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Passing the buck, Ukraine mineral deal and a church-state education

 
Today's ECONOMY story

Trump blames Biden for tariffs-linked contraction

What happened
The U.S. economy shrank 0.3% in the first three months of 2025, its first contraction in three years, the Commerce Department reported yesterday. President Donald Trump repeatedly blamed his predecessor, Joe Biden, for the disappointing GDP number and urged Americans to "be patient" and let his steep tariffs kick in.

Who said what
"This is Biden's Stock Market, not Trump's," Trump said on social media after markets plummeted on the GDP news. The downturn "has nothing to do with tariffs." He later told reporters that "this is Biden's economy because we took over on Jan. 20." But Biden left office with the economy "on a strong footing" after three years of solid growth, The Wall Street Journal said. The "main driver of the first-quarter contraction was Trump's trade war."

Yesterday's economic data wasn't all "doom and gloom," CNN said. Although consumer spending fell and prices rose, businesses "actually stepped up their spending," probably to "get ahead of any expected price increases stemming from Trump's tariffs." The resulting surge in imports was a big factor in the GOP contraction. 

Still, Trump was elected because "voters bought his argument that he could skillfully manage the economy" and "eradicate inflation," David Sanger said at The New York Times, so the negative GDP number was a "sharp political jolt as well as a blinking economic warning."

What next?
Yesterday's "backward-looking" economic data were "better than they look at first glance," Axios said, but the "forward-looking" indicators "are worse," suggesting "reasons to worry about what comes next." Thanks to Trump's trade war, Politico said, "fewer ships from Asia will enter West Coast ports" in the coming weeks and consumers will "face supply shortages, price increases and layoffs by summer." 

"Well, maybe the children will have to have two dolls instead of 30 dolls" at Christmas, "and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally," Trump said at a Cabinet meeting yesterday. But China is "having tremendous difficulty because their factories are not doing business."

 
 
Today's INTERNATIONAL story

US, Ukraine sign joint minerals deal

What happened
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko yesterday signed a deal to share Ukraine's mineral wealth through a new joint partnership, the United States-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund. The agreement "signals clearly to Russia that the Trump administration is committed to a peace process centered on a free, sovereign and prosperous Ukraine over the long term," Bessent said in a statement.

Who said what
The minerals deal, sealed after"months of fraught negotiations," was intended to give President Donald Trump a "personal stake" in Ukraine's fate "while addressing his concerns that the United States has provided Kyiv with a blank check to try to withstand Russia's invasion," The New York Times said. Unlike earlier drafts, which "critics called a brazen extortion of Ukraine," the final deal stipulates that only future U.S. military aid can be counted toward America's 50% contribution to the fund. The partnership will finance investments to extract Ukraine's oil, gas, titanium, uranium and rare earth minerals, and the revenue will be split 50/50.

What next?
The agreement, which still needs ratification by Ukraine's parliament, looks like a "win-win," Heidi Crebo-Rediker of the Council on Foreign Relations told The Wall Street Journal. "The U.S. will have a vested interest in the geology that the Ukrainians will be fighting for." But "Trump cannot force private U.S. firms to make expensive and potentially unprofitable investments" in Ukrainian mineral projects, The Washington Post said, especially during a war.

 
 
Today's CHURCH-STATE Story

Supreme Court may bless church-run charter schools

What happened
The Supreme Court's conservative majority yesterday signaled a willingness to allow public funding for explicitly religious charter schools. 

Who said what
Yesterday's oral arguments concerned a bid by the Catholic dioceses of Oklahoma City and Tulsa to launch a religious charter school, St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, funded through the state's public charter system. Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond (R) sued to stop the plan and the state Supreme Court agreed it violated Oklahoma's constitution.

The case, "one of the biggest on church and state in a generation," could now hinge on whether five conservative justices agree that charter schools are "private entities seeking public grants rather than extensions of the public school system," The Wall Street Journal said. That's "significant," The Washington Post said, "because the government can require public schools to be nonsectarian, but it can’t restrict private schools from teaching religion."

