When President Jimmy Carter died late last year, the foundation that runs Wikipedia noticed something unusual: the flood of interest in the late president created a content bottleneck, slowing load times for about an hour.
Wikipedia is built to handle spikes in traffic like this, according to the Wikimedia Foundation, but it's also dealing with a surge of bots scraping the site to train AI models, and clogging up its servers in the process, the organization’s chief product and technology officer Selena Deckelmann told Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino.
The latest GDP calculations and PCE index tell us the U.S. economy is doing … OK. Importantly, the data doesn’t point to stagflation. But the data was collected from January through March 2025, and at this point, March is old news. Also in this episode: American companies ramp up their spending on computers, Nike’s struggle to move sneaker manufacturing out of Asia is a cautionary tale and Texas becomes the biggest state to send public dollars to private schools through school choice vouchers.
The Commerce Department reported the U.S. economy contracted by 0.3% in the first quarter of this year. We’ll break down the GDP math formula and dig into what the latest report says about where the US economy may be headed. And, should businesses be transparent about the impact of tariffs on prices? A nixed plan from Amazon serves as a cautionary tale of the political risks. Plus, feeling stressed these days? Cow cuddling and bee therapy might help.
Gross domestic product shrunk 0.3% from January to March — the first growthless quarter since the pandemic recovery in early 2022. The cause? All the buying up that businesses and consumers did to beat tariff-induced price increases. We'll parse the data. Plus, Stellantis suspends 2025 guidance, Amazon backs away from transparency about the cost of tariffs, and the United Kingdom clamps down on a tax loophole for the rich.
Amazon backtracked yesterday after reporting revealed the company was planning to display how much tariffs were raising prices on individual items and the White House angrily pushed back. Other companies, including Temu and Volkswagen, are being upfront with customers about tariffs’ impact on product prices. We'll hear more. Also on the show: factory activity falls in China, and a view of the economy before Donald Trump took office and 100 days into his second term.
From the BBC World Service: New data shows China's manufacturing activity took a sharp dip in April — a sign that the ongoing trade war with the U.S. is starting to bite. Then, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to slash import duties on car parts in a short-term move to help U/S/ automakers. Plus, the U.K. is scrapping a centuries-old tax perk that lets wealthy foreigners shield their global assets.
Canada's liberal party and its leader Mark Carney are set to remain in control after the country held federal elections Monday. They were the first since Canada adopted the Online News Act in 2023, which requires online content providers — like social media platforms — to negotiate some sort of "fair" payment to news publishers in exchange for using their content. They can also do what Meta did — block news from their Facebook and Instagram platforms altogether. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Marketplace Senior Washington Correspondent Kimberly Adams, who’s been reporting on the election from Canada, to learn more about that law and what happened to the online news environment after it passed.
When new gross domestic product data comes out tomorrow, economists expect we'll see the first GDP contraction in three years. But the report is backward-looking, so if the GDP did shrink, it will be thanks to tariff-related anxiety in the first quarter, rather than actual tariff implementation that kicked off in April. Also in this episode, some workforce stories: Why hiring more FAA air traffic controllers won’t be easy, a worker navigates Wyoming’s trona mining industry and a bathtub helps us understand the labor market differential.
After declaring victory in yesterday’s Canadian election, Prime Minister Mark Carney said the “old relationship” with the United States is over. Over the past few months, President Donald Trump’s on-and-off tariffs and repeated annexation threats have caused Canadians to reconsider the United States as its leading trading partner and ally. But Patricia Goff, professor of political science at Wilfrid Laurier University, said the idea of disentangling the two economies is unrealistic. On the show today, Goff explains how Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats influenced the Canadian election, how Canadian industries are navigating the trade war, and what this all could mean for the future of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement.
Plus, we’ll hear a pitch for a new “Make Me Smart”-themed rear window sticker. And, what one psychologist got wrong about burnout.
For many in Canada, trade policy and the rhetoric of a leader south of the Canadian border were front of mind when heading to the polls. Kimberly Adams went to polling places in the province of Ontario yesterday to hear more. Today, we'll learn what Canadian voters had to say. Also: DoorDash wants to buy U.K.-based Deliveroo, and Amazon launches an effort to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink satellite system.
