Annual inflation rates increased last month.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released its latest Consumer Price Index, a key marker of inflation, which showed that consumer prices rose 0.3% in November, part of a 2.7% increase over the last year.
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The unemployment rate in the U.S. ticked upwards to 4.2 percent in November, with 161,000 additional Americans saying they are unemployed in the latest household survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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by Allie Hinchman Taft, TENNESSEE – Time Wellness Tennessee has officially opened its state-of-the-art residential treatment facility in Taft. Designed to offer a structured and supportive environment, the center provides comprehensive care for individuals seeking recovery and personal growth. Since its launch earlier this year, the facility has begun accepting clients, marking a significant step forward in providing innovative, client-focused treatment solutions in the region. Time Wellness Tennessee’s Comprehensive Approach to Recovery Time Wellness Tennessee’s residential treatment facility offers a unique approach to recovery by combining compassionate care, structured support, and innovative therapies. Designed to provide a safe and personalized environment, the center focuses on helping clients achieve lasting recovery through evidence-based methods and holistic practices. 24/7 Medical Care and Support Around-the-clock medical care forms the backbone of recovery at Time Wellness Tennessee. Clients benefit from constant access to skilled professionals who address their physical and emotional needs. The medical team works closely with each individual to guide them through every stage of recovery, helping them stay on track and build confidence in their progress. Having medical support available day and night gives clients peace of mind. It also allows them to focus fully on their recovery journey without…
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The average American household credit card balance as of the third quarter of 2024 was about $10,757 after adjusting for inflation, according to a new study.
The personal-finance website WalletHub on Friday released its new Credit Card Debt Study, which found that consumers added $21 billion in debt during the third quarter of 2024.
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Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr urged those nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to lead the Department of Labor (DOL) and Department of Agriculture (DOA) to reconsider the decision by the Biden-Harris administration to raise the minimum wage for foreign farm labor in a Friday letter.
After congratulating Lori Chavez-DeRemer and Brooke Rollins on their nominations, Carr urged them to address “the continuously rising” wages the government mandates for temporary farm workers allowed to enter the United States through the H-2A visa program, which allows qualified foreign workers to fill agricultural roles.
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Proposition 479 is no longer facing a lawsuit after the Maricopa County Republican Committee scrapped their case.
The committee was suing the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors for certifying the results in the race as a victory for the half-cent sales tax for transportation uses, as the group argued that it did not meet a 60% threshold necessary for a tax to take effect. Proposition 479 passed with 59.8% support of voters in the county – the largest in the state.
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The Labor Department reported Friday the number of new jobs in the U.S. economy increased in November, compared to the previous month, while the unemployment rate increased slightly to the annualize rate of 4.2%
The economy in November added 227,000 new, non-farm jobs, compared to 36,000 in October, according to the department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. The November number exceeded Wall Street expectations of 214,000 new jobs.
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Eli Lilly and Company announced plans for a $3 billion expansion of the Kenosha facility that it bought in April.
The expansion will be used to expand the medical supply company’s injectable manufacturing for diabetes, obesity and future medicines.
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Republicans in the Tennessee General Assembly filed legislation this week that would abolish the sales tax on groceries in the state, and in a press release explain their legislation would maintain current funding for schools while avoiding tax increases for business owners.
House Bill 21, submitted by State Representative Elaine Davis (R-Knoxville) on Thursday, would prohibit sales taxes from being levied on food and food ingredients in Tennessee, while simultaneously requiring the General Assembly to allocate “an amount substantially equal to the amount that would have been allocated” based on the 0.5 percent of revenue from taxing groceries that is earmarked for schools. Groceries are currently taxed at 4 percent in Tennessee.
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Job creation in November bounced back, with 227,000 jobs created, after coming to a standstill in October.
This solid jobs report is due to one factor: President Trump’s reelection. The Republican victory has renewed confidence among Main Street job creators. The tough economic times of the Biden-Harris administration are ending, and the strong Trump economy is returning.
