WASHINGTON (AP) — The International Monetary Fund has upgraded its outlook for the global economy this year, saying the world appears headed for a “soft landing” — reining in inflation without much economic pain and producing steady if modest growth.

The IMF now envisions 3.2% worldwide expansion this year, up a tick from the 3.1% it had predicted in January and matching 2023’s pace. And it foresees a third straight year of 3.2% growth in 2025.

In its latest outlook, the IMF, a 190-country lending organization, notes that the global expansion is being powered by unexpectedly strong growth in the United States, the world’s largest economy. The IMF expects the U.S. economy to grow 2.7% this year, an upgrade from the 2.1% it had predicted in January and faster than a solid 2.5% expansion in 2023.

Though sharp price increases remain an obstacle across the world, the IMF foresees global inflation tumbling from 6.8% last year to 5.9% in 2024 and 4.5% next year. In the world’s advanced economies alone, the organization envisions inflation falling from 4.6% in 2023 to 2.6% this year and 2% in 2025, brought down by the effects of higher interest rates.

The Federal Reserve, the Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank and the Bank of England have all sharply raised rates with the aim of slowing inflation to around 2%. In the United States, year-over-year inflation has plummeted from a peak of 9.1% in the summer of 2022 to 3.5%. Still, U.S. inflation remains persistently above the Fed’s target level, which will likely delay any rate cuts by the U.S. central bank.

Globally, higher borrowing rates had been widely expected to cause severe economic pain — even a recession — including in the United States. But it hasn’t happened. Growth and hiring have endured even as inflation has decelerated.

“Despite many gloomy predictions, the global economy has held steady, and inflation has been returning to target,” Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, the IMF’s chief economist, told reporters ahead the release of the fund’s latest World Economic Outlook.

Though the world economy is showing unexpected resilience, it isn’t exactly strong. From 2000 through 2019, global economic growth had averaged 3.8% — much higher than the 3.2% IMF forecasts for this year and next. Keeping a lid on the world’s growth prospects are the continued high interest rates, along with sluggish gains in productivity in much of the world and the withdrawal of government economic aid that was rolled out during the pandemic.

The IMF warns that the economic expansion could be thrown off by the continuing adverse effects of higher rates and by geopolitical tensions, including the war in Gaza, that risk disrupting trade and raising energy and other prices.

China, the world’s No. 2 economy, has been struggling with the collapse of its real estate market, depressed consumer and business confidence and rising trade tensions with other major nations. The IMF expects the Chinese economy, which once regularly generated double-digit annual growth, to slow from 5.2% in 2023 to 4.6% in 2024 to 4.1% next year.

But on Tuesday, Beijing reported that China’s economy expanded at a faster-than-expected pace in the first three months of the year, fueled by policies that are intended to stimulate growth and stronger demand. The Chinese economy expanded at a 5.3% annual pace in January-March, surpassing analysts’ forecasts of about 4.8%, official data show. Compared with the previous quarter, the economy grew 1.6%.

Japan’s economy, the world’s fourth-largest, having lost the No. 3 spot to Germany last year, is expected to slow from 1.9% last year to 0.9% in 2024.

Among the 20 countries that use the euro currency, the IMF expects growth of just 0.8% this year — weak but double the eurozone’s 2023 expansion. The United Kingdom is expected to make slow economic progress, with growth rising from 0.1% last year to 0.5% in 2024 and 1.5% next year.

In the developing world, India is expected to continue outgrowing China, though the expansion in the world’s fifth-largest economy will slow, from 7.8% last year to 6.8% this year and 6.5% in 2025.

The IMF foresees a steady but slow acceleration of growth in sub-Saharan Africa — from 3.4% last year to 3.8% in 2024 to 4.1% next year.

In Latin America, the economies of Brazil and Mexico are expected to decelerate through 2025. Brazil is likely to be hobbled by interest high rates and Mexico by government budget cuts.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden’s latest plan for student loan cancellation is moving forward as a proposed regulation, offering him a fresh chance to deliver on a campaign promise and energize young voters ahead of the November election.

The Education Department on Tuesday filed paperwork for a new regulation that would deliver the cancellation that Biden announced last week. It still has to go through a 30-day public comment period and another review before it can be finalized.

It’s a more targeted proposal than the one the U.S. Supreme Court struck down last year. The new plan uses a different legal basis and seeks to cancel or reduce loans for more than 25 million Americans.

