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“I drive about 30, 40 miles a day, so I’m looking at $92, almost $100 in gas prices,” Mr. Harvey said. “So I’m like, maybe I should trade in my car and get something electric for the time being.” several brands have reported an uptick in electric vehicle sales in the opening months of 2026. Tesla has reported a modest year-over-year increase in sales, and Hyundai and General Motors’ Cadillac division have also seen electric car sales increase. You didn’t have to go far from the auto show on Saturday to see why drivers are showing a renewed interest in...

President Donald Trump proposed Friday a $1.5 trillion defense budget for 2027, a dramatic increase that would mark one of the largest Pentagon funding requests in decades and underscores his push to prioritize military spending over domestic programs. The budget blueprint, released by the White House, would cut non-defense spending by 10 percent and shift some responsibilities to states and local governments. The plan also calls for maintaining immigration enforcement funding, increasing Justice Department spending by 13 percent, adding money for air traffic controller hiring and setting aside $10 billion for National Park Service beautification projects in Washington. The increases...

On March 18, 2026, the House of Representatives voted on H.J. Res. 139, a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced federal budget. The roll call was 211-207. Every Republican voted yes. Every Democrat voted no, save one — a defection that will presumably not be celebrated at the next caucus retreat. Under suspension of the rules, passage required 291 votes. The final count was 80 votes short. This is not a near miss. It is a structural diagnosis rendered as a procedural vote.AdvertisementThe same week, gross national debt crossed $39 trillion — $39,016,762,910,245.14 on March 17. That milestone arrived five months...

Hyderabad, India — The city of Hyderabad has been called the Silicon Valley of India. "Google, Facebook, and all the other bigger companies are here," Rajesh Jaknalli, who has worked for a U.S. tech company in Hyderabad for about 10 years, told CBS News. "This place is actually called High Tech City, but because of the many companies that we have, the term 'Cyberabad' has come," Jaknalli explained. Jaknalli says he has worked here with one goal, to get an opportunity to one day move to the U.S. "Our dream was to perform, give you 100%, and then probably, we'll...

NEW YORK -- Amazon is slapping a 3.5% fuel and logistics surcharge on third-party sellers using its platform starting later this month amid a spike in fuel prices since the war in Iran started. The temporary charge is effective April 17 for many of the sellers who use Amazon’s fulfillment services, the online behemoth confirmed to The Associated Press in an email Thursday. “Elevated costs in fuel and logistics have increased the cost of operating across the industry,” Amazon said in the emailed statement. The Seattle-based company said it has absorbed these increases so far but similar to other major...

An alleged fraudster within the Los Angeles Unified School District appeared in a downtown court on Friday charged with taking part in a huge money laundering scam. Hong “Grace” Peng, 53 — who worked as a technical project manager for LAUSD — pled not guilty to facilitating an alleged eye-popping $22 million kickback scheme. The case comes as the scandal-plagued school district reels from fraud claims against Superintendent Alberto Carvalho.

The New York state attorney general’s office has notified Capital Tonight it has filed a notice of appeal in the state Supreme Court’s ruling in March that a state law requiring landlords to accept Section 8 vouchers is unconstitutional. In its decision, the court ruled it’s a violation of a landlord’s Fourth Amendment rights because it forces landlords to consent to governmental searches of their rental properties and records. The housing voucher program helps those who are low-income, older New Yorkers, veterans and disabled families rent or buy affordable housing. “I don’t agree with the basis of the claim,” said...

Liberal Maine Democrats control Maine State Government: Governor, Senate, House. They are poised to impose a 2% tax on the 2,600 tax paying Mainers who earn a million dollars or more per year. The governor said she expects the state will see added income tax revenue of $150 million over the next two years. There is no mention in the news story about the likelihood of any of those 2,600 taxpayers changing their legal residency to income tax free states in response to this new law. Nor is there any discussion regarding the possibility of future legislation lowering the tax...

The so-called experts didn’t just miss the mark on March jobs numbers; they got steamrolled by reality. Economists predicted a weak 59,000 jobs. The actual number came in at a stunning 178,000. Talk about getting it completely wrong. And it’s the latest reminder that the same crowd that spent months warning about economic doom under President Donald Trump still doesn’t understand what’s actually happening on the ground. Even CNN couldn’t deny that this was huge. Unemployment dipped again, falling from 4.4% to 4.3%. Even more telling, the rate dropped across multiple groups, including women, black Americans, Asians, Hispanics, and veterans....

