President Joe Biden said on Wednesday he did not believe the US economy will fall into recession either this year or next year, his most confident prediction on the fate of an economy that is still rattled by fears of a downturn.
Asked in an interview whether he thought there would be a recession this year, Biden responded: "No, or next year. From the moment I got elected, how many of the experts are saying within the next six months there's gonna be recession?"
Economists for months have been warning of a possible recession as the US Federal Reserve raised interest rates in order to tame decades-high inflation.
Biden himself has said a recession was possible, and earlier this week he told reporters that the risk was very low.
On the whole, economic data in recent months has moved in the president's favor, particularly after inflation spiked to a 40-year high last summer and government reports showed the US economy could be heading into a recession.
Strong job numbers last week, which occurred despite layoffs in the technology sector as well as in interest-rate-sensitive sectors like housing and finance, poured cold water on market expectations that the US central bank was close to pausing its monetary policy tightening cycle.
A gunman has killed six members of his family, then took his own life, during a spate of shootings on Monday in the eastern Iowa city of Muscatine, a waterfront town situated across the Mississippi River from Illinois, police said.
Russian drones and missiles pounded Ukrainian cities such as Kyiv and Dnipro early on Tuesday, killing at least 10 people and wounding about 100, authorities said, following days of warnings about Moscow's plans for a major assault.
US President Donald Trump said on Monday that Israel would not send troops to Beirut after a call he held with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Global health organisation CEPI will give roughly $60 million to Moderna and two other groups to accelerate the development of shots against Ebola Bundibugyo, the deadly virus that has swept through eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
A tour bus driver has been charged with manslaughter stemming from the deaths of five people in a fiery chain-reaction crash that police say was triggered when the motor coach plowed into slower-moving traffic in a highway construction zone.