Conservative opponents, who see it as an unfair burden for taxpayers who didn’t attend college, have threatened to challenge it in court.

The Democratic president highlighted the the plan during a trip to Wisconsin last week, saying it would provide “life-changing” relief. He laid out five categories of people who would be eligible for help.

The new paperwork filed by the Education Department includes four of those categories, while a separate proposal will be filed later addressing how people facing various kinds of hardship can get relief.

The broadest forgiveness category would help borrowers who owe more than they originally borrowed because of runaway interest. It would eliminate up to $20,000 in interest for anyone in that situation, while those with annual incomes below $120,000 and enrolled in income-driven repayment plans would get all their interest erased with no maximum limit. It would be done automatically.

Another category would cancel loans for people who have been paying back their undergraduate student loans for at least 20 years, and those who have been paying graduate loans at last 25 years.

It would automatically cancel loans for those who went to colleges or programs considered to have low financial value. Borrowers would be eligible for cancellation if they attended a program that leave graduates with earnings no better than those with a high school diploma, for example, or programs that leave graduates with large shares of debt compared with their incomes.

Borrowers who are eligible for other federal forgiveness programs but haven’t applied would also get loans erased. Federal education officials would use existing data to identify those people and offer relief. It’s intended to reach those who don’t know about other programs or have been deterred by complicated application processes.

The proposal was hashed out over the course of several hearings as part of a federal rules process that gathers advice from outside experts. The plan was drafted with the help of students, college officials, state officials, borrower advocates and loan servicers.

During that process, advocates pushed for a fifth category of forgiveness for people who have different kinds of hardship that prevent them from being able to repay their loans. The Education Department said it’s still working on the details of that rule, with a separate proposal to come “in the coming months.”

The department said the hardship proposal will offer cancellation to borrowers who are at high risk of defaulting on their loans along with those who face other hardships, including high medical and caregiving expenses. That proposal will mirror one agreed upon by outside experts during the rulemaking process, the agency said.

It usually takes months for a proposed rule to be finalized, and months more before it can take effect. The Biden administration said it plans to start implementing some parts of the new proposal as soon as this fall, using the education secretary’s authority to implement rules early in certain cases.

Republicans are staunchly opposed to any broad student loan cancellation, saying it’s an unfair bailout for people who went to college. Two coalitions of Republican states have sued the Biden administration to block a separate repayment plan that offers an accelerated path to loan forgiveness.

The White House says it’s confident the new plan is on solid legal ground, saying the Higher Education Act gives the education secretary the power to waive student loans in certain cases.

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The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find the AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with China’s defense minister on Tuesday, the first engagement the two have had in over a year as the two countries seek to restore military ties.

The phone call comes as U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping have sought to manage tensions and after the two leaders last year resumed direct military talks.

In a readout after the call, the Pentagon said Austin “underscored the importance of respect for high seas freedom of navigation guaranteed under international law, especially in the South China Sea.”

An escalating diplomatic row and recent maritime run-ins between China and the Philippines, a U.S. treaty ally, have made the highly strategic South China Sea a potential flashpoint between Washington and Beijing.

Prior to the November meeting between Biden and Xi, relations between the superpowers had become increasingly acrimonious, with friction over issues from Taiwan to China’s military activity in the South China Sea.

In October, the U.S. military said Chinese military aircraft had carried out risky or reckless maneuvers close to U.S. aircraft nearly 200 times since 2021.

Since then, the United States’ top military general has spoken with his Chinese counterpart.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali; editing by Susan Heavey and Franklin Paul)

By Andrea Shalal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Tuesday said stronger-than-expected U.S. economic growth had helped power the global economy, and Washington was working to mitigate remaining risks to the global outlook and ensure sustainable long-term growth.

In remarks prepared for a news conference, Yellen said the U.S. labor market was remarkably healthy and inflation was down significantly from its peak, although there was more work to do.

She said she expected the U.S. economy to continue to underpin the global economy, but acknowledged that the global recovery had been uneven and risks remained. “From the start of the administration, President (Joe) Biden has made clear that American isolationism was over,” Yellen said. “So while we expect that America’s economic strength will continue to underpin global growth, we’ve also been engaging with the world to mitigate short-term risks and support sustainable long-term growth.”

That work will continue at this week’s spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, where Yellen will meet with officials from China, South Korea, Japan, Britain and many other countries.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

By Bernard Orr and Ethan Wang

BEIJING (Reuters) – U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director Kathi Vidal said on Tuesday that intellectual property rights (IPR) continue to be a main concern for U.S. businesses in China, and they face significant challenges with infringement.

