A bill that would allow Tennessee Department of Tourism to keep mega-event contracts hidden for up to 10 years headed to the desk of Gov. Bill Lee this week, where it’s expected to be signed.
The department currently has $25 million in a mega-event fund to use to lure events such as a push to hold the 2028, 2029 or 2030 Super Bowl to the new Nissan Stadium.
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The Minneapolis City Council voted to delay the enforcement date for new minimum compensation standards for drivers with transportation network companies such as Uber and Lyft. Pending approval from Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, the minimum compensation standards would go into effect on July 1.
In March, the Minneapolis City Council authorized an ordinance which mandates that a driver for Uber or Lyft must be paid $1.40 for every mile driven while transporting a rider, and $0.51 for every minute a rider is being transported, or $5.00 (whichever is greater). The per mile and per minute rates would be annually adjusted under the ordinance.
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Electricity prices have experienced a significant rise since the beginning of the Biden administration, rising more than seven times faster than under the entire Trump administration.
The average price of electricity has increased by 29.4% since January 2021 as of March, far greater than the preceding four years under the Trump administration, when electricity prices increased by only 4.0%, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The jump in electricity prices accompanies a number of policies from the Biden administration that have curbed energy production, such as a regulation from the Environmental Protection Agency that requires that existing coal-fired power plants cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2040.
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Many investors are diversifying their portfolios from standard stocks and bonds as March’s inflation surge casts doubt on economy-boosting rate cuts from the Federal Reserve happening this year, according to Reuters.
The consumer price index increased to 3.5 percent year-over-year in March, up from 3.2 percent in February and far from the Fed’s 2 percent target. Markets prior to March’s inflation report anticipated a few rate cuts this year, leading investors to buy up stock in anticipation that markets would rise when cuts materialize, but the increasing possibility that the Fed will not cut rates this year has led investors to switch up their market strategy, according to Reuters.
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The U.S. federal government has borrowed about $6 billion per day so far this fiscal year with little indication of slowing down.
The U.S. Treasury Department released its figures for the month of March showing it borrowed $236 billion in March alone, bringing the total to $1.1 trillion for this fiscal year, which runs from October to September.
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Bernie Moreno, the Republican nominee in the Ohio U.S. Senate race, used Wednesday’s inflation report to call out his opponent, incumbent U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), and President Joe Biden for their economic policies that are “crushing Ohio workers.”
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Inflation jumped year-over-year in March amid speculation over whether the rate of inflation is really decelerating, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics release on Wednesday.
The consumer price index (CPI), a broad measure of the price of everyday goods, increased 3.5 percent on an annual basis in March and 0.4 percent month-over-month, compared to 3.2 percent in February year-over-year, according to the BLS. Core CPI, which excludes the volatile categories of energy and food, remained high, rising 3.8 percent year-over-year in March, compared to 3.8 percent in February.
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The reopening of a three-mile section of Route 611 through the Delaware Water Gap – shut down since December 2022 due to rockslides – has been complicated by a combination of nature and red tape.
In the meantime, area residents pay tolls multiple times a day along a detour that crosses into New Jersey and business owners struggle to keep their doors open.
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While the discussion continues following the collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, several opportunities to improve operations and processes have emerged.
Officials at Georgia’s and South Carolina’s ports have vowed to help however they can.
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The economy looms large in the minds of most people and not simply because it is an election year. It affects us directly. We spend a lot of our waking hours at work, and our jobs are often connected to the welfare of families and children. With everything being more expensive, getting a toe hold on mere middle-class status is harder now than it was for older generations. Many people are slipping down a rung or three.
In addition to long-term trends like the decline of manufacturing and the cut-throat financialization of corporate America, unique recent events loom large. COVID lockdowns, soon followed by the government money giveaway—PPP loans, augmented unemployment benefits, rent relief, and other stimulus plans—disrupted our routines and affected the entire economy. While these measures likely prevented a deep recession, the shutdowns ruined a lot of businesses, and the various stimulus funds ended up unleashing inflation.
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Norfolk Southern Corporation on Tuesday announced it reached a $600 million settlement in a class action lawsuit brought in response to the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.
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More cities have hit the $1 million mark amid rising home prices, especially in California.
A year ago, real estate marketplace Zillow found 491 cities where the typical home value was $1 million or more. That number grew to 550 cities this year, according to Zillow.
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School districts across the country are laying off teachers, citing high inflationary costs, budget deficits, and federal COVID-era funding running out after receiving windfalls in federal subsidies for three years.
