CNBC News

Rising Democratic star and 2020 presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg sat down with CNBC’s John Harwood for an extensive interview. Here is their exchange on Buttigieg’s attempt to make the big leap from serving as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, to becoming president of the United States. John Harwood: You’re 37 years old. You’re a mayor of a small town. It would be a very large jump to become president. It’s a big jump for anybody…

Rising Democratic star and 2020 presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg sat down with CNBC’s John Harwood on Monday for an extensive interview. Here is their exchange on how Buttigieg views the turmoil in the administration of President Donald Trump. John Harwood: Yesterday, the Homeland Security secretary resigned abruptly. This morning, we learned that the director of the Secret Service has been fired by the president. We have an acting White House chief of staff, and acting…

In the sprawling 2020 Democratic field, Pete Buttigieg may be the unlikeliest serious contender of all. He’s just 37 years old. He’s the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, a city of barely more than 100,000 people. If elected, he would become the youngest president in American history, and the first to be openly gay. Yet Buttigieg has a remarkably broad range of experiences and talents. After graduating from Harvard, he became a Rhodes scholar. He…

Surging oil prices and monsoon fears are driving up the risk of higher inflation in India, experts warn — even as the central bank appears poised to cut rates further, adding more pressure to increasing prices. “The best situation would be persistent low inflation rate, which is behind us. Inflation rate has already bottomed and is expected to go higher in the period ahead,” said Prakash Sakpal, Asia economist at Dutch bank ING. “Food and…

Russia and the U.S. must find a way to resolve their differences on the international stage in order to improve the overall health of the global economy, Russia’s finance minister told CNBC on Thursday. His comments come amid a long series of provocations and flare-ups between Moscow and Washington in recent years, whose relations are seen by many as at their worst since the Cold War. Last month, U.S. Attorney General William Barr said in…

The President Donald Trump administration announced its plan this week to officially designate Iran’s military unit, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO), effective April 15. The unprecedented move garnered swift reaction from critics as well as the Iranian government, which subsequently labeled the U.S. a terrorism supporter and Centcom, U.S. Central Command, a terrorist group. By definition, terrorists are non-state actors — so this designation for a foreign government’s…

The world was mesmerized this week by the first-ever image of a black hole, captured by a network of eight linked telescopes known as the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration. But in the days since, attention has turned to a second image: That of the 29-year-old woman who made it all possible. Computer scientist Dr. Katie Bouman has been credited with leading the creation of an algorithm that successfully photographed the halo of dust and…

For many foreign tourists visiting the U.S., checking out at the register feels like a trip back in time. Inserting cards, entering pin codes and signing receipts are a thing of the past in countries that have embraced contactless payments. The world’s biggest economy, however, is just starting to catch on to the trend. An estimated 3% of cards in force in the U.S. are contactless, according to a study published in 2018 by consultancy…

China’s exports for the month of March came in much higher than expected, while its imports came in much lower than expected, according to customs data released on Friday. Dollar-denominated exports rose 14.2 percent for March from a year ago, topping expectations of a 7.3 percent rise from a year ago, according to a Reuters poll. But dollar-denominated imports were down 7.6 percent in March from a year ago, falling short of expectations of a…

The U.S. Federal Reserve has switched from a stance that was “too hawkish” at the end of last year to “too dovish” presently, according to Mohamed El-Erian, Allianz’s chief economic advisor. While such a drastic swing is not expected to hit the U.S. economy in a big way, it has contributed to greater volatility in financial markets globally, he told CNBC’s “Capital Connection” on Friday. El-Erian is widely followed for his views on the world…