Editor's Note: Some linked articles may be behind subscription paywalls.
1. US violates ceasefire with Iran
Less than 24 hours after the United States and Iran agreed to a two week, 10-point ceasefire proposal, Iranian leaders say the U.S. has violated the agreement, CNBC reports.
Iran's parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said in a social media post that the U.S. had broken three parts of the agreement. Those three points include "Israel’s continued attacks on Lebanon, the entry of a drone into Iranian airspace, and the denial of the Islamic Republic’s right to enrich uranium," the news outlet reports.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance said "ceasefires are always messy" and downplayed Iran's claims.
Oil prices dropped significantly upon the ceasefire announcement, but they rose again on Thursday, the Associated Press reports. Benchmark U.S. crude oil rose 5.4% to $99.44 a barrel and Brent crude rose 4.1% to $98.70 a barrel.
2. How war has affected the Federal Reserve
Last month, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell called the progress toward its inflation goal of 2% "frustrating." The war in the Middle East has made it even more unlikely that the Fed will cut interest rates in the near future despite growing pressure to do so, the New York Times reports.
Core inflation eased in February, but is expected to spike in March's numbers due to rising oil prices.
“If a policymaker comes and tells you a story every six months about why they didn’t achieve the inflation goal, I think they start to lose credibility with the public,” said James Bullard, dean of Purdue’s business school and former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
3. Renovation primes Omni Parker House for summer events
The Omni Parker House in Boston, which opened in 1855, completed a renovation last year that pays homage to its past while setting the stage for what's to come, CoStar News Hotels' Natalie Harms reports.
"Despite this $65 million extraordinary renovation, it's not a modern hotel," said House Historian Susan Wilson, who's been the historian for the hotel since 2012. "It has all the modern amenities, but you feel like you're walking into the 19th century — a really nice version of the 19th century — but the balance that both are there simultaneously, the modern and the historic are all beautifully melded together."
The completion of the renovation came at the perfect time, as Boston will play host to seven World Cup matches this summer and serve as one of the U.S. markets with the most to gain from America's 250th anniversary celebrations.
4. Global travelers rethinking visit to US
Long wait times at airports and growing anti-American sentiment are leading to global travelers reconsidering their plans to visit the U.S. ahead of what was anticipated to be a massive summer for tourism with the 2026 FIFA World Cup and America's 250th anniversary, the BBC reports.
"In a normal year, any one of those milestones would give the American travel industry reason to celebrate. Instead, the nation is contending with a mix of bad perception and unpopular policy that saw its 2025 tourism decline by 5.4%, even as the rest of the world grew its international tourism by 4%, according to the World Tourism Barometer," the news outlet reports.
5. US weekly jobless claims up
U.S. unemployment claims were up 16,000 to a seasonally adjusted 219,000 for the week ending April 4, Reuters reports. Economists were projecting 210,000 claims for the week.
"Low layoffs are anchoring the labor market, and so far there is no indication that employers have responded to the oil price shock from the U.S.-Israel war with Iran by reducing headcount," the news outlet reports.