NEW YORK (AP) — Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin released a critical study of the party’s performance in the 2024 campaign on Thursday, bowing to intense internal pressure from frustrated Democratic operatives who had publicly demanded the release of the post-election autopsy.

The 192-page report, which was concluded last December and authored by Democratic consultant Paul Rivera, calls for “a renewed focus on the voters of Middle America and the South, who have come to believe they are not included in the Democratic vision of a stronger and more dynamic America for everyone.”

“Millions of Americans are suffering from poor access to healthcare, manufacturing and job losses, and a failing infrastructure, yet continue to be persuaded to vote against their best interests because they do not see themselves reflected in the America of the Democratic Party,” the report says.

The autopsy points to a reduction in support and training for Democratic state parties, voter registration shifts and “a persistent inability or unwillingness to listen to all voters.”

The report’s release comes as Martin confronts a crisis of confidence among party officials who are increasingly concerned about the health of their political machine barely a year into his term.

In a Substack message accompanying the report’s release, Martin apologized for his handling of the report’s release.

“When I received the report late last year, it wasn’t ready for primetime. Not even close. And because no source material was provided, fixing it would have meant starting over, from the beginning — every conversation, every interview, every data set,” Martin wrote.

“In December, I announced we would shelve this report, and I meant what I said at the time — that I didn’t think dwelling on 2024 or looking backwards so late in the game helped us to win elections. And at the end of the day, winning elections is my job,” he continued. “In short, I didn’t want to create a distraction. Ironically, in doing so, I ended up creating an even bigger distraction. And for that, I sincerely apologize.”

The initial response from frustrated Democratic operatives was not positive.

“Why not say this in 2024, or bring in more people to finish it, instead of turning this into the dumbest media cycle for 7-8 months?” Democratic strategist Steve Schale wrote on social media.

DETROIT (AP) — Former Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said Thursday that he is suspending his campaign for Michigan governor citing an increasingly “toxic” political climate due to President Donald Trump’s war with Iran and skyrocketing gas prices.

Duggan, a longtime Democrat, was running as an independent to replace Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer who can’t run again due to term limits. He told The Associated Press that it was going to be “very hard to win” as the Democrats who would have supported him are galvanizing against what’s going on in Washington.

“Democrat anger against Trump and Republicans is extremely high,” Duggan said. “In 60 days there’s been a huge change in the attitudes of this country. People are feeling the pain at the pump and are angry about it.”

An independent has never served as Michigan governor and third-party candidates typically don’t fare well in elections for the state’s top seat. To Duggan, who shunned partisan fighting while choosing to run as an independent, it was clear the odds were stacking against his campaign.

“As long as I knew there was a path for victory, I was going to fight,” he said. “I don’t see a likely path to win.”

Since the beginning of the war with Iran in late February, oil prices have spiked more than 50%. As of Thursday, the price of regular unleaded gas in Michigan averaged $4.74 per gallon, according to AAA Michigan. That’s above the $4.56 national average. A year ago, the average in Michigan was $3.13. Nationally, it was $3.18.

Trump repeatedly has said gas prices will go down once the war ends without acknowledging when that might happen.

Nationally, Trump’s approval rating on the economy has dropped slightly since the start of the Iran war, according to AP-NORC polling. A recent AP-NORC poll conducted in May found that even Republicans are unhappier with Trump’s handling of the economy than they were a few months ago, even as they’re largely continuing to stand behind him. About 6 in 10 Republicans approve of how Trump is handling the economy, down from about 8 in 10 before the war began.

Duggan believed he was trailing Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Republican U.S. Rep. John James in the governor’s race. Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson also is running as a Democrat, while millionaire businessman Perry Johnson is running as a Republican.

Michigan’s primary election will be held Aug. 4, while the general election is Nov. 3.

In December 2024, Duggan announced his pursuit of the state’s top office surprising many when he also said he’d choose the independent route instead of sticking with the Democratic Party.

