Dave Mattingly

The financial technology company Block says it's cutting 40 percent of its workforce.

CEO Jack Dorsey says the company is laying off 4,000 of its 10,000 employees and will reconfigure its business to rely more on artificial intelligence.

The job cuts were announced as Block reported higher quarterly earnings compared to the same period a year ago.

Block provides payment processing as well as personal finance.

Dorsey was the co-founder of the social media platform Twitter, now known as X. Wall Street futures are on the downside this morning.

I'm Dave Mattingly in Washington.

Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Dave Mattingly.

President Trump highlighted the U.S.

economy and lower prices in last night's State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress.

NPR's Deepa Shivaram says the president spoke for nearly two hours and declared the State of the Union to be strong.

The annual rate of inflation in the economy eased to 2.4 percent in January compared to 3 percent when Trump took office a year ago.

Still, it remains above the Federal Reserve's annual target of 2 percent.

Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger gave the Democratic response to the president's State of the Union speech.

She was critical of Trump's handling of the U.S.

economy and immigration enforcement.

NPR's Claudia Grisales says Democratic Senator Alex Padilla of California delivered the party's Spanish language response.

Congress has failed to pass legislation designed to improve airline safety and prevent mid-air collisions.

The bill required aircraft flying around busy airports in the U.S.

to have a locator system that provides data about the locations of other aircraft.

The legislation fell just shy of the two-thirds needed for passage in the House yesterday.