“Whether it’s insufficient deterrence for infringement, challenges to pharmaceutical related patents, or the misappropriation of trade secrets, intellectual property rights protection and enforcement remain a key issue of concern in the U.S.-China bilateral relationship,” Vidal said at an event with attendees from the U.S. business community and legal fields in Beijing.

Vidal said the issue harms U.S. firms and workers, and that it is a concern not just held by U.S. companies, but by other nations as well.

She called recent policy shifts, including reduced transparency across the board, “troubling”.

“What we’ve heard is that we need to create a fair, non discriminatory, and transparent IP environment for all.”

In a recent blog post addressing the issue, Vidal said U.S. businesses operating in China regularly cite insufficient protection and enforcement of IP as a top concern, and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has placed China on its “priority watch” list for over a decade, detailing a long list of IP concerns reported by U.S. businesses operating in China.

“We continue to work with our (Chinese) counterparts on higher penalties for infringement. We’ve seen that most recently and some of the laws that have been passed, but we heard today that although there is the availability of higher penalties, you’re not seeing that play out in action yet,” Vidal said.

On Monday, she met with Chinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang, where she said the United States attaches importance to the development of intellectual property cooperation with China, and is willing to strengthen dialogue, according to Chinese state media.

Ding said China wants to expand practical cooperation with the United States on intellectual property rights, address each other’s concerns, and foster a fair, just and non-discriminatory business environment.

(Reporting by Bernard Orr and Ethan Wang; Additonal reporting by Xiaoyu Yin; Editing by Jason Neely and Mark Potter)

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. single-family homebuilding tumbled in March, and while new construction remains underpinned by a severe shortage of previously owned houses for sale, a resurgence in mortgage rates is pushing potential buyers to the sidelines.

The report from the Commerce Department on Tuesday also showed permits for future construction of single-family houses fell to a five-month low. Residential investment rebounded in the second half of 2023 after contracting for nine straight quarters, the longest such stretch since the housing market collapse in 2006. But the recovery appears to be losing steam.

“The housing recovery has stalled for now as home builder expectations of sharply lower interest rates this year have faded,” said Christopher Rupkey, chief economist at FWDBONDS. “One thing is for certain, and that is home prices are going to be on an upward, more unaffordable trend without more supply.”

Single-family housing starts, which account for the bulk of homebuilding, dropped 12.4% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.022 million units last month, the Commerce Department’s Census Bureau said. Data for February was revised higher to show single-family starts rebounding to a rate of 1.167 million units instead of the previously reported 1.129 million units.

Single-family home building increased 21.2% on a year-on-year basis in March. The latest government data showed there were 757,000 housing units on the market in the fourth quarter, well below the 1.145 million units before the COVID-19 pandemic.

A survey from the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) on Monday showed confidence among single-family home builders was unchanged at an eight-month high in April. The NAHB said “buyers are hesitating until they can better gauge where interest rates are headed.”

The average rate on the popular 30-year fixed-rate mortgage has drifted up towards 7%, data from mortgage finance agency Freddie Mac showed, as strong reports on the labor market and inflation suggested the Federal Reserve could delay an anticipated rate cut this year. A few economists doubt that the U.S. central bank will lower borrowing costs in 2024.

The Fed has kept its policy rate in the 5.25%-5.50% range since July. It has raised the benchmark overnight interest rate by 525 basis points since March of 2022.

HOUSING COMPLETIONS DECLINE

Single-family homebuilding dropped in the Northeast, Midwest and the densely populated South, but rose in the West.

Starts for housing projects with five units or more plunged 20.8% to a rate of 290,000 units. Overall housing starts plummeted 14.7%, the biggest drop since April 2020, to a rate of 1.321 million units in March. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast starts would fall to a rate 1.487 million units.

Permits for future construction of single-family homes fell 5.7% to a rate of 973,000 units in March, the lowest level since last October. Multi-family building permits were unchanged at a rate of 433,000 units.

Building permits as a whole dropped 4.3% to a rate of 1.458 million units, the lowest level since last July.

The number of houses approved for construction that were yet to be started rose 0.7% to 273,000 units in March. The single-family homebuilding backlog was unchanged at 141,000 units. The completions rate for that housing segment declined 10.5% to 947,000 units.

