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“I APPRECIATE everything that you’ve done,” Judge Jonathan Svetkey told a team of defence lawyers at a recent Night Court arraignment in Manhattan. The lawyers had asked for their client to be released under supervision. They had been working on getting mental-health services and a bed for the night. The judge was sceptical the defendant would accompany them to a shelter. “What if he says, ‘I’m going the other way?’ What are you going to do?” He set bail for $5,000. Judge Svetkey moved on; Night Court usually must handle 70-90 cases a shift.
By day, Manhattan’s Criminal Court is a bustling building. Long queues snake through the metal detectors at the entrance. Lawyers, jurors, defendants and police fill the corridors. But come 5pm, the building clears out, except for two courtrooms, which remain open until 1am to handle arraignments.
Night Court has been around a long time, and without it, New York City’s criminal courts would be even more badly backlogged than they already are. These days, however, late shifts in courts also reflect a national effort to use alternative hours to improve efficiency and engender public trust in the justice system.
To aid rule-breaking drivers who hold down day jobs, many Californian counties offer late hours for traffic court, from 5pm-7.30pm. Forced online by covid, courts around the country continue to hold virtual hearings. Getting to court might be unsafe if someone needs a protection order against a violent partner, so Cook County, which includes Chicago, offers remote proceedings from 9pm until 3am on weekdays, as well as on weekend afternoons. Alternative hours can be used to increase participation, among other benefits, says Danielle Hirsch of the National Centre for State Courts, a non-profit group that promotes court innovations.
Swamped by criminal defendants, New York embraced alternative hours before it was a cause of better-government types. Until 2003, Manhattan’s arraignment court was open 24 hours a day. A third session known as the “lobster shift” ran from 1am until 9am. But during the 1990s, Gotham became one of the safest big cities in America. Fewer arrests meant fewer arraignments. More recently district attorneys have stopped prosecuting marijuana-possession cases, which used to jam up arraignment court. But the remaining shift of Night Court remains busy most nights.
Arrests related to domestic-violence are rising. The influx of migrants has put a strain on the city’s social and judicial services. More migrants are appearing before a criminal-court judge, often for shoplifting necessities such as nappies or stealing something to sell on. A few face charges for more serious crimes such as assault.
New York City law requires, with some exceptions, that defendants appear before a judge within 24 hours of arrest. It would be difficult to meet this goal without Night Court. The arraignment process is no different from during the day. The prosecutor presents the charges and requests that the defendant post bail, be released under supervision or be remanded to jail. Perhaps because it is night, however, some of the emotions seem heightened and many of the defendants can look fragile. Shelter and other services are not as readily available at a late hour, which can be especially worrying on cold winter nights.
Late-night feelings
As in day court, many defendants have mental-health issues and some suffer from drug addiction. Most are poor. Some do not have coats. One former Legal Aid Society lawyer says she had to run out to a 24-hour pharmacy to buy shoes for a client. Taramanie Sukhu, an arraignment supervisor, often shares food.
Ed McCarthy, of Legal Aid, has been working Night Court for more than two decades. He says there is not always a social worker available in the evening or on weekends. (Court is in session seven days and nights each week in New York City.) Defendants can languish at Rikers Island, the city’s largest and most notorious jail, Mr McCarthy says, “only because there’s nobody to offer a programme or a way of giving judges reasons to release you.”
Aubrey Fox of New York City Criminal Justice Agency, a charity supporting pre-trial defendants, says that an infrastructure to promote release instead of detention does function quietly in the background. For every person held at Rikers, nine are released into the community. Many are candidates for treatment and other social services. About 85% make all their court dates. “That gives judges more confidence that if they release someone they will be taken care of,” Mr Fox says.