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by J.V. Caro China’s infiltration into agricultural IoT (Internet of Things) networks represents a critical yet underexplored dimension of its global technological strategy. Through key players such as Huawei and Alibaba Cloud, Beijing has embedded IoT technologies into agricultural systems in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. These initiatives, often framed as development partnerships aimed at improving food production and supply chain resilience, concurrently enable the collection of extensive agricultural and environmental data with profound strategic and geopolitical implications. Agricultural IoT systems are revolutionizing farming practices by collecting real-time, high-resolution data on variables such as soil moisture, nutrient levels, weather conditions, pest infestations, irrigation patterns, crop growth rates, and logistical movements. Chinese companies like Huawei and Alibaba are at the forefront of this technological advancement, designing platforms that support precision agriculture through the integration of advanced sensors, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence to optimize farm management. In Kenya, Huawei has actively collaborated with local partners and the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization to implement smart farming solutions aimed at enhancing agricultural productivity and sustainability. By deploying IoT sensors that monitor critical agricultural parameters and transmitting this data to cloud platforms where AI algorithms provide actionable insights, farmers have reportedly…
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by Jacob Grandstaff Chinese-owned NewsBreak provides the Chinese Communist Party the ability to highlight chaos and amplify conspiracies and discord among Americans through its news content and comment sections. The app boasts 50 million monthly users and became the top-ranked app in the News category on Google Play in 2021. NewsBreak claims to fill the gap created by the loss of tens of thousands of newsroom jobs and the closing of most countywide newspapers, but this overnight success comes with shoddy and subversive tactics to gain unfair market advantages and influence in the U.S. The real goal of the CCP-owned app is more subversive. Users can click on a “local” tab in the app that aggregates local news from over 10,000 sources, including national media outlets, local TV stations, local blogs, and independent contributors. Jeff Zheng, former head of Yahoo Labs in Beijing, founded NewsBreak in Mountain View, California in 2015. Zheng is a Chinese citizen with permanent residency in the U.S. He started the company as a subsidiary of the popular Chinese news aggregation app Yidian Zixun, which he co-founded with a former Baidu executive. Yidian accustomed hundreds of millions of Chinese news consumers to follow machine-recommended articles rather than human-curated content, success Zheng sought to replicate in the U.S.…
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With the construction of the Ultium Cells LLC battery cell plant in Lansing nearly finished, General Motors announced it will sell back its stake to its joint venture partner LG Energy Solution.
According to a news release, the transaction does not change GM’s ownership interest in the Ultium Cells LLC project, in which GM and LG have invested a total of $7 billion U.S. taxpayer dollars, sourced from a Department of Energy loan program.
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State officials hope Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger’s retirement will not impact the chip manufacturer’s $20 billion plan for central Ohio.
While Gelsinger officially retired after 40 years with the company and stepped down from the board of directors, several national media outlets reported he was forced out by the board as the chipmaker has struggled in the past several months.
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A Biden administration appointee agreed to a new contract with a government employee union that will allow tens of thousands of bureaucrats to work remotely for years ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House, according to Bloomberg News.
Recently-departed Social Security Administration (SSA) Commissioner Martin O’Malley signed off on a new deal last week with the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) — which represents about 42,000 SSA employees — that will extend remote work availability into 2029, according to Bloomberg News. The incoming Trump administration and the newly-minted Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), are poised to target work-from-home policies for government employees as part of a broader push to rein in the federal government and eliminate bureaucratic bloat.
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A semiconductor manufacturer announced Monday it will close its Tempe, Arizona factory in September of next year. The announcement came less than one year after the Biden-Harris administration announced $162 million in incentives to convince the company to expand its facilities in other states.
Microchip Technology Inc. announced in a Monday quarterly call that the company would shut down its semiconductor manufacturing facility in Tempe, which will reportedly impact about 500 employees, as a cost-saving measure as executives instead look to the company’s facilities in Colorado and Oregon.
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Virginia State Senator Glen Sturtevant (R-Midlothian) revealed on Saturday he intends to file legislation that would prohibit institutional buyers, like hedge funds and private equity groups, from purchasing single-family homes in the commonwealth.