Duggan told The AP at that time that he wanted to offer Michigan voters “a choice.”

“It’s clear to me that there are a lot of people in this country who are tired of both parties and tired of the system,” Duggan said then. “You have a (state) legislature that’s almost evenly divided that makes the stakes of each issue become magnified. It has gotten harder and harder to address things as the partisan climate has gotten more toxic.”

His decision to run as an independent came as Michigan was one of a handful of swing states that helped Trump in November 2024 win a second term in the White House.

“I’ve done everything I know how to do for almost a year and a half,” Duggan said Thursday. “You could feel the mood of this state wanting the toxic partisanship to end. They wanted the parties to work together.”

Duggan spent a dozen years as Detroit mayor. He first was elected in November 2013 as the city was going through its painful and historic bankruptcy while being run by a state-appointed emergency manager. The former county prosecutor and medical center executive became Detroit’s first white mayor since Coleman A. Young was elected in the early 1970s as its first Black mayor.

Duggan is credited by many for leading Detroit after it emerged in December 2014 from bankruptcy to become a thriving, more vibrant city.

The city with a Black population hovering around 80% reelected Duggan twice. He announced in November 2024 that he would not seek a fourth term. He left the mayor’s office in January.

Duggan, who had been a Democrat for close to 40 years in a largely Democrat voting city, was targeted throughout the campaign by his former party, with many worried he would pull votes away from the Democratic Party’s nominee.

“I was running to change politics, not to be a spoiler,” he said Thursday.

Following Duggan’s announcement that he would run for governor, Republican and former Michigan Lt. Gov. Brian Calley said on X that Duggan checked the boxes of being a “credible, independent candidate with the ability to raise money.”

“But there are huge advantages of having a political party behind you,” Calley wrote. “And being a target of the left and the right will be intense.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is set to loosen a federal rule that requires grocery stores and air-conditioning companies to reduce greenhouse gases used in cooling equipment, in what officials say is a push to lower grocery costs.

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lee Zeldin, said the Biden-era rule imposes costly restrictions that limit the type of refrigerants U.S. businesses and families can use.

The new rule will “allow businesses to choose the refrigeration systems that work best for them, saving them billions of dollars. This will be felt directly by American families in lower grocery prices,” Zeldin said in a statement released before a White House event Thursday where President Donald Trump is scheduled to announce the changes. Executives from Kroger, Piggly Wiggly and other grocery chains are expected to join him.

With voter concerns over the cost of living spiking before pivotal elections in November, the Republican administration is trying to address affordability issues. It is not clear how much or how quickly the loosening of the refrigerant rule might ease grocery prices.

Inflation in the United States increased to 3.8% annually in April, amid price spikes caused by the Iran war and President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs. Inflation is now outpacing wage gains as the war has kept oil and gasoline prices high.

The administration’s action on refrigerants represents a reversal after Trump signed a law in his first term that aimed to reduce harmful, planet-warming pollutants emitted by refrigerators and air conditioners. That bipartisan measure brought environmentalists and major business groups into rare alignment on the contentious issue of climate change and won praise across the political spectrum.

The 2020 law reflected a broad bipartisan consensus on the need to quickly phase out domestic use of hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, that are thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide and are considered a major driver of global warming.

The EPA action highlights the second Trump administration’s drive to roll back regulations perceived as climate friendly. The plan is among a series of sweeping environmental changes that Zeldin has said will put a “dagger through the heart of climate change religion.”

Environmentalists have criticized the administration’s plans, saying a proposed rule announced last year would exacerbate climate pollution while disrupting a yearslong industry transition to new coolants as an alternative to HFCs.

The 2020 law signed by Trump, known as the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act, phased out HFCs as part of an international agreement on ozone pollution. The law accelerated an industry shift to alternative refrigerants that use less harmful chemicals and are widely available.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Chemistry Council, the top lobbying group for the chemical industry, were among numerous business groups that supported the law and an international deal on pollutants, known as the Kigali Amendment, as victories for jobs and the environment. U.S. companies such as Chemours and Honeywell developed and produce the alternative refrigerants sold in the United States and around the world.

