By MATT OTT, Associated Press Business Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — Filings for U.S. unemployment benefits rose to their highest level in eight months last week but remain historically low despite growing uncertainty about how tariffs could impact the broader economy.

New applications for jobless benefits rose by 8,000 to 247,000 for the week ending May 31, the Labor Department said Thursday. That’s the most since early October. Analysts had forecast 237,000 new applications.

Weekly applications for jobless benefits are considered representative of U.S. layoffs and have mostly bounced around a historically healthy range between 200,000 and 250,000 since COVID-19 throttled the economy five years ago, wiping out millions of jobs.

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In reporting their latest earnings, many companies have either lowered their sales and profit expectations for 2025 or not issued guidance at all, often citing President Donald Trump’s dizzying rollout of tariff announcements.

Though Trump has paused or dialed down many of his tariff threats, concerns remain that a tariff-induced global economic slowdown could upend what’s been a robust U.S. labor market.

In early May, the Federal Reserve held its benchmark lending rate at 4.3% for the third straight meeting after cutting it three times at the end of last year.

Fed chair Jerome Powell said the potential for both higher unemployment and inflation are elevated, an unusual combination that complicates the central bank’s dual mandate of controlling prices and keeping unemployment low. Powell said that tariffs have dampened consumer and business sentiment.

Earlier this week, the government reported that U.S. job openings rose unexpectedly in April, but other data suggested that Americans are less optimistic about the labor market.

Tuesday’s report showed that the number of Americans quitting their jobs — a sign of confidence in their prospects — fell, while layoffs ticked higher. And in another sign the job market has cooled from the hiring boom of 2021-2023, the Labor Department reported one job every unemployed person. As recently as December 2022, there were two vacancies for every jobless American.

The Labor Department’s more comprehensive monthly employment report comes out Friday, with analysts expecting that U.S. employers added a slim 130,000 jobs in May, down from 177,000 in April.

The government has estimated that the U.S. economy shrank at a 0.2% annual pace in the first quarter of 2025, a slight upgrade from its first estimate. Growth was slowed by a surge in imports as companies in the U.S. tried to bring in foreign goods before Trump’s massive tariffs went into effect.

Trump is attempting to reshape the global economy by dramatically increasing import taxes to rejuvenate the U.S. manufacturing sector. The president has also tried to drastically downsize the federal government workforce, but many of those cuts are being challenged in the courts and Congress.

In a regulatory filing early Thursday, the packaged consumer goods company Procter & Gamble said it expected to cut 7,000 jobs — about 15% of its nonmanufacturing workforce — as part of a two-year restructuring plan.

Other companies that have announced job cuts this year include Workday, Dow, CNN, Starbucks, Southwest Airlines, Microsoft and Facebook parent company Meta.

The four-week average of jobless claims, which evens out some of the week-to-week gyrations during more volatile stretches, rose by 4,500 to 235,000, the most since late October.

The total number of Americans receiving unemployment benefits for the week of May 24 inched down by 3,000 to 1.9 million.

The Landmark Center’s North Tower, which is only accessible by stairs, opened to the public on Wednesday for a rare tour — and a fabulous view of downtown St. Paul.

The self-guided “Climb to the Top” event is free, with the next event on July 2.

For more information, visit landmarkcenter.org/climb-to-the-top-north-tower.

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By HOLLY RAMER, Associated Press

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A political consultant who sent voters artificial intelligence-generated robocalls mimicking former President Joe Biden last year goes on trial Thursday in New Hampshire, where jurors may be asked to consider not just his guilt or innocence but whether the state actually held its first-in-the-nation presidential primary.

Steven Kramer, who faces decades in prison if convicted of voter suppression and impersonating a candidate, has admitted orchestrating a message sent to thousands of voters two days before the Jan. 23, 2024, primary. The message played an AI-generated voice similar to the Democratic president’s that used his phrase “What a bunch of malarkey” and suggested that voting in the primary would preclude voters from casting ballots in November.

“It’s important that you save your vote for the November election,” voters were told. “Your votes make a difference in November, not this Tuesday.”

Kramer, who owns a firm specializing in get-out-the-vote projects, has said he wasn’t trying to influence the outcome of the primary election but rather wanted to send a wake-up call about the potential dangers of AI when he paid a New Orleans magician and self-described “digital nomad” $150 to create the recording.

FILE – Paul Carpenter, a New Orleans magician, performs card tricks during an interview in New Orleans, Feb. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton, File)

“Maybe I’m a villain today, but I think in the end we get a better country and better democracy because of what I’ve done, deliberately,” Kramer told The Associated Press in February 2024.

Ahead of the trial in Belknap County Superior Court, state prosecutors sought to prevent Kramer from arguing that the primary was a meaningless straw poll because it wasn’t sanctioned by the Democratic National Committee. At Biden’s request, the DNC dislodged New Hampshire from its traditional early spot in the nominating calendar, but later dropped its threat not to seat the state’s national convention delegates. Biden did not put his name on the ballot or campaign there, but won as a write-in.

The state argued that such evidence was irrelevant and would risk confusing jurors, but Judge Elizabeth Leonard denied the motion in March, saying the DNC’s actions and Kramer’s understanding of them were relevant to his motive and intent in sending the calls. She did grant the prosecution’s request that the court accept as fact that the state held its presidential primary election as defined by law on Jan. 23, 2024. Jurors will be informed of that conclusion but won’t be required to accept it.