In posts to the social media platform X, Sturtevant noted that Redfin found in August that one in six homes in the United States are purchased from such institutional buyers, and revealed that the figure increased to 11 percent of home purchases in Virginia Beach and 9 percent in Washington, D.C.
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The State of Texas has been a leader in the pushback against environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies, passing some of the first anti-ESG laws in the country. Last week, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton moved to protect the coal industry from what Paxton says is an effort on the part of large investment firms to not only shrink coal companies — but also unfairly profit from them.
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A Delaware judge upheld an earlier decision Monday requiring Tesla to cancel Elon Musk’s multibillion-dollar compensation package.
Delaware Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick dismissed a motion from Musk and Tesla’s board members to overturn her previous mandate that rescinded Musk’s lucrative deal. McCormick also denied a request for legal fees from the plaintiff’s attorneys as they sought Tesla stock valued at over $5 billion but will receive $345 million instead.
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The Tampa Bay Rays ownership said in a letter that a $1.3 billion deal to build a new stadium in St. Petersburg is still in effect and the team is awaiting decisions by local officials on the bonds to help pay for the project.
The letter sent to the Pinellas County Commission on Friday said team Co-President “Brian Auld did not waver from our commitment to the new ballpark project” and blamed the commission for not honoring the spirit of the agreement reached in July to build a new stadium and multi-use development in the historic Gas Plant District.
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Redis announced on Monday that it is expanding its integration with Amazon Bedrock to further enhance the performance and reliability of generative AI applications. The goal, to company said, is to reduce errors such as hallucinations and improve the overall effectiveness of AI-driven solutions across various industries.
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Some U.S. steelmakers are supporting President-elect Donald Trump’s proposals to place tariffs on China, Mexico and other countries, according to The Wall Street Journal.
American steel companies are calling for Trump to reintroduce tariffs on steel from the U.K., Japan and the EU amid concerns of foreign competitors being involved in unfair market practices, according to The WSJ. Some U.S. steel executives were supportive of steel tariffs under the previous Trump administration, with some steelmakers saying the tariffs helped to boost profits, The WSJ reported.
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Workers at Amazon went to strike Black Friday demanding higher pay and better working conditions.
The strike is expected to through so-called Cyber Monday, the end of long holiday weekend in which retailer offer discounts to shopper ahead of the Christmas shopping season.
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U.S. farm industry groups are seeking an exemption from President-elect Donald Trump’s mass deportation plans once he takes office.
The groups argue that mass deportations could disrupt the nation’s food supply chain.
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The Pinellas County Commission asked the Tampa Bay Rays this week if they’re in or out when it comes to a stadium deal.
The letter from board Chairwoman Kathleen Peters gives the Major League Baseball team a Sunday deadline to decide whether the club wants to proceed with a $1.3 billion stadium deal for St. Petersburg reached in July.
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After delays and lobbying from business groups around the country, the U.S. Department of Commerce and Intel announced a deal Tuesday morning to release nearly $8 billion in direct CHIPS Act funding.
The $7.86 billion directly impacts Intel’s commercial semiconductor manufacturing and advanced manufacturing projects in Ohio, Arizona, New Mexico and Oregon.
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Governor Glenn Youngkin on Tuesday confirmed he supports President-elect Donald Trump’s plans to impose new tariffs against Mexico to compel the neighboring nation to cut the flow of fentanyl over the southern border. Youngkin argues that Trump’s plans will ignite an expansion in manufacturing for Virginia.
Youngkin reportedly confirmed his support for Trump’s tariffs during a Tuesday press conference, as he provided an update on the commonwealth’s efforts to curtail fentanyl overdoses with Attorney General Jason Miyares.
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A Federal Reserve program aimed at bolstering small and medium-sized businesses may now be financially burdening some of them, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The Fed introduced the Main Street Lending Program (MSLP) in 2020, which provided loans to small and mid-sized businesses that were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Some business owners are having difficulty affording to pay off the loans amid rising interest rates and a surge in inflation since 2020, experts told the DCNF.