The 2023 rule now being relaxed imposed steep restrictions on HFCs starting in 2026. Zeldin said the rule from the Democratic Biden administration did not give companies enough time to comply and that the rapid switch to other refrigerants caused shortages and price increases last year. Some in the industry dispute this.

The Food Industry Association, which represents grocery stores and suppliers, applauded the Trump EPA proposal last year, saying the earlier rule “imposed significant and unrealistic compliance timelines.”

The Air-Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute, which represents more than 330 HVAC manufacturers and commercial refrigeration companies, said the change in approach would “inject uncertainty across the market” and could even raise prices.

“This rule works against basic supply and demand,” said Stephen Yurek, the group’s president and CEO. “By extending the compliance deadline” for phasing out HFCs, the administration “is maintaining and even increasing demand in the market for existing refrigerants while supply continues to fall.”

Manufacturers have already retooled product lines and certified models based on the existing timeline, Yurek said. Nearly 90% of residential and light commercial air conditioning systems use substitute refrigerants, rather than HFCs, he said.

By John Kruzel

WASHINGTON, May 21 (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed a challenge by Alabama officials to a judicial finding that a death row inmate convicted of a 1997 murder is intellectually disabled and thus ineligible for the death penalty.

The justices said that the case had been “improvidently granted” by the court, effectively undoing its earlier decision to take up the matter. The court heard arguments in the dispute in December.

The court had taken up an appeal by Alabama officials to the lower court’s approach to determining Joseph Clifton Smith’s intellectual capacity, a method that had weighed multiple intelligence quotient, or IQ, test scores alongside expert testimony.

Under a 2002 Supreme Court precedent, executing an intellectually disabled person violates the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment. At issue in Smith’s case was whether and how courts may consider the cumulative effect of multiple IQ scores in assessing a death row inmate’s intellectual disability.

Republican President Donald Trump’s administration backed the state of Alabama in the case.

Liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson concurred in the Supreme Court’s decision to dismiss the case. Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented. Chief Justice John Roberts and fellow conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch joined Alito’s dissent in part.

Smith, now 55, was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1997 murder of a man named Durk Van Dam in Alabama’s Mobile County. Smith fatally beat the man with a hammer and saw in order to steal his boots, tools and $140, according to evidence in the case. The victim’s body was found in his mud-bound Ford Ranger truck in an isolated, wooded area.

Like many states, Alabama considers evidence of IQ test scores of 70 or below as part of the standard for determining intellectual disability. Supreme Court rulings in 2014 and 2017 allowed courts to consider IQ score ranges that are close to 70 along with other evidence of intellectual disability, such as testimony of “adaptive deficits.”

Smith had five IQ test scores, ranging from a high of 78 to a low of 72. A federal judge noted that Smith’s lowest score could in fact be as low as 69, given the standard error of measurement, or SEM, of roughly plus or minus three IQ points. The judge then found that Smith had significant deficits from an early age in social and interpersonal skills, independent living and academics.

The Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the judge’s conclusions in 2023, setting aside Smith’s death sentence. This prompted Alabama officials to file the first of two appeals to the Supreme Court in the case.

The justices in 2024 threw out the 11th Circuit’s decision, saying that the lower court’s evaluation of Smith’s IQ scores could be read two ways, and required clarification.

The 11th Circuit responded with an opinion clarifying that its evaluation was based on “a holistic approach to multiple IQ scores” that also considered additional relevant evidence, including expert testimony. This prompted the second appeal by Alabama officials to the Supreme Court.

(Reporting by John Kruzel; Editing by Will Dunham)

By Jan Wolfe

WASHINGTON, May 21 – The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday delivered a setback to four American cruise operators that contested $440 million in combined judgments after being accused of unlawfully using docks in Cuba that were seized in 1959 by former leader Fidel Castro’s communist government.

