Virginia hospitals and health systems were found to have provided $3.7 billion in community support and generated $62.2 billion in positive economic impact across the commonwealth in 2023, a new report shows.
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The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced Wednesday it will ban Red No. 3, a common artificial food dye linked to cancer.
The dye, which the FDA banned for cosmetics and topical drugs in 1990 after it was found to promote tumor growth in rats, is widely used in hundreds of products ranging from candies to ADHD medications. The move precedes the Senate’s decision on confirming Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an opponent of food dyes, as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
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Annual deaths are expected to exceed annual births in the United States by 2033, a new report estimates.
Population growth in the U.S. is expected to stagnate between 2025 and 2055 as fertility rates continue to decline, a report released Tuesday by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found. A predicted significant decline in illegal immigration as well as many women choosing to delay motherhood are two contributing factors.
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Job creation smashed expectations in December, as employers finished the hiring season strong, optimistic about the end of Bidenomics and the return of the Trump bump. Employers added 256,000 jobs last month, and the unemployment rate fell to 4.1%. So much for Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s weakening labor market.
It’s New Year in America again.
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Within one month of each other, six of the largest U.S. banks left the United Nations Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) not soon after Donald Trump was elected president.
Last month, Goldman Sachs was the first to withdraw from the alliance, followed by Wells Fargo, The Center Square reported.
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Consumers are right to be dissatisfied with the current state of the economy despite claims of a booming economy from U.S. officials and the media, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Consumer sentiment, meaning Americans perception of the economy, is expected to improve in December following a mid-month reading of 69.7 index points, which is far from the high under Biden of 88.3 in April 2021 and even further from the 90 to 100 range that was common during the Trump presidency, according to the University of Michigan’s Survey of Consumers. Politicians and the media have insisted that consumers are wrong to be unenthusiastic about the state of the economy, but experts told the DCNF that consumer perceptions are more in line with the true state of the country.
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President-Elect Donald Trump vowed Monday to “terminate” Joe Biden’s last minute executive orders, such as his new “permanent” ban on future offshore drilling, and other “money wasting hoaxes.”
Biden announced his latest executive action on Monday, to “permanently ban future offshore oil and gas development in parts of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans in a way that could be especially difficult for the incoming Trump administration to undo,” according to CNN.
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The upcoming week is filled with crucial economic data releases that will provide insight into the state of the U.S. economy as it transitions into 2025. A mix of labor market reports and key Fed communications will shift expectations about growth and Fed policy, resulting in large swings in the interest rates that govern consumer borrowing costs for credit cards, auto loans and mortgages.
The main event is the December jobs report, where employment gains are expected to have slowed.
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A costly dockworkers’ strike could ignite just days before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, presenting the Republican’s administration with a major domestic challenge on day one.
The International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), which represents 47,000 workers, is planning to strike on Jan. 15 after a short three-day strike in October, where the union secured a 62% pay raise over six years from United States Maritime Alliance (USMX). However, negotiations concerning port automation with shipping companies continue to stall, and industry giant Maersk said there have been no new developments, according to Bloomberg Tuesday.
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Citigroup and Bank of America announced Tuesday that they were leaving the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, Reuters reported.
Then on Thursday, Morgan Stanley announced, it, too was terminating its membership with the group, according to Bloomberg.
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U.S. mortgage rates rose to an almost six-month high toward the end of 2024, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA).
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Just before Christmas, Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum announced a significant increase in tariffs on textiles and apparel imports, along with the end of a “border-skipping” practice, which allowed U.S. e-commerce sellers to bypass tariffs on Chinese goods. The move – part of Mexico’s strategy to protect its own domestic textile industry and reduce reliance on Chinese imports – sent ripples through the global supply chain.
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The number of homeless people in the U.S. reached the highest level recorded in 2024, as more than 770,000 people lived without housing on a single night in January, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s annual report.
The number is an 18% increase from 2023, fueled in part by the surge of migrants illegally entering the U.S. and residing without housing in sanctuary cities, the report noted.
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U.S. tech giants have been sacking employees in droves while simultaneously importing tens of thousands of foreign workers.
Amazon, Google and Microsoft have laid off at least 27,000, 12,000 and 16,000 employees, respectively, since 2022. However, in that same roughly three-year period, the companies have secured at least 61,000 H-1B visas combined for foreign workers, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
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Home prices could climb 2% in 2025 and an additional 2% in 2026, according to the latest forecast from the National Association of Realtors.
