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The National Instant Criminal Background Check System numbers decreased significantly for November 2025 compared to November 2024. An increase in firearm sales is normal for November. It happened in 2025, but firearm sales are 7% lower than those in November 2024. About 1.41 million firearm sales occurred in November of 2025, as estimated by the National Shooting Sports Foundation. 1.51 million firearms were estimated to be sold in November last year. The number of background checks for November was much lower than expected, about 2.09 million. It is the lowest number of background checks in November since 2014, more than...

President Donald Trump announced on Sunday that he will give a $2,000 check to every American, which will come from the tariff revenue collected by the administration. “A dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone” Trump wrote on Truth Social, adding that those against tariffs are “fools.” While this proposal would likely need to be passed by Congress, it resembles legislation introduced this summer by Republican Sen. Josh Hawley’s (R-Mo.) this summer, to give $600 tariff rebates to nearly all Americans and their dependent children. “My legislation would allow hardworking...

A Democrat-led bid to force through a bill to pay the military during the government shutdown was blocked in the House on Friday. Democrats and some Republicans have been demanding a House vote on ensuring U.S. troops do not miss their coming Oct. 15 paycheck or any others as the government shutdown barrels into a third week. But GOP leaders have largely dismissed the request, panning it as a Democrat bid to save face after rejecting Republicans' funding bill that would have kept the military and other federal workers paid. Rep. Sarah Elfreth, D-Md., attempted to ask for unanimous consent...

The National Instant Background Check System (NICS) numbers for firearm sales and background checks in April 2025 continue the slight decline we have been seeing over the last year. April 2025 gun sales were about 3.7% less than those of April 2024. April 2025 background checks were about 3.2% less than those of April 2024.If you look at the last 26 years of April data for adjusted NICS, which is a close approximation of firearm sales, 2025, while lower than the last five years, is close, even a little higher, than the sales seen since the election of Barack Obama...

Next stop: Trump Station President Trump fired the MTA from the long-awaited revamp of Penn Station on Thursday, instead putting the feds in charge of a gold-plated makeover for the decrepit transit hub. Amtrak will spearhead the renovation as the feds champion a “public-private partnership model,” announced Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. “President Trump has made it clear: the days of reckless spending and blank checks are over,” Duffy said in a statement. “New York City deserves a Penn Station that reflects America’s greatness and is safe and clean.” Gov. Kathy Hochul had been engaged in tense face-to-face talks with Trump...

Some 3 million Americans may benefit from higher Social Security payments beginning in April. Why It Matters In January, two provisions—the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO)—that reduced Social Security benefits for millions of workers were repealed after bipartisan efforts in Congress. Signing the act into law, former President Joe Biden said it would boost Social Security benefits by an average of $360 a month for more than 2.8 million recipients. What To Know Beginning in April, these boosted payments will be made for all relevant recipients, the Social Security Administration confirmed in a news release...

Elon Musk and former Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) sparred on Wednesday as the failed vice presidential candidate celebrated the recent dip in Tesla’s stock price. “If you need a little boost during the day, check out Tesla stock,” Walz wrote, featuring a video of the former vice presidential candidate’s town hall in Wisconsin on Tuesday night. He even suggested that audience members that have a Tesla can pull the badge off of the electric car. Many analysts have blamed Musk’s more political role for the price performance of Tesla, while there have been many protests of Tesla dealerships, including one...

A former US Postal Service worker was convicted of stealing around $1.6 million in checks to fund a “lavish lifestyle that included international travel, stays at luxury hotels, and purchases at gentlemen’s clubs,” federal prosecutors said. Hachikosela Muchimba, 44, of Washington, DC, was found guilty by a federal jury last week on charges of mail theft and bank fraud, according to the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. “According to court documents, between December 2020 and March 2023, Muchimba was an employee of the US Postal Service when he executed a scheme to steal US Treasury checks and...

The trend line of 2024 as the fifth highest for gun sales and National Instant Background Check System (NICS) checks is holding for the year. November 2024 had the sixth-highest gun sales for that month. It was close. November of 2022 had .28% higher numbers. The NICS background checks were the fifth most for the month. November 2020 holds the record for gun sales in the month, with about 3.6 million sold in November 2020.With about 1.48 million gun sales, as recorded by NICS and our estimation process, November of 2024 continues the trend of 63 consecutive months of more...

Over the past few months, a lot of ink has been spilled and words spoken about Project 2025 and former President Donald Trump’s support for it. Almost all of what’s been written and said have been lies from biased writers and pundits. Commentators have alternately, and sometimes in the same story, called it “fascist,” anti-democratic,” a plan to “destroy the U.S. system of checks and balances,” and perhaps cringiest of all, “a Christo-Fascist plan to create a theocracy.” In actuality, Project 2025 is none of these things, except in the unhinged minds of the labelers. In fact, it is the...