The justices, in an 8-1 ruling, set aside a lower court’s decision to throw out the judgments against Carnival, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, Royal Caribbean Cruises and MSC Cruises, which were sued by a U.S. company that had built the port facilities before the Cuban revolution.

The company filed suit under the Helms-Burton Act, a 1996 law that allows U.S. nationals who owned property in Cuba to sue anyone who “traffics in property which was confiscated by the Cuban Government on or after January 1, 1959.”

Havana Docks Corporation, which built docks in Havana’s port during the early 20th century, sued under the Helms-Burton Act seeking compensation from the cruise lines, whose ships have used the terminal.

Shortly after coming to power, Castro nationalized and expropriated property held by U.S. companies including Havana Docks, which had a 99-year concession for the construction and operation of piers at the port of Havana, granted in 1934 by Cuba’s government.

Cuba has never paid any compensation to Havana Docks, but the Helms-Burton Act gave the company an opening to sue for damages in U.S. court.

While the Helms-Burton Act primarily authorized lawsuits against the Cuban government and its state-owned enterprises, it also created potential liability for international businesses like the U.S. cruise lines that have done business in Cuba.

U.S. presidents of both parties opted to suspend a key provision of the Helms-Burton Act, meaning private lawsuits could not go forward. But President Donald Trump lifted that suspension in 2019 during his first term in office, unleashing a wave of litigation in U.S. courts against Cuban state-owned entities and a few American companies that were accused of trafficking in confiscated property.

The four cruise operators used the docks from 2016 to 2019, after President Barack Obama had eased travel restrictions on Cuba. In a joint court filing, the companies said it defies common sense that they “should pay hundreds of millions of dollars for following the executive branch’s lead in reopening travel to Cuba.”

A federal judge in 2022 ruled that the cruise lines had engaged in trafficking by having their ships dock at the terminal and imposed judgments of more than $100 million against each of the four.

The Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out those judgments last year, focusing on the fact that the Havana Docks concession would have expired in 2004, well before the cruise lines used the facilities.

“When that concession expired in 2004, any property interest that Havana Docks had by virtue of that concession ended,” the 11th Circuit wrote at the time. Thus, the conduct of the cruise lines from 2016 to 2019 did not constitute trafficking in the confiscated property of Havana Docks, it added.

The 11th Circuit’s decision threw out the $440 million in combined judgments, but did not totally end the Havana Docks litigation. The 11th Circuit said Havana Docks might still have a viable claim against Carnival because of alleged conduct by that company before 2004.

The 11th Circuit’s decision is one of several from U.S. courts that have created barriers for Helms-Burton Act claimants. Most of these cases have been dismissed on jurisdictional or procedural grounds.

The Supreme Court heard arguments in the case in February. On the same day, the justices also heard arguments in another case involving Helms-Burton Act litigation – ExxonMobil’s lawsuit seeking compensation from Cuban state-owned firm Corporación CIMEX in light of Castro’s confiscation of all of the U.S. energy company’s oil and gas assets in Cuba in 1959.

The Supreme Court has not yet ruled in the Exxon case.

(Reporting by Jan Wolfe; Editing by Will Dunham)

The Trump administration’s indictment of former Cuban President Raúl Castro in the 1996 downing of civilian planes flown by Miami-based exiles is escalating pressure on the island’s socialist government.

Meanwhile, Senate Republicans are expected to abandon a proposal for $1 billion in security money for the White House complex and Trump’s ballroom on Thursday. And Trump’s plan to build a triumphal arch in Washington is getting a second look from the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, a federal agency that suggested changes before it approved the concept last month.

The Latest:

House and Senate Democrats gathered on the Capitol steps in opposition to Republicans’ funding bill for immigration enforcement.

Democrats are trying to draw a sharp contrast with the upcoming votes by highlighting how the White House has proposed including $1 billion for security for the White House complex and President Donald Trump’s ballroom. Republicans are abandoning that proposal, but Democrats said Congress should be focused instead on making life affordable for everyday Americans.

