quickly promised to reimpose the tariffs under different laws than the one the court invalidated.

    Consumer spending also rose 2.4% in the fourth quarter, a solid increase but notably below the third quarter’s healthy 3.5% gain. Federal government outlays plunged nearly 17% amid the shutdown. That decline should mostly reverse in the coming quarters, however.

    The outsize growth last summer and fall — when the economy expanded at about a 4% annual pace — partly reflected sharply lower imports. Companies ramped up imports in the first quarter of last year to get ahead of President Donald Trump’s tariffs. After boosting growth in the second and third quarters, trade had little impact at the end of last year.

    Diane Swonk, chief economist at KPMG, said the report reflected a “one-legged” economy boosted mostly by artificial intelligence, which is fueling business spending and has also lifted wealth for those households that own stocks and have benefited from rising share prices.

    Many households, however, have had to take on more debt to fuel their spending. The saving rate dropped to just 3.6% in the fourth quarter, the second-lowest figure since August 2008, when the economy was mired in the Great Recession.

    “The economy looks golden on paper, but beneath the surface is lead,” Swonk said.

    Early Friday, before the figures were released, Trump attacked congressional Democrats for shutting down the government last fall. He also reiterated his criticism of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell for not cutting interest rates more quickly.

    “The Democrat Shutdown cost the U.S.A. at least two points in GDP,” Trump posted on his social media site. “That’s why they are doing it, in mini form, again. No Shutdowns! Also, LOWER INTEREST RATES. “Two Late” Powell is the WORST!!!”

    A separate report Friday showed that inflation, according to the Fed’s preferred measure, accelerated in December, as the cost of goods such as furniture, clothes, and groceries picked up. That makes it less likely the Fed will reduce its key interest rate in the coming months.

    Earlier this month, Trump predicted a blowout gain in GDP of more than 5% even if the government shutdown was factored into the figures. Trump has been trying to claim that the economy is at its strongest point in history, even though the new data shows that growth slowed, compared with 2024, following his return to the White House.

    The data arrives before Trump delivers the State of the Union address on Tuesday, where he is expected to say that the economy is booming.

    The report also underscores an odd aspect of the U.S. economy: It is growing steadily, but without creating many jobs. Growth was a solid 2.2% in 2025, yet a government report last week showed that employers added less than 200,000 jobs last year — the fewest since COVID struck in 2020.

    Economists point to several possible reasons for the gap: The Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration has sharply slowed population growth, reducing the number of people available to take jobs. It’s one reason that the unemployment rate rose only slightly — to 4.3% from 4% — last year, even with the nearly non-existent hiring.

    Some businesses may also be holding back on adding jobs out of uncertainty about whether artificial intelligence will enable them to produce more without finding new employees. And the cost of tariffs has reduced many companies’ profits, possibly leading them to cut back on hiring.

    The economy is also unusual right now because growth is solid, inflation has slowed a bit, and unemployment is low, but surveys show that Americans are generally gloomy about the economy. In January, a measure of consumer confidence fell to its lowest level since 2014, yet consumers have kept spending, propelling growth.

    Some of that spending may be disproportionately driven by upper-income consumers, in a phenomenon known as the “K-shaped” economy. Yet data from many large banks suggests lower-income consumers are still raising their spending, even if by not as much.

  • A World Cup FanFest that had been planned near the Statue of Liberty is canceled

    A World Cup FanFest that had been planned near the Statue of Liberty is canceled

    NEW YORK — The New York and New Jersey World Cup host committee has canceled its fan festival that had been planned to be held at Liberty State Park in Jersey City.

    The committee scrapped plans for the weekslong festival that would have been held about 15 miles (24 kilometers) from MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, where the final will be played on July 19.

    The FanFest was announced in February 2025 by Tammy Murphy, wife of then-New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and chair of the New York/New Jersey host committee’s directors, who said it would be open for all 104 matches of the tournament, which starts June 11.

    The committee said in a statement Friday an “expanded network of fan zones and community celebrations across 21 counties in New Jersey will serve as a cornerstone of the region’s official fan engagement program.”

    Mikie Sherrill, Murphy’s successor as governor, announced a $5 million initiative Thursday to fund community World Cup initiatives.

    Tickets for the FanFest had been put on sale in December.

    Plans for a FanFest in New York City’s Corona Park in Queens did not move forward. One is now planed for the U.S. Tennis Association’s Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens from June 17-28 and a fan village is scheduled for Manhattan’s Rockefeller Center from July 4-19.

    Fan fests with large video screens have been a part of each World Cup’s organization since 2006.

    FIFA is running the World Cup itself unlike in the past, when a local organizing committee was in charge of logistics. The host committees are limited to sponsorship agreements in categories not reserved by FIFA.

  • Former ‘Jersey Shore’ star Snooki says she has cervical cancer

    Former ‘Jersey Shore’ star Snooki says she has cervical cancer

    FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi said Friday that she has cervical cancer.

    The former “Jersey Shore” star said in a video posted to TikTok that a biopsy had revealed the stage one cancer.

    “Obviously not the news that I was hoping for,” she said, sitting in her car between medical appointments. “But also not the worst news, just because they caught it so early, thank freaking God.”

    She urged her followers to get Pap smears, and said she is likely to have a hysterectomy after her initial treatment.

    “So 2026 is not panning out how I wanted it to,” she said.

    Polizzi became one of the breakout stars of “Jersey Shore” from its debut on MTV in 2009. She was on the reality show for six seasons and appeared in the later spinoffs “Snooki & JWoww” and “Jersey Shore: Family Vacation.”

    Now 38, she still lives in New Jersey, has been married for 11 years and has three children.