Heritage, desire and diplomacy: why China still values scotch whisky 
Intermittent fasting doesn’t have an edge for weight loss, but might still work for some 
Amazon’s Ring wanted to track your pets. It revealed the future of surveillance 
Self-driving cars are poorly prepared for high-risk road situations – here’s how AI can improve them 
According to preliminary projections, the U.S. economy grew at a slow 1.4% annualized pace in Q4 2025—far below Wall Street's consensus expectation of 3.0% and a sharp decline from robust 4.4% in Q3. Sharp decreases in government expenditure and exports, compounded by the federal government shutdown, which lowered headline growth by around 1 percentage point, were mostly to blame. While core PCE inflation dropped somewhat to 2.7% (from 2.9%), still comfortably over the Fed's 2% target but pointing at continuing disinflationary pressure, personal consumption expenditures (PCE) prices increased 2.9% (up from 2.8% previous).
Consumer spending, which represents roughly 68% of GDP, increased at 2.4% (adding 1.58 percentage points to growth); goods spending declined somewhat (-0.01 pp), but gains in health care (+0.63 pp) and other services (+0.34 pp) kept it going. Driven by equipment (+0.17 pp) and intellectual property products (+0.40 pp), fixed investment increased to 3.3% (+0.45 pp contribution); meanwhile, inventories added a small +0.21 pp. Partially counteracting the -0.90 pp drag from government spending and -0.10 pp from net exports, a decrease in imports offered a little beneficial boost (+0.18 pp).
Though the cooling core PCE favors arguments for Federal Reserve rate reductions under the incoming Trump administration, the faint print emphasizes financial obstacles continuing into Q1 2026 as a result of shutdown consequences. At 2.2%, full-year 2025 GDP growth fell from 2.8% the preceding year, indicating a significant drop in momentum in the last quarter amid political instability and foreign influences.