Night Court is one place where this triage begins. The public gallery tends to be quiet, except for the occasional family member. One family drove from Michigan when a close relative was arrested. The late-shift courtrooms also attract tourists. Kathrin Kolvenbach, a trainee lawyer from Germany, said she had heard about it from a guidebook. She was there to learn about America’s court system. Others are there to gawk, looking for gritty entertainment. Tourists give Night Court tips to each other on Tripadvisor, a travel website. One defence lawyer said seeing tourists, who tend to be white Europeans, leaves a bad taste in her mouth and unsettles her clients, who are mostly African-American or Hispanic.
Krystal Rodriguez, policy head of the Data Collaborative for Justice at John Jay College, says arraignments both night and day are a “snapshot of how the criminal-justice system becomes the unfortunate repository for all these other social issues that outside of the criminal legal system we haven’t been able to address”. Many Americans learned about Night Court from an eponymous sitcom that ran from 1984 until 1992. It was recently rebooted and is not very funny. There are few laughs in the real one either. ■
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Customers shop for fresh fruits and vegetables in a supermarket in Munich, Germany, on March 8, 2025.
Michael Nguyen | Nurphoto | Getty Images
German inflation came in at a lower-than-expected 2.3% in March, preliminary data from the country’s statistics office Destatis showed Monday.
It compares to February’s 2.6% print, which was revised lower from a preliminary reading, and a poll of Reuters economists who had been expecting inflation to come in at 2.4% The print is harmonized across the euro area for comparability.
On a monthly basis, harmonized inflation rose 0.4%. Core inflation, which excludes food and energy costs, came in at 2.5%, below February’s 2.7% reading.
Meanwhile services inflation, which had long been sticky, also eased to 3.4% in March, from 3.8% in the previous month.
The data comes at a critical time for the German economy as U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs loom and fiscal and economic policy shifts at home could be imminent.
Trade is a key pillar for the German economy, making it more vulnerable to the uncertainty and quickly changing developments currently dominating global trade policy. A slew of levies from the U.S. are set to come into force this week, including 25% tariffs on imported cars — a sector that is key to Germany’s economy. The country’s political leaders and car industry heavyweights have slammed Trump’s plans.
Meanwhile Germany’s political parties are working to establish a new coalition government following the results of the February 2025 federal election. Negotiations are underway between the Christian Democratic Union, alongside its sister party the Christian Social Union, and the Social Democratic Union.
While various points of contention appear to remain between the parties, their talks have already yielded some results. Earlier this month, Germany’s lawmakers voted in favor of a major fiscal package, which included amendments to long-standing debt rules to allow for higher defense spending and a 500-billion-euro ($541 billion) infrastructure fund.
This is a breaking news story, please check back for updates.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media aboard Air Force One before landing in West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., March 28, 2025.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
Policy uncertainty and new sweeping tariffs from the Trump administration are combining to create a stagflationary outlook for the U.S. economy in the latest CNBC Rapid Update.
The Rapid Update, averaging forecasts from 14 economists for GDP and inflation, sees first quarter growth registering an anemic 0.3% compared with the 2.3% reported in the fourth quarter of 2024. It would be the weakest growth since 2022 as the economy emerged from the pandemic.
Core PCE inflation, meanwhile, the Fed’s preferred inflation indicator, will remain stuck at around 2.9% for most of the year before resuming its decline in the fourth quarter.
Behind the dour GDP forecasts is new evidence that the decline in consumer and business sentiment is showing up in real economic activity. The Commerce Department on Friday reported that real, or inflation-adjusted consumer spending in February rose just 0.1%, after a decline of -0.6% in January. Action Economics dropped its outlook for spending growth to just 0.2% in this quarter from 4% in the fourth quarter.
“Signs of slowing in hard activity data are becoming more convincing, following an earlier worsening in sentiment,” wrote Barclays over the weekend.
Another factor: a surge of imports (which subtract from GDP) that appear to have poured into the U.S. ahead of tariffs.