Overall housing completions decreased 13.5% to a rate of 1.469 million units. Realtors estimate that housing starts and completion rates need to be in a range of 1.5 million to 1.6 million units per month over time to bridge the inventory gap.

The number of housing units under construction slipped 0.9%to a rate of 1.646 million units. The inventory of single-family housing under construction increased 0.3% to a rate of 689,000 units. The stock of multi-family housing under construction dropped 1.8% to 940,000 units.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Paul Simao)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden’s administration will help 50 countries identify and respond to infectious diseases, with the goal of preventing pandemics like the COVID-19 outbreak that suddenly halted normal life around the globe in 2020.

U.S. government officials will work with the countries to develop better testing, surveillance, communication and preparedness for such outbreaks in those countries, according to a senior Biden administration official who briefed reporters Monday about the program on the condition of anonymity. The official did not share a list of countries that will participate in the program.

The announcement comes as countries have struggled to meet a worldwide accord on responses to future pandemics. Four years after the coronavirus pandemic, the prospects of a pandemic treaty signed by all 194 of the World Health Organization’s members are flailing.

The U.S. program will rely on several government agencies — including the U.S. State Department, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Health and Human Services and the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID — to help countries refine their infectious disease response.

Congo is one country where work has already begun, the official told reporters. The U.S. government is helping Congo with its response to an mpox virus outbreak, including with immunizations. Mpox, a virus that’s in the same family as the one that causes smallpox, creates painful skin lesions. Last year, the World Health Organization declared mpox a global emergency, with more than 91,000 cases spanning across 100 countries to date.

The White House on Tuesday is releasing a website with the names of the countries that are participating in the program. Biden officials are seeking to get 100 countries signed onto the program by the end of the year.

The U.S. has devoting billions of dollars to the effort. Biden, a Democrat, is asking for $1.2 billion for global health safety efforts in his yearly budget proposal to Congress.

AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — A series of gun safety bills introduced after the deadliest shooting in Maine history appears to be headed toward final passage as the state Legislature races to wrap up its session this week.

The House followed the Senate on Monday in approving the governor’s omnibus gun safety bill that strengthens the state’s yellow flag law, boosts background checks for private sales of guns and makes it a crime to recklessly sell a gun to a prohibited person. The bill also funds violence prevention initiatives and opens a mental health crisis receiving center in Lewiston.

More votes are necessary in the Democratic-controlled Legislature before it adjourns Wednesday. The House also will be voting on two bills approved by the Senate: waiting periods for gun purchases and a ban on bump stocks.

One bill that failed was a proposal to let gun violence victims sue weapon manufacturers. And so far, neither chamber has voted on a proposal for a red flag law that allows family members to petition a judge to remove guns from someone who’s in a psychiatric crisis. That proposal differs from the state’s current yellow flag law that puts police in the lead of the process.

Meanwhile, another measure sponsored by House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross to fund a range of mental health and violence prevention initiatives awaits money in the final budget.

The state has a strong hunting tradition and an active lobby aimed at protecting gun owner rights. Maine voters rejected universal background checks for firearm purchases in 2016.

The Oct. 25 shooting that killed 18 people and injured 13 others in Lewiston prompted lawmakers to act, saying constituents were demanding that they do something that could prevent future attacks.

Police were warned by family members of the shooter, an Army reservist who died by suicide, that he was becoming paranoid and losing his grip on reality before the attack. He was hospitalized last summer while training with his Army Reserve unit, and his best friend, a fellow reservist, warned that the man was going “to snap and do a mass shooting.”

(Reuters) -Trump Media & Technology Group is planning to roll out a live TV streaming platform in phases, the Truth Social-parent said on Tuesday after six months of testing.

The company would launch Truth Social’s content delivery network for streaming live TV on the app for Android, iOS and Web in the first phase.

It plans to release the streaming apps for TV in the final third phase, the company said, without disclosing a timeline.

Shares of former U.S. president Donald Trump’s social media company had slumped 18% on Monday, after the company said it could sell millions of shares in coming months, including the former president’s entire stake.

(Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden returns to his childhood hometown of Scranton on Tuesday to open three straight days of campaigning in Pennsylvania, capitalizing on the opportunity to work the battleground state while Donald Trump spends the week in a New York City courtroom for his first criminal trial.

The Democratic president plans to use Scranton, a working class city of roughly 75,000 people, as the backdrop for his pitch for higher taxes on the rich. At the same, he will portray Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee and a billionaire himself, as a tool of wealthy interests.