The federal COVID-era subsidies were funded through ESSER (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief) grants administered by state education agencies. Financed through the CARES Act and supplemental appropriations, the grant funding expires Sept. 30.
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Like a bad penny, the UAW keeps popping up in Chattanooga, trying to stand in the way of a healthy relationship between workers and Volkswagen (VW). In two consecutive union campaigns, in 2014 and again in 2019, the UAW failed to gain the confidence of workers. Unfortunately, they’re at it again, rushing to scoop up workers at the Volkswagen plant.
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The number of Americans working part-time jobs surged in March, while full-time jobs declined slightly, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released Friday.
There were 28,632,000 people with part-time jobs in March, 691,000 more than in February, when there were 27,941,000, according to the BLS. In that same period, the number of people employed in full-time positions dropped by 6,000, from 132,946,000 to 132,940,000.
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One-third of small-business owners say increased crime is cutting into their earnings, and 7 in 10 grade President Joe Biden’s performance negatively in terms of helping small businesses, a new poll finds.
Pollsters John McLaughlin and Scott Rasmussen conducted the survey, along with the Job Creators Network Foundation in March, among 400 small-business owners. When asked about their sentiments regarding the state of the economy, 46% of small-business owners said the economy is getting worse, while just 27% said it’s getting better.
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Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares celebrated a victory on Friday after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) halted the enforcement of its new climate changes rules for publicly traded businesses that were imposed by the Biden administration.
The coalition of 25 attorneys general originally sued the Biden administration to block SEC rule changes that require publicly listed businesses report what the government considers climate change risks. A press release from the attorney general notes companies would be forced to “release a plan to adapt to climate agenda recommendations” under the proposed rules.
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I am weary of hearing the trope that we need more illegal aliens because “Americans won’t work those jobs.” My bet is that most Americans share this sentiment as well.
Amidst a myriad of concerns about illegal immigration, one prominent worry among Americans is the potential adverse effects on the U.S. workforce. There is apprehension that undocumented migrants could potentially displace native-born workers, leading to job loss and further exacerbating the nation’s tax burden. The media and the left love to dismiss such considerations as fearful, xenophobic, and bigoted, arguing instead that alien workers fill a vital gap in the American workforce. But these concerns, nevertheless, are valid.
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A new study finds that natural gas is the most effective energy source meeting growing energy demands affordably and reliably, while balancing environmental and human impact.
The “Grading the Grid” study by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a pro-free market nonprofit, and Northwood University rates natural gas, coal, petroleum, nuclear, hydroelectric, wind, solar and geothermal generation sources on their reliability, environmental and human impact, cost, innovation and market feasibility.
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A major real estate company released a survey on Friday which found that renters and homeowners are significantly reducing their quality of life to afford housing under President Joe Biden.
Nearly one in five homeowners and renters reported skipping meals to afford housing in Biden’s economy, according to a new survey conducted by Redfin. The median asking rental price increased from less than $1,700 when Biden took office in January 2021 to nearly $2,000 as of February, according to Redfin’s data.
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The U.S. added 303,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in March as the unemployment rate ticked down to 3.8%, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data released Friday.
Economists anticipated that the country would add 200,000 jobs in March compared to the 275,000 jobs that were added in initial estimates for February, and that the unemployment rate would remain unchanged at 3.9%, according to Reuters. The job gains are in spite of persistent layoffs that reached a 14-month peak in March at 90,309.
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Looking under the hood of today’s jobs report shows it isn’t the home run that Democrats and the media claim.
Approximately half of the 303,000 jobs created last month came in the unproductive government or quasi-government healthcare sectors. These are not the types of jobs that drive growth and improve Americans’ living standards.
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Ford announced Thursday that it is delaying the rollout of two new all-electric vehicle models. Once the facility is operational, one of them will be manufactured at BlueOval City at the Memphis Regional Megasite in West Tennessee.
The company said it plans to begin customer deliveries of its new all-electric pickup truck model made at BlueOval City in 2026 – one year after the original anticipated delivery date.
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The number of people laid off from American companies reached the highest point since January 2023, according to data from outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.
American employers cut 90,309 employees in March, 7 percent higher than the 84,638 employees laid off in February and higher than the 82,307 positions cut in January, according to a report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. The layoffs are in contrast to seemingly strong job gains, which totaled 275,000 in February, while the unemployment rate ticked up to 3.9 percent.
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Get married, have children, buy a house, and live comfortably on a single income. Not very long ago, that path was the reality, the norm, for the great American middle class.