The good news is the import effect should abate and only two of the 12 economists surveyed see negative growth in Q1. None forecast consecutive quarters of economic contraction. Oxford Economics, which has the lowest Q1 estimate at -1.6%, expects a continued drag from imports but sees second quarter GDP rebounding to 1.9%, because those imports will eventually end up boosting growth when they are counted in inventory or sales measures.
Recession risks rising
On average, most economists forecast a gradual rebound, with second quarter GDP averaging 1.4%, third quarter at 1.6% and the final quarter of the year rising to 2%.
The danger is an economy with anemic growth of just 0.3% could easily slip into negative territory. And, with new tariffs set to come this week, not everyone is so sure about a rebound.
“While our baseline doesn’t show a decline in real GDP, given the mounting global trade war and DOGE cuts to jobs and funding, there is a good chance GDP will decline in the first and even the second quarters of this year,” said Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics. “And a recession will be likely if the president doesn’t begin backtracking on the tariffs by the third quarter.”
Moody’s looks for anemic Q1 growth of just 0.4% that rebounds to 1.6% by year end, which is still modestly below trend.
Stubborn inflation will complicate the Fed’s ability to respond to flagging growth. Core PCE is expected at 2.8% this quarter, rising to 3% next quarter and staying roughly at that level until in drops to 2.6% a year from now.
While the market looks to be banking on rate cuts, the Fed could find them difficult to justify until inflation begins falling more convincingly at the end of the year.
U.S. President Donald Trump announces that his administration has reached a deal with elite law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom during a swearing-in ceremony in the Oval Office at the White House on March 28, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Andrew Harnik | Getty Images
With decision day looming this week for President Donald Trump’s latest round of tariffs, Goldman Sachs expects aggressive duties from the White House to raise inflation and unemployment and drag economic growth to a near-standstill.
The investment bank now expects that tariff rates will jump 15 percentage points, its previous “risk-case” scenario that now appears more likely when Trump announces reciprocal tariffs on Wednesday. However, Goldman did note that product and country exclusions eventually will pull that increase down to 9 percentage points.
When the new trade moves are enacted, the Goldman economic team led by head of global investment research Jan Hatzius sees a broad, negative impact on the economy.
In a note published on Sunday, the firm said “we continue to believe the risk from April 2 tariffs is greater than many market participants have previously assumed.”
Inflation above goal
On inflation, the firm sees its preferred core measure, excluding food and energy prices, to hit 3.5% in 2025, a 0.5 percentage point increase from the prior forecast and well above the Federal Reserve’s 2% goal.
That in turn will come with weak economic growth: Just a 0.2% annualized growth rate in the first quarter and 1% for the full year when measured from the fourth quarter of 2024 to Q4 of 2025, down 0.5 percentage point from the prior forecast. In addition, the Wall Street firm now sees unemployment hitting 4.5%, a 0.3 percentage point raise from the previous forecast.
Taken together, Goldman now expects a 35% chance of recession in the next 12 months, up from 20% in the prior outlook.
The forecast paints a growing chance of a stagflation economy, with low growth and high inflation. The last time the U.S. saw stagflation was in the late 1970s and early ’80s. Back then, the Paul Volcker-led Fed dramatically raised interest rates, sending the economy into recession as the central bank chose fighting inflation over supporting economic growth.
Three rate cuts
Goldman’s economists do not see that being the case this time. In fact, the firm now expects the Fed to cut its benchmark rate three times this year, assuming quarter percentage point increments, up from a previous projection of two rate cuts.
“We have pulled the lone 2026 cut in our Fed forecast forward into 2025 and now expect three consecutive cuts this year in July, September, and November, which would leave our terminal rate forecast unchanged at 3.5%-3.75%,” the Goldman economists said, referring to the fed funds rate, down from 4.25% to 4.50% today.
Though the extent of the latest tariffs is still not known, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that Trump is pushing his team toward more aggressive levies that could mean an across-the-board hit of 20% to U.S. trading partners.
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