Speed Dating.

The depravity of the Taliban regime.

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1. Stronger-than-anticipated economic activity this year hasn’t changed the Federal Reserve’s broad expectation that declining inflation will allow for interest-rate cuts this year, Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday. Powell pointed to signs that labor-market conditions are less tight than they have been in recent years, a view that has eased concerns that paychecks and prices might rise in tandem. Meanwhile, signs of firmer-than-expected inflation in January and February haven’t shaken the Fed’s stance that price growth will continue to slow down despite some bumps, Powell said at a conference in Stanford, Calif. (Source: wsj.com)

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2. The new Wall Street Journal poll of seven swing states has plenty of bad news for President Biden, who is trailing in six of the seven most important battlegrounds of the 2024 election. More broadly, it also has one piece of potentially devastating news for the party Biden leads: The pillars that hold up the Democratic coalition are showing fractures. At this moment, under this president, the mix of Black, Latino and young voters who have been crucial to electing Democratic candidates are withholding support from Biden or shifting toward Donald Trump—a trend particularly dramatic among men. By contrast, it is hard to find a group where Biden is improving on his standing from the 2020 election. (Source: wsj.com)

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3. Gallup Poll:

Americans are less likely now than they were in 2020 to believe a number of positive personal qualities and characteristics apply to President Joe Biden. Gallup tested eight character items for each candidate in a March 1-20 poll -- six that were asked in 2020 plus “is intelligent” and “puts the country’s interests ahead of his own political interests.” The biggest decline has come in the percentage believing Biden is able to manage government effectively, but his scores are down at least six percentage points on each characteristic. Over the same period, public impressions of Donald Trump, Biden’s likely challenger in the 2024 election, haven’t changed to a statically significant degree. (Source: news.gallup.com)

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