Target will no longer be accepting personal checks as a form of payment at its stores beginning later this month, the company confirmed.The Minnesota-based big-box retail chain will stop taking checks this month due to “extremely low volumes,” of such payments, a spokesperson told NBC Chicago.The company has taken “several measures” to notify customers in advance, the spokesperson added.The change will go into effect on July 15 following the end of Target’s popular Circle Week sales event.While personal checks will no longer be accepted, the store will still take cash, credit and debit cards, Target Circle Cards, digital wallets, SNAP/EBT...

New York City provided 720,765 residents cash assistance last year — the most it’s ever awarded in welfare checks in at least a decade. To handle the surge, a staggering $2.46 billion in federal, state and city funds was budgeted by Mayor Adams this year to provide cash assistance to adults unable to work or pay their bills and for their children. The city previously budgeted $1.99 billion during the fiscal year that ended June 30, and $1.57 billion in fiscal 2022.

The number of gun sales estimated using the National Instant Background Check System, or NICS, for December of 2023 was about 1.74 million guns. This was the fourth-highest number of gun sales for December in the NICS system. The number of background checks was about 2.73 million. This was the sixth-highest December for NICS background checks.December showed a slight drop in the trend for 2023 but is maintaining what has become the new normal of gun sales, which arguably started in 2011 when annual sales passed the 10 million mark.2023 had the fourth-highest total for gun sales of any year...

Thursday, during an appearance on Fox News Channel’s “The Ingraham Angle,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) criticized the U.S. government’s approach to Ukraine. Hawley said there was an anticipation by those proponents to continue “writing checks to Ukraine” forever. “[A]t some point, the American people will have their say on this and four more years of Biden, without a doubt, means four more years of war for the United States,” host Laura Ingraham said. “Is that what Americans want — four more years of war?”

California Democratic state Sen. Steven Bradford is warning African Americans not to get their "hopes up" for massive reparations payments from the state. Bradford’s message comes after the California Reparations Task Force recommended over the weekend that the state pay up to $1.2 million in reparations to each eligible Black resident. The state lawmaker, who served on the task force, claimed that it’s possible that Black residents could receive cash payments "if the money’s there," but argued that receiving million dollar checks in repayment for historical discrimination is "not happening." The reparations panel held a public meeting in Oakland, California,...

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara issued a 112-page opinion Thursday afternoon in which she claimed that the government's proposed judicial reforms would cause "serious damage to the system of checks and balances" between the three branches of government. Baharav-Miara submitted her position to Justice Minister Yariv Levin and the Knesset Constitution Committee. In her opinion, the attorney general wrote: "Each of the proposed reforms, and certainly their accumulation, will lead to serious damage to the system of checks and balances between the authorities. Each of the proposed reforms raises substantial difficulties, which go to the root of the principle of the...

Officials from the World Health Organization (WHO) are recommending that COVID-19 mitigation methods like masking on planes be reemphasized for regions like North America and Europe in response to the spread of the XBB.1.5 omicron subvariant, which is believed to be significantly more transmissible than previous mutations. Catherine Smallwood, senior emergency officer for the WHO, was asked during a briefing on Tuesday whether travelers from the U.S. should be subject to travel checks due to the spread of XBB.1.5. More than 70 percent of cases in the Northeastern U.S. are currently attributed to the subvariant.

The leftist government of New Zealand will begin handing out millions of checks in an attempt to fight inflation, despite government spending typically being a key contributor to inflation. In order to supposedly combat inflation, which has risen to a 30-year-high in New Zealand, Finance Minister Grant Robertson announced on Thursday that the Labour Party-controlled government would be issuing 350NZD ($225/£180) in checks to some 2.1 million Kiwis in weekly payments over the next three months.

Seniors and other people who rely on Social Security benefits could next year see their biggest cost-of-living adjustment since 1981, with an advocacy group for older Americans forecasting an 8.6% hike. The typical monthly Social Security check is about $1,658, which means beneficiaries could see an increase of $142.60 per month in early 2023, bringing the average check to about $1,800, according to a new forecast from the Senior Citizens League.

Roughly a dozen states are proposing sending tax rebate checks to their residents to offset the highest inflation in four decades, with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle pointing to high gas and food prices as prompting their actions. Among them is Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, who on Wednesday signed a law to send checks of up to $500 to state residents. The reason, he said in a statement, is to soften the impact of inflation on household budgets — and also return some of money amid a record state budget surplus.