It’s all aimed at reframing the conversation around the economy, which has left many Americans feeling sour about their financial situations at a time of stubborn inflation and elevated interest rates despite low unemployment.

Biden plans to spend Tuesday night in Scranton before continuing to Pittsburgh on Wednesday morning. He then goes back to the White House, only to return to Pennsylvania on Thursday, this time visiting Philadelphia.

By the time the week is over, Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris will have visited the state eight times this year, reflecting its importance to Biden’s hopes for a second term.

“It’s hard to draw paths to Biden winning the White House that don’t involve Pennsylvania,” said Daniel Hopkins, a political science professor at the University of Pennsylvania. No Democrat has become president without winning the state since Harry Truman in 1948.

Scranton, the president’s first destination, will blend the personal and the political for Biden. He grew up in a three-story colonial home in the Green Ridge neighborhood until his father struggled to find work and moved the family to Delaware when the future president was 10.

Although Delaware eventually became the launching pad for Biden’s political career, he often returned to Scranton and grounded his autobiography in the city. He visited so often, he was sometimes called “Pennsylvania’s third senator.”

In 2020, Biden described the presidential campaign as “Scranton versus Park Avenue,” and his reelection team is framing this year’s race in a similar way.

“You’ve got Joe Biden, who sees the world from the kitchen table where he grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Donald Trump, who sees the world from his country club down in Mar-a-Lago,” said Michael Tyler, the campaign’s communications director.

Christopher Borick, director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion, described Scranton as a “mythical place in political culture,” and it will provide a test for Biden’s political appeal.

“It’s an area that, on paper, aligns perfectly with the populist gains of the Republican Party during the Trump era,” Borick said.

However, Biden won the city and the surrounding county in 2020. If he’s able to carry Scranton and similar places again this year, as well as limit Trump’s winning margins in rural areas, Biden may be able to secure another victory in Pennsylvania.

“Everything is on the margin. Everything that we talk about are small shifts,” Borick said.

Biden’s pitch on taxes is a key part of his effort to blunt Trump’s populist allure.

When Trump was president, he signed into law a series of tax breaks in 2017 that disproportionately benefit the rich. Many of the cuts expire at the end of 2025, and Biden wants to keep a majority of them to fulfill his promise that no one earning less than $400,000 will pay more taxes.

However, he also wants to raise $4.9 trillion in revenue over 10 years with higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations. His platform includes a “billionaire’s tax,” which would set a minimum rate of 25% on the income of the richest Americans.

Biden’s travels in Pennsylvania overlap with the start of Trump’s first criminal trial, presenting an opportunity and a challenge for the president’s campaign.

Trump is defending himself against criminal charges for a scheme to suppress allegations of affairs with a porn actress and a Playboy model. Biden’s team has quietly embraced the contrast of the former president sequestered in a courtroom while the current president has free rein to focus on economic issues that are top of mind for voters.

However, the juxtaposition becomes less helpful if Trump soaks up the country’s attention during the first-ever criminal trial of a former president.

Biden campaign officials said they weren’t worried about the trial.

“No matter where Donald Trump is, whether it’s in Mar-a-Lago or a courtroom or anywhere else, he’ll be focused on himself, his toxic agenda, his campaign of revenge and retribution,” Tyler said. “That’s going to be a continuation of the contrast the American people have been able to see since this campaign began.”

Sam DeMarco, chair of the Republican Party in Allegheny County, where Pittsburgh is located, said Democrats’ message is that “the economy is good, we’re just not smart enough to realize it.”

However, DeMarco said, “across the board, it costs more to live today than it did when Joe Biden came to office.”

“These are the things that families feel,” he said. “And a scripted appearance by the president is not going to change that.”

Trump was last in Pennsylvania on Saturday night in Schnecksville, where he described Biden as a “demented tyrant” and blamed him for all of the country’s problems, in addition to his own legal woes.

“All of America knows that the real blame for this nightmare lies with one person, Crooked Joe Biden,” Trump said.

He attacked Biden’s tax plans, falsely claiming that “they’re going to raise your taxes by four times.”

Trump also went on an extended riff about the Civil War battle in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, calling it “so vicious and horrible, and so beautiful in so many different ways,” and suggesting that the Confederate General Robert E. Lee is “no longer in favor.”

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Associated Press writers Josh Boak and Will Weissert contributed to this report.