Author: arthursheikin@gmail.com
[ad_1] Facebook Tweet Email Link The United States and China have settled into a steady state of pragmatic, if uneasy, détente. Tariffs sit at unprecedented, but not economically debilitating levels. Three rounds of bilateral talks have steadily developed and expanded, with a fourth expected this fall. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are circling an in person meeting before the end of the year. “I don’t think anyone wants to see those tariffs snap back to 84%,” US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said ahead of Trump’s decision to sign off on a 90-day extension of the trade truce…
[ad_1] Facebook Tweet Email Link The biting satire of “South Park” continues to gain momentum this summer, according to newly released ratings from Paramount. On cable, where the Comedy Central series originated 28 years ago, last Wednesday’s “South Park” was “its highest rated episode since 2018 and biggest share in series history,” the channel said. The program’s share, as determined by Nielsen, measures how many people with cable had their TV sets on and tuned to Comedy Central. Last Wednesday’s episode had a 15.61 share, meaning almost 16% of all available viewers chose “South Park,” a remarkably high total in…
[ad_1] Facebook Tweet Email Link The next batch of inflation data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics was already shaping up to be a high-profile affair due to the expected impact of President Donald Trump’s hefty tariffs. But after Trump fired the agency’s top statistician, Tuesday’s report now comes with some other, unexpected baggage. July’s Consumer Price Index is set to be released at 8:30 a.m. ET on Tuesday, just 11 days after Trump’s unprecedented firing of the head of the BLS, following a lackluster jobs report that contained substantial revisions to prior months of employment data. The president baselessly…
[ad_1] Facebook Tweet Email Link President Donald Trump on Monday nominated E.J. Antoni to be the new commissioner for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the agency that collects and publishes data about jobs and inflation, after firing the previous commissioner, whom he accused without evidence of rigging jobs data. “I am pleased to announce that I am nominating Highly Respected Economist, Dr. E.J. Antoni, as the next Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. Antoni’s nomination comes after Trump fired Dr. Erika McEntarfer earlier this month after the BLS’ monthly jobs report showed…
[ad_1] Facebook Tweet Email Link Elon Musk said his artificial intelligence start up xAI will sue Apple for allegedly favoring AI competitors in its App Store in what he called a breach of antitrust regulations. In a series of posts on X on Monday, a social media platform he owns, he accused Apple of only allowing xAI rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT to claim the top spot in its rankings for mobile applications, and said his AI company would take “immediate legal action.” “Apple is behaving in a manner that makes it impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach #1…
[ad_1] Facebook Tweet Email Link President Donald Trump has placed a massive bet that the United States can take an historically aggressive stance against China, the world’s second-largest economy, and emerge stronger because of it. Although it remains unclear if the gamble will pay off over the long term, Trump has been riding an incredible winning streak in recent months. The stock market is near record highs, the US economy rebounded in the second quarter and inflation has defied predictions of a surge after Trump put his tariffs in action. But Chinese leader Xi Jinping is on a winning streak…
[ad_1] Facebook Tweet Email Link Norway’s $2 trillion sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, said on Tuesday it expects to divest from more Israeli companies as part of its ongoing review of investments in the country over the situation in Gaza and the West Bank. The fund announced on Monday it was terminating contracts with external asset managers handling some of its Israeli investments and has divested parts of its portfolio in the country over the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The review began last week following media reports that the fund had built a stake of just over 2%…
[ad_1] Facebook Tweet Email Link Fort Collins, Colorado — In his nine years at the Fort Collins, Colorado, police department, Officer Scott Brittingham says he has taken a lot of pride in the process of writing reports after each call for service. But when the department decided to test a tool to speed things up, he was intrigued. Now, a report that might have previously taken him 45 minutes to write takes just 10 minutes. “I was a little bit skeptical, I’m not a big technology person,” Brittingham said in a March interview at the Fort Collins police station for…
[ad_1] Facebook Tweet Email Link New York — Eastman Kodak, the 133-year-old photography company, is warning investors thats it might not survive much longer. In its earnings report Monday, the company warned that it doesn’t have “committed financing or available liquidity” to pay its roughly $500 million in upcoming debt obligations. “These conditions raise substantial doubt about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern,” Kodak said in a filing. Kodak aims to conjure up cash by ceasing payments for its retirement pension plan. It also said that it doesn’t expect tariffs to have “material impacts” on its business…
[ad_1] Facebook Tweet Email Link New York — Hours before President Donald Trump fired former Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner Erika McEntarfer this month, E.J. Antoni appeared on former White House strategist Steve Bannon’s podcast to discuss the BLS’ monthly jobs report, which showed much-lower-than-expected numbers for July and shockingly steep revisions for May and June. Antoni called McEntarfer “incompetent” for failing to fix data collection and interpretation problems at the BLS that have led to major revisions in recent years. He agreed with Bannon on the solution: A MAGA Republican who “Trump knows and trusts” should be put into…