“Ballroom Republicans are not working for you, they are busy fighting for Trump,” said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer. “The American people are watching and in November, they will be watching.”

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, for his part, said “immigration enforcement in this country should be fair. It should be just, and it should be humane.”

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Cuba is accusing the Trump administration of hypocrisy for indicting former President Raul Castro in the downing of civilian planes near its coast 30 years ago, noting that the U.S. president is responsible for many more killings of civilians in international waters this year.

“It is highly cynical that this accusation is made by the same government that has murdered nearly 200 people and destroyed 57 vessels in international waters of the Caribbean and the Pacific, far from the territory of the United States,” the Cuban government response said, adding that the killings “qualify as extrajudicial executions, in accordance with International Law, and murders, according to US laws.”

Trump has justified the attacks as necessary to stem the flow of drugs, while offering little evidence that “narcoterrorists” are in the boats.

The Pentagon inspector general announced a review of whether the attacks on alleged drug-smuggling boats followed an established targeting framework, but said it would not probe the legality of the strikes, which have drawn intense scrutiny.

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The Trump administration is set to loosen a federal rule that requires grocery stores and air-conditioning companies to reduce greenhouse gases used in cooling equipment. The head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lee Zeldin, said American families will see lower grocery prices as a result. Trump is scheduled to be joined by executives from Kroger, Piggly Wiggly and other grocery chains for Thursday’s announcement.

Just how much or how quickly loosening the refrigerant rule might ease grocery prices is unclear. The 2020 law reflected a broad bipartisan consensus on the need to quickly phase out domestic use of hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, that are thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide and are considered a major driver of global warming.

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Trump has been escalating talk about regime change in Cuba ever since he sent the U.S. military to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January. Now a federal indictment of former Cuban leader Raúl Castro is raising questions about whether Trump might try something similar in Havana.

Here’s a timeline of U.S. relations with the communist-run island, including repeated meetings with Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, the grandson of Castro known as “Raúlito.”

“China always firmly opposes illegal unilateral sanctions that lack a basis in international law and have no authorization from the United Nations Security Council and the abuse of judicial measures, and we also oppose external forces exerting pressure on Cuba under any pretext,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiankun said Thursday.

The U.S. should “stop wielding the stick of sanctions and judicial measures” against the country, Guo added. “China firmly supports Cuba in safeguarding its national sovereignty and national dignity and opposes external interference.”

Trump’s plan to build a triumphal arch in Washington is getting a second look from a federal agency that suggested changes before it approved the concept last month.

The proposed 250-foot (76 meter) arch is one of several projects the Republican president is pursuing alongside a White House ballroom to leave his imprint on Washington. Critics of the project, including an overwhelming number of people who submitted public comment in April, said the arch would be taller than any other monument in the capital city and dominate the skyline.

He has said some of his other projects, such as adding a blue coating to the interior of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, will beautify the city in time for July 4 celebrations of America’s 250th birthday.

The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, whose members were appointed by Trump, approved the concept for the arch at its monthly meeting in April. Commissioners are set to consider and possibly vote on updated plans when they meet again on Thursday.

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The more than a dozen young Republicans who gathered with beers and brightly colored cocktails at a bar called dEcORa in Kentucky this week were picking apart the presidential administration they welcomed with high hopes last year.

By now, their enthusiasm for Trump had curdled into frustration. What poured out at the bar was a sense that the Republican establishment — which they initially applauded Trump for disrupting, but which some now see him sustaining — had forsaken them.

That festering feeling has widened a generational gap between younger and older conservatives as the party slowly begins to consider a future without Trump in charge.

The Republican primary defeat of Rep. Thomas Massie — who had earned a younger and anti-establishment following while feuding with Trump — cost them one of their strongest allies in Congress.

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Senate Republican leaders are expected to abandon a proposal for $1 billion in security money for the White House complex and Trump’s ballroom on Thursday after members of their own party questioned the timing and the lack of detail in the Secret Service request.