What next?
A victory for St. Isidore's would "extend religion's extraordinary winning streak at the Supreme Court" and "further lower the wall separating church and state," said The New York Times. With Justice Amy Coney Barrett recusing herself, the only court conservative to suggest "recent high court precedent might not require recognition of religious charter schools" was Chief Justice John Roberts, the Journal said. A 4-4 tie would uphold the state ruling against St. Isidore's. Despite his "probing questions of both sides," the Post said, Roberts has "consistently sided with religious parties to expand the role of faith in public life."

 
 

It's not all bad

A tiny snail species recently discovered in Southeast Asia has been named Anauchen picasso, after artist Pablo Picasso, due to its unusual whorl. The rectangularly angled spiral resembles a "Cubist interpretation of other snails with 'normal' shell shapes," researchers said in a study published by ZooKeys. These shells are less than 5 millimeters long and exhibit "extraordinary complexity," with "numerous tooth-like barriers" along the opening. The microspecies was found during an expedition led by malacologists Vukasin Gojsina of Serbia and Barna Páll-Gergely of Hungary.

 
 
Under the radar

Historians have long believed that ancient humans fought animals in arena battles, but they had no definitive proof — until now. The new evidence, published last week in the journal PLOS One, came in the "form of a skeleton from a Roman settlement in Britain," said The New York Times. This damaged skeleton was found in York, England, 20 years ago, but archeologists have only now proved what caused the injuries.

"Small indentations in the hip bones" of the skeleton "looked like bite marks from a large animal, perhaps a lion," but the original archaeologists couldn't find proof of an animal's involvement, the Times said. The new researchers asked British zoos for bones gnawed on by lions, cheetahs, tigers and other large animals, then "created a map of the dimensions and depth of the animals' bites" and compared the different bites "with the indentations on the ancient skeleton," confirming that the victim had been mauled by a lion.

It's "rare for archaeologists to find physical evidence of such combat in the form of Roman gladiators' remains," and animal-human battles aside, this new paper "highlights the astonishingly far-reaching influence of the Roman Empire," said Scientific American. The gladiatorial fights were "one of the key ways that Roman culture was spread," said Anna Osterholtz, a bioarchaeologist at Mississippi State University. The findings also prove the U.K. was "well-integrated into the customs and systems of the Roman Empire at its peak," Jaclyn Neel, an associate professor of Greek and Roman studies at Canada's Carleton University, said to CNN.

 
 
On this day

May 1, 2025

The Empire State Building opened in New York City. The 1,454-foot skyscraper, with its Art Deco design, remains an iconic symbol of the city. It was the world's tallest building until 1970, when it was surpassed by the World Trade Center. Today, it's the world's 59th-tallest building.

 
 
TODAY'S newspaperS

"On Day 101 for Trump, economy hits a snag," USA Today says on Thursday's front page. "Tariffs sapping economy already" as "GDP declines in first quarter," The Washington Post says. "Georgians give Trump thumbs-down on economy" and "plan to cut their spending," says The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "China gets hit in battle over trade," The Wall Street Journal says. Columbia student protester Mohsen Mahdawi "freed from custody" as "judge references "McCarthyism" in ICE arrest, The Boston Globe says. "Student freed as judge calls case 'chilling,'" says The New York Times.

► See the newspaper front pages

 
 
Tall tale

Ssssurprise!

A baby snake made quite an entrance earlier this month when it dropped from the ceiling of a Virginia restaurant, hit a diner on the forehead and fell into her margarita. "I was traumatized," Carletta Andrews said to WRIC-TV. After the snake wrapped itself around Andrews' straw, another diner rushed over, picked it up and took the reptile outside. The owners of Patron Mexican Restaurant and Cantina said the snake probably came in through an air-conditioning vent.

 
 

Morning Report was written and edited by Theara Coleman, Nadia Croes, Catherine Garcia, Scott Hocker, Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, Justin Klawans, Devika Rao, Rafi Schwartz and Peter Weber, with illustrations by Stephen Kelly and Julia Wytrazek.

Image credits, from top: Ken Cedeno / UPI / Bloomberg via Getty Images; Office of the President of Ukraine via Getty Images; Bill Clark / CQ-Roll Call Inc. via Getty Images; Dea / A. Dagli Orti / De Agostini via Getty Images