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Kramer faces 11 felony charges, each punishable by up to seven years in prison, alleging he attempted to prevent or deter someone from voting based on “fraudulent, deceptive, misleading or spurious grounds or information.” He also faces 11 misdemeanor charges that each carry a maximum sentence of a year in jail accusing him of falsely representing himself as a candidate by his own conduct or that of another person.

He also has been fined $6 million by the Federal Communications Commission, but it’s unclear whether he has paid it, and the FCC did not respond to a request for comment earlier this week.

The agency was developing AI-related rules when Donald Trump won the presidency, but has since shown signs of a possible shift toward loosening regulations. In April, it recommended that a telecom company be added back to an industry consortium just weeks after the agency had proposed fining the company for its role in illegal robocalls impersonating the FCC.

Half of all U.S. states have enacted legislation regulating AI deepfakes in political campaigns, according to the watchdog organization Public Citizen.

But House Republicans in Congress recently added a clause to their party’s signature “big beautiful” tax bill that would ban states and localities from regulating artificial intelligence for a decade, though it faces long odds in the Senate.

By MARY CLARE JALONICK, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Only six months into the job, Senate Majority Leader John Thune faces a massive challenge as he tries to quickly push President Donald Trump’s sprawling tax and spending cuts package to passage with the support of a divided GOP conference.

While most Republican senators are inclined to vote for the bill, Thune can stand to lose only four votes in the face of united Democratic opposition — and many more Republicans than that are critical of the version sent over by the House.

To get it done by July 4 — Trump’s deadline — Thune has to figure out how to balance the various, and sometimes conflicting, demands emerging from his members. And he has to do it in a way that doesn’t endanger Republican support in the House, which passed the legislation by only one vote last month after weeks of contentious negotiations.

It’s a complicated and risky undertaking, one that is likely to define the first year of Thune’s tenure and make or break his evolving relationship with Trump.

“This is when John’s leadership is going to be desperately needed,” said North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, one of the Republican holdouts who is pushing back on the bill’s quick phaseout of certain energy tax credits. “You can say no all you want, as long as you don’t say no to the wrong 51 people.”

Failure isn’t an option

So far, the well-liked South Dakota Republican is in a good place, both with colleagues and the White House. Thune has worked closely with Trump, despite a rockier relationship at the end of Trump’s first term. While acknowledging that the Senate will likely change the bill to address concerns about changes to Medicaid and other programs, Thune has repeatedly said that “failure is not an option.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., flanked by Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., left, to reporters following weekly policy luncheons on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, May 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

“Individual pieces of it people don’t like,” Thune said Tuesday. “But in the end, we have to succeed.”

To get there, Thune has been meeting in his office with senators to hear them out, bringing in his colleagues individually and in small groups to discuss portions of the bill. Republican senators say the outreach is a stark change from his predecessor, Mitch McConnell, who was more feared than loved and kept a tight circle of advisers.

McConnell stepped down from the leadership post in January after almost two decades amid a series of health episodes and growing criticism from senators on the right flank, who felt that he consolidated power and ignored their concerns.

“It’s very much a change,” said North Dakota Sen. Kevin Cramer. Thune has “already made a lot of people happier by the listening part,” he said.

One happier senator is Florida Sen. Rick Scott, who sparred openly with McConnell and ran against Thune to replace him. Scott, who criticizes the bill as not doing enough to cut federal spending, has also met with the new leader.

“I’d be very surprised if anybody doesn’t believe he’s receptive to their ideas,” Scott said of Thune. And when people feel heard, Scott said, “there’s a greater chance they will go along with something.”

Thune and Trump haven’t always seen eye to eye

Thune has also carefully navigated his relationship with the president, after sharply criticizing Trump in 2020 for trying to overturn his election defeat.

Trump declined to endorse Thune’s reelection bid two years later. Thune endorsed South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott over Trump in the presidential primary before eventually endorsing Trump. The two made amends in the final months of Trump’s presidential campaign and have since forged a working relationship of mutual benefit. Thune has stayed in close touch with the White House, visiting Trump several times to discuss the bill, including on Wednesday.

While the collaborative approach has won favor from Trump and colleagues who were agitating for a change, Thune has a long way to go in a short time. Passing the legislation will require hard choices, and not every demand can be met.

‘Everybody wants to work with John’

Still, Thune’s South Dakota colleague, Republican Sen. Mike Rounds, says he has already proved himself a “winner” with Trump and the conference by quickly moving the president’s Cabinet nominations through the Senate mostly without controversy. The Senate also recently blocked California air regulations that Republicans have long opposed after Thune delayed the vote for weeks to assuage procedural concerns from GOP moderates like Maine Sen. Susan Collins.

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“Everybody wants to work with John,” Rounds said. “He’s not making anybody mad right now.”

Rounds says Thune has also learned how to crack down when he needs to. Since taking power, Thune has shortened Senate vote times that were sometimes stretching for hours to just 15 minutes, in most cases. It was a hard lesson for some senators, but it won him respect from Republicans and, privately, even some Democrats.

But as they were adjusting to the change, some senators unexpectedly missed votes because of Thune’s new policy, Rounds said.

“Did he get yelled at a little bit? Yeah,” he said. “But once they got cut off once or twice, pretty soon they realized, if you want to vote, make it on time.”