Pressured by the White House, Republicans have tried to add the money to a roughly $70 billion bill to restore funding to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol. But the security proposal met with backlash from some GOP lawmakers who are questioning the cost and how the taxpayer dollars would be used.

The bill’s text has not yet been released, but the Senate hopes to pass it this week and send it to the House before leaving for a weeklong Memorial Day recess.

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said the effort to add the security package to the bill was a “bad idea” and he does not think there is enough backing to pass it, even if the cost were reduced.

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Federal prosecutors on Wednesday announced criminal charges against former Cuban President Raúl Castro in the 1996 downing of civilian planes flown by Miami-based exiles as the Trump administration escalated pressure on the island’s socialist government.

The indictment accuses Castro of ordering the shootdown of two small planes operated by the exile group Brothers to the Rescue. Castro, who turns 95 next month, was Cuba’s defense minister at the time. The charges, which were secretly filed by a grand jury in April, included murder and destruction of an airplane. Five Cuban military pilots were also charged.

Asked to what lengths American authorities would go to bring Castro to face charges in the U.S., acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said: “There was a warrant issued for his arrest. So we expect that he will show up here, by his own will or by another way.”

The charges pose a real threat, observers said, following the capture by U.S. forces in January of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to face drug charges in New York.

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By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON, May 21 (Reuters) – U.S. manufacturing activity strengthened in May, scaling the highest level in four years, as businesses boosted inventories to guard against potential shortages and rising prices related to the war with Iran.

S&P Global said its flash manufacturing PMI increased to 55.3 this month, the highest reading since May 2022, from 54.5 in April. A reading above 50 indicates growth in manufacturing, which accounts for 9.4% of the economy. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the manufacturing PMI easing to 53.8.

The nearly three-month long U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran has disrupted shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, raising energy prices, as well as straining global supply chains and causing shortages of a wide range of goods, including fertilizers, aluminum and consumer products. 

The rise offset a moderation in the flash services PMI to 50.9 from 51.0 in April. That left the S&P Global’s flash U.S. Composite PMI Output Index, which tracks the manufacturing and services sectors, unchanged at 51.7.

S&P Global Market Intelligence chief business economist Chris Williamson said the reading indicated “that the economy will struggle to manage annualized GDP growth of much more than 1% in the second quarter.”

FACTORIES BUILDING SAFETY STOCKS

S&P Global said though new order growth at factories slowed, input inventories increased to an 11-month high, attributed to “the building of safety stocks amid price and supply worries.” 

Its measure of supplier delivery times lengthened to levels last seen in August 2022. Prior to the war, suppliers were being constrained by President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs.

With supplier performance deteriorating, a measure of prices paid by factories for inputs jumped to 79.5, the highest reading since June 2022, from 68.4 in April. Manufacturers also passed on the higher costs to consumers. The survey’s gauge of output prices rose to 63.3, the highest level since September 2022, from 61.7 in April.

Its overall measure of prices paid by businesses for inputs increased to 64.0, the highest reading since November 2022, from 61.3 in April. That suggests a further acceleration in inflation is coming. Producer inflation increased by the most in four years in April, while consumer prices posted their biggest year-on-year gain since May 2023. But higher prices could weigh on demand and undercut economic growth.

“On average, over the past three months order book growth has slowed to its weakest for two years, and a boost from precautionary stock building due to concerns over further price hikes and supply delays will not last forever,” said Williamson.

The survey’s gauge of manufacturing employment rebounded this month, but services sector employment contracted. A measure of overall private-sector employment fell to a 21-month low.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama )

WASHINGTON, May 21 (Reuters) – U.S. single-family homebuilding dropped sharply in April and permits for future construction fell, suggesting the housing market could remain subdued for a while as the Iran war drives up mortgage rates and an oversupply of new houses persists. 

