WASHINGTON (AP) — The American economy, slowed by last fall's 43-day government shutdown, grew at a sluggish 0.5% annual pace from October through December, the Commerce Department reported Thursday in downgrade of its previous estimate.
U.S. gross domestic product — the nation's output of goods and services — decelerated in the fourth quarter after registering impressive growth of 4.4% from July through September and 3.8% from April through June. The latest number was marked down from the Commerce Department's previous estimate of 0.7% fourth-quarter growth.
Federal government spending and investment fell at a 16.6% annual pace because of the shutdown, lopping 1.16 percentage points off fourth-quarter GDP growth. Consumer spending expanded 1.9%, down a notch from the previous estimate and from 3.5% in the second quarter. Spending on goods — such as cars and clothing — grew just 0.3%, down from 3% in the July-September period.
For all of 2025, the economy grew 2.1% last year, slower than 2.8% in 2024 and 2.9% in 2023.
Business investment, excluding housing, increased at a 2.4% pace, likely reflecting money being poured into artificial intelligence, but the increase was down from 3.2% in the third quarter.
A category within the GDP data that measures the economy’s underlying strength weakened from October through December, growing at a 1.8% clip, down from 2.9% in the third quarter. This category includes consumer spending and private investment, but excludes volatile items like exports, inventories and government spending.
The economic outlook for this year is hazy after the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran drove up energy prices and disrupted global commerce.
America's job market slumped last year — recording the weakest hiring outside a recession since 2002 — but has been up and down so far in 2026: Employers added a healthy 160,000 jobs in January, slashed 133,000 in February, then created a surprising 178,000 in March.
Thursday's report was the Commerce Department's third and final estimate of fourth-quarter GDP. The first look at January-March economic growth is due April 30.
Gas prices are displayed at a gasoline station, Tuesday, April 7, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
NEW YORK (AP) — A former New York City police sergeant is set to be sentenced Thursday for tossing a picnic cooler full of drinks at a fleeing suspect, who then crashed his motorized scooter and died.
The ex-officer, Erik Duran, was convicted of manslaughter in the 2023 death of Eric Duprey. The former sergeant, who said he was trying to protect other officers from the approaching scooter, faces up to 15 years in prison.
The case has animated police on one hand and accountability activists on the other. Duran's union, the Sergeants Benevolent Association, says thousands of officers have signed an online petition calling for him to be spared prison.
Officers in New York Police Department jackets streamed down a Bronx courthouse hallway ahead of the sentencing Thursday, while a couple of dozen protesters demonstrated outside to demand justice for Duprey.
Duran was part of a narcotics policing group that conducted a “buy-and-bust” operation in the Bronx on Aug. 23, 2023. Police said Duprey sold drugs to an undercover officer, then tried to flee on a scooter.
Surveillance video showed Duprey driving the motorized scooter on a sidewalk toward a group of people. As he approached, the then-sergeant — who wasn't in uniform — picked up a bystander's cooler and threw it.
The container full of ice, water and sodas struck Duprey. He lost control of the scooter, slammed into a tree and crashed onto the pavement.
Duprey, 30, wasn't wearing a helmet. He sustained fatal head injuries and died almost instantly, according to prosecutors with New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office.
They argued that Duran had enough time to warn others to move but instead hurled the cooler because he was angry.
Duran, however, testified that he made a split-second decision to keep other officers safe from the scooter speeding toward them.
“He was gonna crash into us,” Duran said in court, adding that “all I had time for was to try again to stop or to try to get him to change directions.”
He testified that he immediately tried to help Duprey after seeing the crash and the extent of the man's injuries.
Duran opted to have a judge, not a jury, decide the case. Judge Guy Mitchell found him guilty, saying that his status as a police officer “has no bearing” on the case.
But Sergeants Benevolent Association President Vincent Vallelong has said the conviction sent “a terrible message to hard-working cops” about the costs of defending themselves and fellow officers.
Duran was an NYPD officer for 13 years before he was suspended after the crash. He was dismissed from the force after his conviction this past February.
Duprey worked as a delivery driver and had three young children. His mother, who said she was on a video call with him right before he died, disputed the police claims that he sold drugs and fled from officers.
A lawyer for Duprey's relatives, Jon Roberts, said Wednesday they are “hopeful that the court will do justice for Eric and the loss that the entire family has endured and hope that this marks the beginning of the healing process.”
Associated Press writer Jennifer Peltz contributed.
FILE - Gretchen Soto, the mother of Eric Duprey, speaks outside the Bronx Criminal Court in New York, Feb. 6, 2026, after New York police officer Erik Duran was convicted of manslaughter after he tossed a picnic cooler filled with drinks at a fleeing Duprey, causing him to fatally crash his motorized scooter. (AP Photo/Kena Betancur, File)
FILE - New York police officer Erik Duran, who is charged with hurling a plastic cooler at a man fleeing officers on a motorized scooter, causing a crash that killed the driver, arrives to his manslaughter trial at the Bronx Criminal Court in New York, Feb. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Kena Betancur, File)
