The average rate on a 30-year mortgage in the U.S. eased for the fifth week in a row to its lowest level since late December, a welcome boost for prospective homebuyers in what’s traditionally the busiest time of the year for home sales. The average rate fell to 6.85% from 6.87% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. A year ago, it averaged 6.9%. Borrowing costs on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, popular with homeowners seeking to refinance their home loan to a lower rate, also eased this week. The average rate fell to 6.04% from 6.09% last week. A year ago, it averaged 6.29%, Freddie Mac said.

Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell is announcing on Thursday that he won’t seek reelection next year, ending a decadeslong tenure as a power broker who championed conservative causes but ultimately ceded ground to the fierce GOP populism of President Donald Trump. McConnell, the longest-serving Senate party leader in U.S. history, chose his 83rd birthday to share his decision not to run for another term in Kentucky and to retire when his current term ends. He informed The Associated Press of his decision before he was set to address colleagues in a speech on the Senate floor.

New York on Thursday sued some of the country’s biggest distributors of electronic cigarettes, accusing the companies of violating state laws that prohibit the sale of vaping flavors and designs that appeal to children. Attorney General Letitia James announced the lawsuit targeting middlemen that distribute fruit- and candy-flavored e-cigarettes like Puff Bar and Elf Bar to hundreds of convenience stories and gas stations across the state. The approach differs from past litigation by New York and other states, which targeted vaping manufacturers, such as Juul Labs.

When Russian troops rolled into Ukraine three years ago, they brought their parade uniforms with them on the push to Kyiv. President Vladimir Putin expected a quick victory. What Putin dubbed the “special military operation” has turned into Europe’s largest conflict since World War II. Tens of thousands have been killed, entire cities have been reduced to smoldering ruins, millions of Ukrainians became refugees, and Russia was isolated from the West. Now as senior Russian and U.S. officials are talking again and setting the stage for summit meeting, Putin appears closer than ever to cementing Moscow’s gains of about a fifth of Ukraine’s territory and keeping it out of NATO. President Donald Trump sharply reversed the three-year U.S.

The Jewish world has yearned and waited. We prayed and waited. We cried in sorrow and pain while we waited. Our brethren—Jewish men, women, and children—were taken into the mayim sh’ain lahem sof, the bottomless depths of serpentine tunnels and hidden chambers, unheard of, unseeable, and unreachable. The only thing within reach was our siddurim and Tehillim, and so many, many of us turned to Shomayim with hope against hope. And now, this. There is a word for this in English: crestfallen. For some of us, our religious honor as Benei Yisroel has fallen. We felt helpless before this tragic turn, and we feel isolated now. The rest of humanity—whatever term we might use to represent those who abandoned us during this time—will move on.

Although some parts of President Donald Trump ’s agenda are getting bogged down by litigation, Elon Musk ’s Department of Government Efficiency is having better luck in the courtroom. Labor unions, Democrats and federal employees have filed several lawsuits arguing that DOGE is running roughshod over privacy protections or usurping power from other branches of government. But judges appointed by Democratic and Republican presidents haven’t always gone along with those arguments, at least so far. Most notably, DOGE critics are failing to obtain temporary restraining orders that would prevent Musk’s team from accessing sensitive government databases. “It is not the job of the federal courts to police the security of the information systems in the executive branch,” wrote U.S.

Relations between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and U.S. President Donald Trump deteriorated rapidly Wednesday as Zelenskyy said Trump was living in a Russian-made “disinformation space” and Trump called Zelenskyy “a dictator without elections” in comments that were sure to complicate efforts to end the war. Zelenskyy also said he would like Trump’s team “to be more truthful” as he offered his first response to a series of striking claims that Trump made a day earlier, including falsely suggesting that Kyiv was to blame for the war, which enters its fourth year next week. The comments were a staggering back-and-forth between leaders of two countries that have been staunch allies in recent years under Trump’s predecessor.

Slightly more Americans applied for jobless benefits last week, but layoffs remained in the same recent healthy range. The number of Americans filing for jobless benefits rose by 5,000 to 219,000 for the week ending Feb. 15, the Labor Department said Thursday. Analysts projected that 215,000 new applications would be filed. Weekly applications for jobless benefits are considered a proxy for layoffs. The four-week average, which evens out some of the week-to-week volatility, fell by 1,000 to 215,250. Some analysts say they expect layoffs ordered by the Department of Government Efficiency to show up in the report in the coming weeks. Despite showing some signs of weakening during the past year, the labor market remains healthy with plentiful jobs and relatively few layoffs.

President Donald Trump said that he likes the idea of giving some of the savings from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency back to U.S. citizens as a kind of dividend. He said at an investment conference in Miami on Wednesday that the administration is considering a concept in which 20% of the savings produced by DOGE’s cost-cutting efforts goes to American citizens and another 20% goes to paying down the national debt. Trump also said the potential for dividend payments would incentivize people to report wasteful spending. “They’ll be reporting it themselves,” Trump said. “They participate in the process of saving us money.” Later, as he flew back to Washington aboard Air Force One, he was asked by a reporter about the plan floated by Musk.

The body of Oded Lifshitz, H’yd, 84, was identified at Abu Kabir on Thursday afternoon, only several hours after the bodies were received. Family members published a statement expressing their grief: “We received with deep sorrow the official and bitter news of the identification of the body of our beloved Oded. 503 tormenting days of uncertainty have come to an end. We hoped and davened that the end would be different.” The family added: “Now we can mourn the husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather who we’ve missed since 10/07. Our family rehabilitation will begin now and will not end until the return of the last hostage.” Oded was abducted along with his wife Yocheved from their home on Kibbutz Nir Oz. Yocheved was released from captivity on October 23.