Single-family housing starts, which account for the bulk of homebuilding, tumbled 9.0% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 930,000 units, the Commerce Department’s Census Bureau said on Thursday. Single-family homebuilding fell in all four regions. It declined 2.4% year-on-year in April.

The U.S.-Israel war with Iran has raised oil prices and is fanning inflation, driving up U.S. Treasury yields. Mortgage rates track the 10-year Treasury note, whose yield is hovering near a 1-1/2 year high. 

The popular 30-year fixed mortgage rate averaged 6.36% last week, data from mortgage finance agency Freddie Mac showed. It averaged 5.98% at the end of February, when the war started, as Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae expanded purchases of mortgage-backed securities. 

Permits for future construction of single-family homes dropped 2.6% last month to a rate of 872,000 units. They decreased 5.5% year-on-year in April.

Homebuilding is also being weighed down by tariffs on imported goods, including lumber and vanity cabinets, as well as higher land, labor and construction costs. Residential investment, which includes home building, has contracted for five straight quarters.

A National Association of Home Builders survey this week showed homebuilder sentiment remaining depressed in May.

Though new housing inventory has declined from levels last seen in late 2007, it remains elevated.

Starts for housing projects with 5 units or more, a very volatile segment, jumped 14.3% to a rate of 529,000 units in April. Multi-family housing starts shot up 23.3% year-on-year. Overall housing starts fell 2.8% to a pace of 1.465 million units. They increased 4.6% year-on-year in April.

Building permits for multi-family housing projects surged 22.7% to a rate of 514,000 units in April. Overall building permits increased 5.8% to a rate of 1.442 million units last month. They fell 0.2% year-on-year in April.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House is expected to vote on legislation Thursday to compel President Donald Trump to withdraw from the war with Iran, a significant test of lawmakers’ willingness to go along with a conflict the president launched over two months.

The vote is the latest push by Democrats to rein in Trump’s military campaigns by using the War Powers Resolution of 1973. Previous votes on similar resolutions have failed. 

One by one, a small but potentially crucial number of Republicans have sided with Democrats to check Trump’s power to continue the conflict. On Tuesday, the Senate advanced another war powers resolution on the Iran war when four GOP senators supported the resolution and three others were absent from the vote. 

A final vote on the Senate resolution could also come Thursday, though Republican leaders expect they’ll be able to block it once every GOP senator is present. 

Frustration with Iran war grows on Capitol Hill 

On Capitol Hill, patience with the war has grown thin as the stalemate in the Strait of Hormuz disrupts global shipping and elevates gas prices in the U.S. Another House war powers resolution nearly passed last week, falling on a tie vote as three Republicans voted in favor. 

Republicans have been broadly supportive of Trump’s efforts to destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities, but some are now saying that the president’s legal timeline to wage a war without congressional approval has expired. Under the War Powers Resolution of 1973, presidents have 60 days to engage in a military conflict before Congress must either declare war or authorize the use of military force. 

The dispute over war powers 

The White House argues that the requirements of the War Powers Resolution no longer apply because of the ceasefire with Iran. At the same time, Trump has said he was just an hour away from ordering another strike on Iran earlier this week, but held off because Gulf allies said they were engaged in negotiations to end the war. 

Still, Trump said on social media that military leaders should “be prepared to go forward with a full, large scale assault of Iran, on a moment’s notice, in the event that an acceptable Deal is not reached.” Trump has repeatedly set deadlines for Tehran and then paused the effort for strategic reasons. 

Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican who has so far voted against the war powers resolutions, expressed frustration with the Trump administration’s stance, especially from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. 

“The current status quo, Pete Hegseth demonstrates how incompetent he is,” Tillis told reporters, adding that he would be willing to vote for an authorization for use of military force. 

Republican leaders praised Trump for taking what they said was bold action to directly confront Iran, a nation that has been a U.S. adversary for decades. 

“I’m an American. I don’t believe in getting hit and walking away and pretending as though it didn’t happen,” said Rep. Brian Mast, the Republican chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.