But America has gone backward in this regard, and struggling citizens know it all too well. Experiencing the kinds of lives enjoyed by our parents and grandparents has become impossible for most Americans, leading to widespread disenchantment and a palpable loss of patriotism and confidence in America.
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Growth in sales for electric vehicles (EV) slowed in the first quarter of the year as consumers remained wary of the product even though growth in sales of new vehicles remained strong, leading to a drop in EV market share, according to The Associated Press.
Sales for new vehicles grew 5 percent in the first three months of the year, but EV sales grew only 2.7 percent as more consumers chose traditional vehicles due to cost and product concerns, according to the AP. The average sales price declined 3.6 percent year-over-year to $44,186 in March as dealers looked to offload built-up inventory.
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The national average cost of a gallon of gas at the pump jumped by 20 cents over the past month, according to AAA.
Currently, Americans are paying about $3.55 per gallon on average, up from about $3.35 a month ago, according to AAA’s data. Goldman Sachs, one of the largest financial institutions in the U.S., has recently cautioned that prices could surge above $4 per gallon by May, according to Yahoo Finance.
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Home rental service Airbnb said in a Tuesday release that it brought in more than $425 million in tourism taxes to the state of Tennessee since 2018.
According to the company, $130 million of that tax revenue was remitted in 2023 alone.
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The Biden administration’s well-funded push to build out a national network of electric vehicle (EV) chargers has so far resulted in only a handful of installations, according to The Washington Post.
The bipartisan infrastructure bill of 2021 allotted $7.5 billion to subsidize thousands of EV chargers to help the administration’s goal of having EVs constitute 50 percent of all new cars sold in 2030, but only seven stations in total have been built in four states to date, according to the Post. The slow rollout of the EV charger funding is unfolding as the Biden administration has recently issued stringent emissions standards for light-, medium- and heavy-duty vehicles that will result in significant increases of EV sales for all three classes of vehicle.
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State and federal officials are awaiting President Joe Biden’s disaster declaration to help recovery from tornadoes and severe storms that impacted 11 counties in mid-March.
Gov. Mike DeWine, along with Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown and Republican Sen. J.D. Vance, wrote asking for a FEMA presidential disaster declaration to open federal aid for those impacted not already reimbursed by other government programs or private insurance.
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All fast-food employees, regardless of age, will see a $20 an hour minimum wage in California, while the federal minimum wage is between $4.25 and $7.25, depending on age and length of time working.
California fast-food chains are laying off workers, raising prices and deciding against opening new stores as the state implements a minimum wage that is more than 175 percent higher than that required by the federal government.
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AT&T said that personal data from 73 million current and former users was leaked on the dark web and the phone giant has already reset the passcodes of millions of current customers who were impacted.
The data set, which appears to be from 2019 or earlier, was released on the dark web about two weeks ago, AT&T said Saturday.
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The current cost of a median-priced home has now reached a rate of increase that is twice as high as the increase in the average American household income.
As the Daily Caller reports, the median monthly home payment for the month of February was $2,838, a 12% year-over-year increase. Meanwhile, the median household income is currently at $84,072, an increase of just 6% compared to last year. While the average income rate has roughly been on par with the cost of a new home for the last decade, the drastic change began in early 2022, when the average household income needed for a new home hit its current median of $113,520 a year.
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Ohio’s job market remained neutral in February, better than falling like the national figures, according to analysts.
The new numbers from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services bucked a trend of rising unemployment in the state that covered six months.
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Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell claimed on Thursday that his transit referendum will include plans for approximately 600 new traffic signals, and that new technology will be used to streamline the flow of vehicle traffic in the Music City.
O’Connell addressed Nashville drivers in a series of posts to the social media platform X, writing, “one of the most important elements” to his “transportation improvement program” involves “how it improves how everyone moves, including people driving.”
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The company in charge of operating and staffing the doomed vessel that destroyed the Francis Scott Key Bridge in a major crash earlier this week was heavily focused on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
The Dali, the 948-foot vessel was managed by the Singapore-based Synergy Marine Group.
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Virginia is beginning to experience some of the impacts from the cargo ship crash that brought down Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, closing a vital shipping lane leading to one of the eastern seaboard’s busiest ports.
Shortly after on Thursday, Gov. Glenn Youngkin offered to assist neighboring Maryland. Within hours, the commonwealth’s ports were already preparing to absorb some of the diverted shipping traffic.
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Georgia Lt. Governor Burt Jones on Tuesday celebrated the passage of legislation he championed to restrict property tax increases and offer property owners a chance to appeal decisions about how much they pay.
