What is a 'halal mortgage'? Does it make housing more accessible?
The 2024 federal budget announced on April 16 included plans to introduce “halal mortgages” as a way to increase access to home ownership.
The U.S. economy grew at a solid 3.4 per cent annual pace from October through December, the government said Thursday in an upgrade from its previous estimate. The government had previously estimated that the economy expanded at a 3.2 per cent rate last quarter.
The Commerce Department’s revised measure of the nation’s gross domestic product — the total output of goods and services — confirmed that the economy decelerated from its sizzling 4.9 per cent rate of expansion in the July-September quarter.
But last quarter's growth was still a solid performance, coming in the face of higher interest rates and powered by growing consumer spending, exports and business investment in buildings and software. It marked the sixth straight quarter in which the economy has grown at an annual rate above 2 per cent.
For all of 2023, the U.S. economy — the world's biggest — grew 2.5 per cent, up from 1.9 per cent in 2022. In the current January-March quarter, the economy is believed to be growing at a slower but still decent 2.1 per cent annual rate, according to a forecasting model issued by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
Thursday’s GDP report also suggested that inflation pressures were continuing to ease. The Federal Reserve’s favored measure of prices — called the personal consumption expenditures price index — rose at a 1.8 per cent annual rate in the fourth quarter. That was down from 2.6 per cent in the third quarter, and it was the smallest rise since 2020, when COVID-19 triggered a recession and sent prices falling.
Stripping out volatile food and energy prices, so-called core inflation amounted to 2 per cent from October through December, unchanged from the third quarter.
The economy's resilience over the past two years has repeatedly defied predictions that the ever-higher borrowing rates the Fed engineered to fight inflation would lead to waves of layoffs and probably a recession. Beginning in March 2022, the Fed jacked up its benchmark rate 11 times, to a 23-year high, making borrowing much more expensive for businesses and households.
Yet the economy has kept growing, and employers have kept hiring — at a robust average of 251,000 added jobs a month last year and 265,000 a month from December through February.
At the same time, inflation has steadily cooled: After peaking at 9.1per cent in June 2022, it has dropped to 3.2 per cent, though it remains above the Fed's 2 per cent target. The combination of sturdy growth and easing inflation has raised hopes that the Fed can manage to achieve a “soft landing” by fully conquering inflation without triggering a recession.
Thursday's report was the Commerce Department's third and final estimate of fourth-quarter GDP growth. It will release its first estimate of January-March growth on April 25.
The 2024 federal budget announced on April 16 included plans to introduce “halal mortgages” as a way to increase access to home ownership.
A recent report sheds light on Canadians living abroad--estimated at around four million people in 2016—and the public policies that impact them.
One person was killed in a six-vehicle crash on Highway 400 in Innisfil Friday evening.
Polish President Andrzej Duda says while no decision has been made around whether Poland will host nuclear weapons as part of an expansion of the NATO alliance’s nuclear sharing program, his country is willing and prepared to do so.
Ontario is now home to an invasive and toxic worm species that can grow up to three feet long and can be dangerous to small animals and pets.
Harvey Weinstein’s lawyer said Saturday that the onetime movie mogul has been hospitalized for a battery of tests after his return to New York City following an appeals court ruling nullifying his 2020 rape conviction.
It's one thing to say you like Taylor Swift and her music, but don't blame CNN's AJ Willingham's when she says she just 'doesn't get' the global phenomenon.
A number of LGBQT+2s groups in Central Alberta are pushing back against a request from the Red Deer South UCP constituency to reinstate MLA Jennifer Johnson into the UCP caucus.
Mookie Betts went 3 for 5, including a triple and an RBI single, as the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 4-2 on Saturday.
As if a 4-0 Edmonton Oilers lead in Game 1 of their playoff series with the Los Angeles Kings wasn't good enough, what was announced at Rogers Place during the next TV timeout nearly blew the roof off the downtown arena.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.
When identical twin sisters Kim and Michelle Krezonoski were invited to compete against some of the world’s most elite female runners at last week’s Boston Marathon, they were in disbelief.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”