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Major automobile companies are attempting to cut costs associated with electric vehicle (EV) lines and autonomous cars after spending heavily on both, according to CNBC.
Companies such as General Motors (GM), Stellantis and Ford are taking drastic measures aimed at reducing costs, such as enacting layoffs and making production cuts, according to CNBC. Automakers have invested billions of dollars into self-driving cars and EVs, with many now facing prolonged returns on their investments and slow EV adoption, CNBC reported.
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In a new move aimed at addressing the growing concerns over illegal immigration and the influx of drugs into the United States, President-elect Donald Trump announced Monday his plans to impose significant tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China. Trump’s statements, made on TruthSocial, outlined economic measures to tackle what he described as a “crisis” of crime, drugs, and illegal immigration.
Trump began by addressing the situation at the southern border, where he described an ongoing caravan of migrants traveling through Mexico.
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Tennessee political commentator and filmmaker Robby Starbuck on Monday announced that Walmart Inc. confirmed it would drop its “woke” corporate policies, including its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) program, in response to questions about its practices.
“Walmart is ending their woke policies. I can now exclusively tell you what’s changing and how it happened,” wrote Starbuck in a post to the social media platform X, revealing he contacted the company’s executives to inform them he was preparing to release a story about the corporate “wokeness” at Walmart.
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After a wild week with three negative votes, the Tampa Bay Rays are a team without a permanent home and may have played their last innings in St. Petersburg.
The Tampa Bay Rays said a deal to build a $1.3 billion stadium in St. Petersburg is dead after two of their partners decided to defer votes on bond issues to fund the taxpayer part of the deal, about $600 million.
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The average American’s energy bill could increase from 25% to 70% in the next 10 years without intervention from policymakers, according to a new study from Washington, D.C.-based think tank the Jack Kemp Foundation.
According to reports, America is facing an energy crisis, with demand for energy soaring due to the proliferation of AI and hyperscale data centers, which can use as much energy as almost 40,000 homes; the boom in advanced manufacturing, and the movement toward electrification.
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October brought Arizona’s lowest inflation rate in years with the Phoenix metro area inflation rate being 1.56% year-over-year – a decrease from 2.27% in August – according to the Common Sense Institute.
“This latest reading ends the over 2-year streak of inflation above the standard target of 2.0% annually,” reads the CSI report. “Historically, the Phoenix Metropolitan Statistical Area has experienced significant inflationary pressures, notably in June 2022, when inflation in Phoenix peaked at a record high of 13%, well above the national rate of 9.1%. This trend made Phoenix one of the fastest-inflating areas in the U.S.”
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October tax revenues were higher than last year but fell short of predictions, according to the Tennessee Department of Finance and Administration.
State collections for October were $22.6 million more than last year. The year-to-date numbers are 1.4% or $72.4 million above budget, according to the department.
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Federal pricing data released this week for consumer and producer prices shows that inflation rose last month.
Harvard professor and former economic advisor to President Barack Obama Jason Furman said the consumer data could show a “resurgence of inflation” not to the ultra high levels in recent years but to more recent elevated data.
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Dozens of investment advisors warned America’s biggest corporations Friday that their diversity programs will be a liability under the incoming Trump administration.
Americans “overwhelmingly rejected the ideological takeover of political and civic life by narrow-minded identity politics” in the Nov. 5 election, a coalition of 38 financial officers wrote in letters warning companies that the new administration will “hasten the demise of DEI.”
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Donald Trump’s win is a big victory for the American energy industry and for all Americans. The climate crazed don’t want to recognize the fact that more than 80% of the world’s energy comes from fossil fuels – coal, oil, and natural gas. They don’t want to admit that the use of all three are at record highs and are continuing to grow. Or that a thriving economy needs reliable, affordable, and abundant energy. Because the cost of energy is built into everything that we do, consume or use, even watching Netflix.
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The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) was sued last week by a group of Arizona workers who claim the foreign company discriminated against United States citizens after the President Joe Biden successfully convinced the company to build multiple facilities near Phoenix with $6.6 billion in taxpayer funding and $5 billion in federal loans through the CHIPS Act of 2021.