Jones said in a statement that HB 581, the Save Our Homes Act, “limits increases in property taxes years to year, reforms the appeals process, and allows for more transparency in our taxation procedures.”
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Over 10 years, the city of Detroit went from the nation’s largest municipal bankruptcy to investment-grade status.
Moody’s Investors Services gave Detroit a rare two-notch bond rating increase from Ba1 to Baa2 with a positive outlook, returning Motor City to investment-grade status for the first time since 2009.
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Despite the likely feeling most Ohioans have about taxes, they could feel better knowing they have one of the nation’s highest returns on their tax dollars, according to a new report.
The personal finance website WalletHub ranked the Buckeye State fifth in the country in terms of taxpayer return on investment after analyzing state and local tax collections with the quality of services residents receive in each state using 29 different metrics.
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New orders for manufactured durable goods, which serve as an indicator for longer-term investments from businesses and consumers, had a huge downward revision for January, following similar revisions seen in jobs data.
Orders for durable goods increased 1.4 percent in February to $277.9 billion, but January’s gains were revised down to -6.9 percent from an initial estimate of -6.1 percent, taking a huge chunk out of previously reported gains, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. The revisions for durable goods orders mirror revisions in employment figures, which have repeatedly reported high growth figures that are later revised down, most recently being revised down for January by 124,000 while job growth for February was reported as 275,000.
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A container ship slammed into a Baltimore bridge early Tuesday, causing it to collapse and send vehicles and road crew members into a river in what authorities declared “a dire emergency.”
The incident occurred at about 1:30 a.m. on the Francis Scott Key Bridge, prompting an emergency search-and-rescue operation in the frigid waters of the Patapsco River.
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Likely voters are focused on inflation and price increases, illegal immigration and the economy as incumbent President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump prepared for a rematch of 2020 in November.
The Center Square Voters’ Voice Poll, conducted in conjunction with Noble Predictive Insights, found that given a range of options to identify their top concerns, likely voters said inflation/price increases (45 percent), illegal immigration (44 percent) and the economy/jobs (24 percent) were the issues that matter most to them.
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A group of 21 state financial officers on Monday urged the Department of the Treasury to terminate the IRS’s Direct File pilot program, contending that its shortcomings were likely to lead to problems for filers, cause needless confusion, and result in lost state revenues.
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Electric-vehicle startup Fisker may file for bankruptcy as the declining pace of consumer demand weighs upon the struggling company.
In a March 15 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company warned investors that “Fisker did not make a required interest payment of approximately $8.4 million payable in cash on March 15, 2024 (the “Interest Payment”) with respect to Fisker’s unsecured 2.50% convertible notes” and that “the Company has a 30-day grace period to make the Interest Payment.”
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Democrats in the Virginia General Assembly are reportedly working on plans to build a new facility for the Washington Capitals and Wizards in Fairfax County after the defeat of proposed legislation to build the arena in Alexandria.
Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell (D-Fairfax) pitched a plan to use the money from a new casino in Fairfax County to build an arena, according to The Washington Post. Surovell’s plan reportedly has the support of the company seeking to build the casino, as well as political consultant Ben Tribbett, who the outlet reported also works for Senator L. Louise Lucas (D-Portsmouth).
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Georgia’s February unemployment rate remained unchanged from the revised January rate, labor officials said Thursday.
State officials said the Peach State’s 3.1% unemployment rate is below the national rate of 3.9%. Last week, state officials said Georgia’s January unemployment rate dropped to 3.1%, the first drop in more than a year after holding at 3.2% in 2023.
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Just four of 17 members in Congress from Ohio opposed the $1.2 trillion spending bill given to taxpayers as law early Saturday.
Republican Sen. J.D. Vance and Republican Reps. Troy Balderson, Warren Davidson and Jim Jordan all said no in votes cast over Friday and early Saturday morning. Six House Republicans from Ohio cast a vote for the legislation.
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The House Judiciary Committee has opened an inquiry to whether the IRS is using artificial intelligence to invade Americans’ financial privacy after an agency employee was captured in an undercover tape suggesting there was a widespread surveillance operation underway that might not be constitutional.
Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo., sent a letter last week to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen demanding documents, and answers as to how the agency is currently employing artificial intelligence to comb through bank records to look for possible tax cheats.
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Existing home sales increased 9.5% in February to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.38 million, marking the largest monthly increase since February 2023, but overall sales declined 3.3% from the previous year, according to the National Association of Realtors.
Total existing home sales – completed transactions that include single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops – jumped 9.5% from January to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.38 million in February. Year-over-year, sales slid 3.3% (down from 4.53 million in February 2023).
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