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U.S. President Donald Trump told aides he’s willing to end the military campaign against Iran while leaving the Strait of Hormuz largely closed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday evening. Trump and his aides assessed that a mission to reopen Hormuz would push the conflict beyond his timeline of four to six weeks, the WSJ reported, citing administration officials. Trump decided that the U.S. would wind down current hostilities with Iran after achieving its main goals of hobbling Iran’s navy and missile stocks. Washington will then pressure Tehran diplomatically to reopen the strait, failing which, it will press allies...

REMOVING BARRIERS TO BUILDING HOMES: Today, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order to eliminate unnecessary regulatory burdens that delay housing construction and increase housing costs for American families.The Order directs the EPA Administrator and the Secretary of the Army to review and revise stormwater, wetlands, and other water-related permitting requirements to reduce building and ownership costs, streamline Federal regulatory approvals, and increase home insurability.The Order also directs the Secretary of Commerce, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Secretary of Transportation, and the Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) to eliminate unduly burdensome rules and reform programs...

HARTFORD, Conn. (WTNH) — In a series of exchanges spanning over three days, Connecticut’s top Democratic leaders appeared divided over whether or not to move forward with Gov. Ned Lamont’s proposal for a one-month gas tax holiday to address rising costs triggered by the war with Iran.The Democratic House speaker and House majority leader both signaled on Wednesday that their 102-member caucus is not clamoring for a gas tax holiday. A reprieve from the 25-cent-per-gallon tax, they reason, will not deliver sufficiently targeted savings.

Heading into this midterm election year, the cost of health care tops the public’s economic anxieties and more than 4 in 10 voters say the issue will have a major impact on their vote, a new KFF Health Tracking poll finds. Voters, including independents, currently trust Democrats more than Republicans to address the cost of health care and most other health care issues, though neither party has an advantage on addressing the overall cost of living, the poll finds. A majority (56%) of the public expect health care costs for their family to become less affordable in the coming year....

So, who is Emily Gregory, and how did she win in Trump’s backyard? In a surprising result, Democrat Emily Gregory won a special election in Florida’s House District 87, flipping a seat long held by Republicans. The district notably includes Mar-a-Lago, the private residence of US President Donald Trump, making the victory symbolically significant in national politics. Running for public office for the first time, Gregory built her campaign around one central message: affordability. She addressed rising concerns among voters about housing costs, healthcare expenses, insurance premiums, and everyday necessities. Rather than making Trump the focal point of her campaign,...

Texas challenged the rule, arguing it threatened the availability of affordable housing. A federal court has struck down a Biden-era rule that imposed “green energy” requirements for new housing constructions, threatening the availability of affordable housing. The case, co-led with Utah, was argued by Attorney General Ken Paxton in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in Tyler. “The Corrupt Biden Administration’s radical policies were reducing the availability of affordable homes and making it harder for Americans to achieve the dream of homeownership,” stated Paxton. “This ruling is a major victory for homebuyers, builders, and families and...

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., is facing online mockery after his Senate campaign’s election night watch party charged customers exorbitant prices for water, despite claiming to champion affordability issues. Krishnamoorthi, a five-term House lawmaker, narrowly lost to Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton in a bruising Democratic primary Tuesday night. Krishnamoorthi supporters had to pay nearly $13 for water and $22 for a glass of wine at an event at a Chicago hotel while watching the returns come in. Online observers noted the irony of the steep prices as Krishnamoorthi’s Senate campaign was one of the most prolific fundraisers in the country. The...

Wholesale prices rose sharply in February, providing another sign that inflation continues to percolate even aside from rising energy prices.The producer price index, a measure of pipeline costs that producers receive for their products, increased a seasonally adjusted 0.7% on the month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday. Excluding volatile food and energy costs, the so-called core PPI increased 0.5%.Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for increases of 0.3% for both measures.For the all-items index, prices rose faster than the 0.5% pace in January. However, the core increase was less than the 0.8% for the prior month.

ransomnote: Below are several of John A Konrad V's detailed posts. There are another 14 posts in this thread series at the link which I did not copy.Here's the source of the x.com thread posts below:DataRepublican (small r) repostedJohn Ʌ Konrad V@johnkonradLet's unpack this..What if the White House has no intention of reopening the Strait of Hormuz?What if this war is really about ships & tariffs?I had a long discussion with senior DOE official yesterday on background. I can’t share any details but it’s clear everyone’s Strait of Hormuz calculus is wrong.We need to go back to the drawing boards.That's...

President Trump said Thursday there is an upside to rising oil prices as a result of the war against Iran — the U.S. will make money as a major producer. Mr. Trump, posting on Truth Social, was responding to oil prices that flirted with $100 per barrel as Tehran clamped down on tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, where about 20% of the world’s oil supply transits. “The United States is the largest Oil Producer in the World, by far, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money,” Mr. Trump posted. Mr. Trump’s post on...

