Giles Snyder

The decision to leave the Fed's key rate at about 3.6 percent after lowering it three times last year was widely expected, with Powell citing an improving economic outlook.

Powell's term as Fed chair comes to an end in May.

He did not say whether he intends to remain as a Fed governor.

This is NPR.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is leading a delegation on a visit to China where he met Wednesday with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Starmer is the first British leader to travel to China since 2018.

Starmer's visit follows that of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.

Carney drew tariff threats from President Trump after he signed an economic deal with Beijing.

Home Depot is open.

Amazon is cutting about 16,000 jobs in the latest round of tech industry layoffs.

The layoffs were announced in a blog post Wednesday.

They affect nearly 10 percent of Amazon's corporate workforce.

Amazon laid off some 14,000 workers in October.

Meanwhile, Facebook parent company Meta posted stronger than expected fourth quarter results Wednesday.

This is NPR News.

I wonder how a grocery store works.

I'm Jesse Thorne.

Everyone's kind of wondered something like that, right?

Including my guest, Susan Orlean.

And she didn't just wonder.