There’s no doubt that oil prices have gone up since the war began. However, there’s also no doubt that they’re nowhere near as high as they’ve been in the not-so-distant past, including just a few short years ago during Joe Biden’s presidency. In California, as well, the prices far exceed those of any other state. ChatGPT collated the prices for me:AdvertisementHow in the heck did California’s fuel prices get so high?AdvertisementAn essay at the Marin Independent Journal provides some insight for its local readers, leading with the equivalent of “it’s mostly Trump’s fault.” However, what struck me about the essay...

The U.S. labor market bounced back in March, with job creation much stronger than expected though the broader picture of a slow-growth labor market held intact. Nonfarm payrolls rose a seasonally adjusted 178,000 during the month, a reversal from the 133,000 decline in February and better than the Dow Jones consensus estimate for 59,000, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. February’s number was revised down by 41,000 while January was revised up by 34,000 to 160,000, putting the three-month average around 68,000. With job creation higher, the unemployment rate edged lower to 4.3%. As has been the case, health...

Historical precedent suggests risk assets trough not long after wars start While the duration of the war is unknown, Lee acknowledges, he senses Trump wants a quick end Stock markets bottom at the beginning and not end of wars is the reassuring message that Fundstrat's Tom Lee sent to investors in a note coinciding with the first quarter's final trading session. While the war's duration is unknown, Lee looks at seven major conflicts dating back to 1900 and finds equity markets have a habit of troughing early on because investors "price adverse risks early and quickly." Markets usually bottom early...

Fourth-generation Iowa farmer Mark Mueller is no stranger to the ups and downs of the agriculture industry. But right now, he thinks America is on the cusp of a farm crisis. “I am more concerned now than I have been in my 30 years of farming,” Mueller told NBC News. Even before the Iran war, Mueller said, many farmers felt they were being squeezed. Consolidation in the fertilizer industry and increased competition from abroad have resulted in higher prices for fertilizer and feed — and smaller returns on Mueller’s corn and soybean crops. Many farmers who couldn’t pay their bills...

The spot price for current physical cargoes of Brent crude oil soared Thursday to $141.36, the highest level since the 2008 financial crisis, according to S&P Global, which tracks the data.

A year ago Thursday, President Trump raised the average effective tariff rate to 22.5%, and proclaimed April 2 “Liberation Day,” which would “forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn.” Financial markets convulsed. Within a week, the president began suspending and modifying his tariffs. By the time the Supreme Court ruled that tariffs issued under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act were unlawful, the average effective rate had fallen to 11.6%, still higher than at any point between World War II and Liberation Day. Convinced that his tariffs were “quickly building the greatest economy in the history of...

The FBI arrested a married couple Thursday accused of fraudulently billing Medicare for $7.45 million while running a hospice with a survival rate reported to be more than 97% after five years. They were the first in a series of arrests planned Thursday, federal officials told CBS News. A high survival rate at a hospice provider is one of a series of red flags identified by state auditors for fraud because most people enter hospice care in the final stages of a terminal illness. In past cases of fraud, operators were found to be using false or stolen identities to...

Iran and Oman are drafting a protocol to “monitor transit” through the Strait of Hormuz, Iranian state news agency IRNA reported Thursday morning, citing an official.Tanker traffic through the key oil-shipping route “should be supervised and coordinated” with the two countries, said Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister of legal and international affairs, according to a translation of IRNA’s report.“Of course, these requirements will not mean restrictions, but rather to facilitate and ensure safe passage and provide better services to ships that pass through this route,” Gharibabadi reportedly said.U.S. stock indexes, which were trading sharply lower Thursday morning after President...

Albertsons is closing additional stores and cutting jobs nationwide as it works to stabilize operations following the collapse of its $24.6 billion merger with Kroger, intensifying pressure on the grocery chain.The Boise, Idaho-based company — which operates banners including Safeway, Vons and Pavilions — has announced a new round of closures in recent weeks as it pivots to cost-cutting and operational changes.

The Trump administration is preparing to impose new tariffs on branded drugs from pharmaceutical companies that have not struck landmark deals with the president to lower their U.S. drug prices, CNBC has learned. Patented medications and their active ingredients would be hit with a 100% tariff, according to a draft of the document obtained by CNBC. But there are pathways for drugmakers to reduce or avoid the levies if they move their manufacturing to the U.S. or are negotiating deals with the administration. The proposal is not final, and it is unclear when the Trump administration may announce it, though...

We have seen the future of AI via Large Language Models. And it's smaller than you think. That much was clear in 2025, when we first saw China's DeepSeek — a slimmer, lighter LLM that required way less data center energy to do its job and performed surprisingly well on benchmark tests against heftier American AI models. (Ironically, it was built atop an open source U.S. model, Meta's Llama). DeepSeek may have foundered on privacy concerns, but the trend towards smaller and smarter AI isn't going away. The evolution is on display again in TurboQuant, a compression algorithm that Google...