President Trump signaled on Wednesday that he plans to tap into the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve in an effort to bring down rising gas prices. “I filled it up once, and I’ll fill it up again, but right now, we’ll reduce it a little bit, and that brings the prices down,” Trump said during an interview with Local 12 in Kentucky. The president shrugged off rising gas prices as a “matter of war” earlier in the day and expressed confidence the market would settle soon. I figured we’d be hit a little bit. We were hit less than I thought...

MIAMI — President Trump said Monday that he’s brought prices down so much that Democrats have stopped using the word “affordability.” “They also gave us very high prices and then they said the word, ‘affordability.’ That’s first time I ever heard it,” Trump said at the annual House Republican retreat in Miami. “My first day in office, they said, ‘affordability,’ They’re the ones that caused the problem,” he continued. “But we’re really bringing down prices big. “Do you notice you don’t hear that word anymore? … They don’t say it anymore because we brought down prices so much.” Trump said...

Eight months before the crucial midterm elections, the administration of President Donald Trump is battling high living costs. The strike against Iran threatens to undo the first successes achieved in the struggle against inflation via falling energy prices. Ludwig Erhard understood the formula for sustained political success. The equation was as simple as it was powerful: stable money circulating in free markets coordinates the millions of individual decisions made by households, businesses, and credit institutions -- day after day -- in the most efficient manner. Stable money requires a lean state. Public debt, meanwhile, is widely regarded as the primary...

Iran has threatened to attack any oil tanker passing through the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s oil transits. US oil futures rose 18% to about $108 a barrel, their highest level since July 19, 2022. Brent futures, the global benchmark, increased 16%, near $108 a barrel. Surging oil prices have weighed heavily on stocks in recent days, as traders fear that a prolonged spike in fuel prices could lead to another spike in inflation and hurt the economy. Dow futures dropped more than 800 points, or 1.7%. S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures fell 1.6%. Triggered by...

Gas prices will dip below $3 a gallon “again before too long,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright promised Sunday — as he denied the US was targeting energy infrastructure in Iran. “The Trump administration has been all in on lowering energy prices, and I would say quite successfully,” Wright told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “We have seen a dramatic decline in gasoline prices, in diesel prices. Soon, you will see it in electricity prices as well.” The national gas price average is $3.45 a gallon as of Sunday, per the American Automobile Association. It was just below $3...

A commercial oil tanker was set ablaze in the Strait of Hormuz after it was struck by an Iranian suicide drone, the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said Saturday, with a US Navy mission to safeguard ships through the region possibly still weeks away. The IRGC claimed the tanker — the Prima, sailing under a Maltese flag — had ignored repeated warnings not to enter the strait, according to Tasnim News Agency, Iran’s state media. The flow of oil through the strait — one of the world’s most vital energy arteries connecting the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman...

It’s hard for taxpayers to stomach! The Baltimore mayor’s office spent more than $890,000 on lavish meals and parties — including crab feasts, catered “farewell” bashes and massive tabs at Ravens football games, according to a report Wednesday. Mayor Brandon Scott’s administration blew taxpayer cash on over-the-top perks for staffers — including $52,589 on grub in the Mayoral Suite at Ravens and Orioles games — in a gross violation of the city’s “public funds” rules, according to baltimorebrew.com. One of the elaborate meals was served at a $3,636 farewell “office party” for Scott’s former campaign manager Marvin James, which featured...

The Republicans' "Big Beautiful Bill" (BBB) enacted last year cut the nationwide federal tax burden by billions of dollars. In Oregon that amounted to more than $300 million in cuts. Rep. Nancy Nathanson (D-Eugene) introduced state legislation to convert the federal cuts into state tax increases, saying "enriching taxpayers is not a high priority for us in Oregon. Folks who previously paid higher taxes to the feds can afford to keep paying those higher taxes to the state government." The Representative dismissed the intent of the BBB to stimulate business investment as "not as important as funding increased budgets for...

RICHMOND, Va. (7News) — Legislators in Virginia could see a nearly 300% pay increase if an amendment added to the budget by Democrats in the state Senate makes it to Gov. Abigail Spanberger's desk. The Democrat controlled Virginia Senate and House of Delegates have both passed their versions of the commonwealth's budget, largely along party lines.

Wholesale prices rose at a faster-than-expected pace in January, countering hopes that inflation was easing, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. The Producer Price Index which excludes volatile food and energy prices, increased a seasonally adjusted 0.8%, more than the 0.6% gain in December and well ahead of the Dow Jones consensus estimate for 0.3%. On an all-items basis, the headline PPI rose 0.5%, also above the forecast for 0.3% and 0.1 percentage point more than the prior month.