According to the lawsuit filed last Friday by 13 Arizonans, which was made public Thursday, TMSC failed to address the effects of a “hostile work environment” that affects “employees who are not of East Asian race or Taiwanese or Chinese national origin.”
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The new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under the incoming Trump administration is accepting applications for individuals looking to root out unnecessary spending in government.
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A Tennessee woman is challenging a law that requires her to be a veterinarian to serve as an animal chiropractor.
Dr. Laura Colman, of Clarksville, has a doctorate in chiropractic and a certificate in animal chiropractic from the American Veterinary Chiropractic Association, according to the lawsuit filed on Colman’s behalf by the Beacon Center.
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Frank Stiner was excited when he received the invitation to Titans House in late October along with his cousin as they prepared to buy seats at the new Nissan Stadium.
They are original seat holders from the first hour tickets in Nashville went on sale, in the fifth row of the end zone, and were excited to continue that family tradition by expanding their ticket base from two to four.
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The Onion, a satirical news company mocking current events and news personalities, purchased Alex Jones’ Infowars network in a bankruptcy auction Thursday held to help pay off a nearly $1.5 billion lawsuit.
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Florida officials say 34.6 million visitors spent time in the Sunshine State in the third quarter of this year, eclipsing the previous third quarter record by 1.7% and giving the state three consecutive quarters of record growth.
That comes despite Hurricanes Debby and Helene making landfall in the quarter. Milton, in the just started fourth quarter, made it three hurricanes in 66 days.
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Inflation rose slightly in October despite a massive slowdown in job growth in the same month, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report released Wednesday.
The consumer price index (CPI), a measure of the price of everyday goods, increased 0.2% on an annual basis in October and rose 2.6% month-over-month, compared to 2.4% in September, and in line with expectations, according to the BLS. Core CPI rose 3.3% year-over-year in October, the same rate as in September.
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With the election behind us, a huge win for President Donald Trump, it is time to get serious about policy. One of Trump’s best campaign lines was: “Kamala broke it. Trump will fix it.” To be sure, the federal budget was out of whack already, but the Biden-Harris administration really broke it through massive increases in federal spending.
Time to fix it, but if Republicans go about this as they have in the past, they will surely fumble and fail.
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An economist for the University of Tennessee said the state is growing but the labor force participation rate has declined.
Dr. Don Bruce, director of the university’s Boyd Center for Economic Business and Research, told the State Funding Board at its November meeting that Tennessee employment is up by 195,000 since March 2020.
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With thoughts focused on the holiday season, small business owners in Ohio continue to struggle with finding employees.
But that’s not the only issue.
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Elections have consequences, and those consequences are dire for free market dogmatists in the Republican Party.
The tariff debate is over. President Donald Trump won, and it is not even close. Americans overwhelmingly support efforts to punish countries like China for their unfair trade practices. Even President Joe Biden, who ran blatantly misrepresenting the Trump economic record, has kept the Trump tariffs on steel and aluminum in place.
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by Ireland Owens Steven Madden said Thursday that it is accelerating plans to shift production out of China in anticipation of President-elect Donald Trump introducing increased tariffs on imported goods when he returns to office, according to Bloomberg. The New York-based retailer said in a company earnings call Thursday that it is now planning to reduce products manufactured in China by 40% within the next year, according to Bloomberg. The company had previously set a target of a 10% reduction within the next year, according to Bloomberg. “As of yesterday morning, we are putting that plan into motion,” Steve Madden CEO Edward Rosenfeld told analysts on an earnings call Thursday, Bloomberg reported. Trump beat Vice President Kamala Harris in his bid for reelection, securing 270 electoral votes by about 2 a.m. EST on Wednesday following his winning in the key battleground states of North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Georgia. The U.S. stock market soared Wednesday following the Republican’s victory. The president-elect previously proposed increasing tariffs on various imported goods, including saying in September that he would impose a 200% tariff on John Deere’s tractors if it closed an American factory and moved production outside of the U.S. to Mexico. Trump has also promised to enact policies aimed at accelerating domestic production throughout…
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