The group’s economist, Lawrence Yun, projected the median U.S. home price would continue to increase in 2025, but at a slower pace compared to previous years, reaching a $410,700 median existing-home price. The median home price in November stood at $406,100.
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As 2025 approaches, America’s fiscal health is in serious trouble with a ballooning federal debt exceeding 100% of the GDP.
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Can Donald Trump reduce house prices?
A recent study by Redfin found that millions of Americans are skipping meals, selling belongings, and even delaying medical care to afford housing. Three in four Americans making less than $50,000—nearly half of Americans make less than $50,000—say they “regularly struggle” to keep a roof over their head.
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President Joe Biden is only a few weeks away from the end of his time in office, and one key part of his legacy is undeniable: inflation.
Biden has battled inflation from the start, but critics say he helped fuel it with trillions of dollars in deficit spending during his four years in office. Federal debt spending is offset in part by printing money, which increases inflation.
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The retail giant Big Lots on Thursday announced it was commencing a company-wide “going out of business” sale at all of its locations, marking another major business that went belly-up during President Joe Biden’s administration.
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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced changes on Tuesday to the H-1B program that will enhance the abilities of American companies to fill job vacancies.
The government says the new rule will “modernize” the H-1B program by simplifying the approvals process, giving employers more flexibility in retaining workers, and enhancing program oversight, according to the DHS press release.
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An ongoing drought in Brazil coupled with bad weather in Vietnam has contributed to a significant spike in the price for Arabica and Robusta coffee beans, according to reports.
Arabica beans, now selling for more than $3.44 a pound have increased more than 80% this year, and Robusta beans also hit a high in September, marking a record high for international commodity markets.
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Dollar stores are reporting softened demand and increased financial stress among their lower-income consumers, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Some businesses say their customers are spending less money toward the end of the month and more focused on purchasing from cheap store brands, according to the WSJ. Dollar General said in a December earnings call that its best-performing category in its last quarter was its “value valley” aisle, which offers $1 products, the WSJ reported.
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Meta donated $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural fund, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.
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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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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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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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Job creation in November bounced back, with 227,000 jobs created, after coming to a standstill in October.
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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…
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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 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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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.
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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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Bernard “Bernie” Marcus, who helped build The Home Depot into one of America’s most iconic brands before turning to philanthropy and conservative politics and unabashedly backing Donald Trump’s rise in politics, died Monday night at the age of 95.
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Social media’s influence is causing Gen Z’s interest in skilled trades to rise, according to a report by Thumbtack – something a trade organization co-director said is “inspiring and eye-opening.”
“55% of Gen Zers are considering a skilled trade career (up 12% from last year) – including 72% of those with a college degree,” Thumbtack’s report stated.
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The private sector hemorrhaged jobs in October while the federal government expanded its workforce to even bigger levels, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released Friday.
The U.S. economy lost 28,000 private sector jobs while the federal government added 40,000, BLS data shows. The private sector job losses come amid a disappointing jobs report overall, with the country adding just 12,000 nonfarm payroll jobs — well below the 110,o00 economists expected.
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The U.S. added 12,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in October as the unemployment rate remained unchanged, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data released Friday.
Economists expected 110,000 jobs to be added in October, far lower than the initially reported 254,000 job gain in September, and that the unemployment rate would hold steady at 4.1%. Previously reported job gains for August and September were revised down by 81,000 and 31,000, respectively, following a trend under the Biden-Harris administration of overestimating employment growth in initial estimates, with the cumulative number of new jobs reported in 2023 roughly 1.3 million less than previously thought.
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Virginia agricultural and forestry small businesses impacted by Hurricane Helene now have another place to turn for help.
Individuals and state and local governments in federally designated disaster zones can already apply to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for assistance, as the president approved a Major Disaster Declaration for the commonwealth within a week of the storm.
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The U.S. economy grew at a rate of 2.8% in the third quarter of 2024, according to Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) statistics released Wednesday.
The growth in the third quarter comes after a better-than-expected 3.0% growth rate in the second quarter of 2024, according to the BEA. Economists forecast that GDP would increase by about 3.0% in the third quarter, according to Forecast.com.
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Volkswagen (VW) said Wednesday that it needs to cut costs amid slackening consumer demand for electric vehicles (EVs) and weaker car sales in China.
VW’s profits fell 64% in the third quarter of 2024, driving the company’s share price to its lowest level since October 2010. Now, the world’s largest automaker by sales is looking to lower its expenses, with VW’s top labor leader announcing earlier this week that the company was aiming to shut at least three of its German factories, slash wages 10% and lay off thousands of employees.
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