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Inflation fell to its lowest level in 3-and-a-half years in August, clearing the way for the Federal Reserve to start cutting interest rates next week. Consumer prices in August were up 2.5% from a year ago, according to a report from the Labor Department Wednesday. That's the smallest annual increase since February 2021. Here are four things to know about the cost of living report. Housing costs are still climbing, but gasoline is getting cheaper Housing costs have been the biggest driver of inflation in the last year, rising 5.2%. Gasoline prices, on the other hand, have plunged more than...

Inflation at the wholesale level rose much more than expected in April, the latest sign that price pressures within the economy remain elevated and difficult to tame. The Labor Department said Tuesday that its producer price index, which measures inflation at the wholesale level before it reaches consumers, rose 0.5% in April from the previous month. On an annual basis, prices remain up 2.2% — the highest level since April 2023. While the monthly gain is notably higher than the 0.2% increase forecast by LSEG economists, the headline figure is in line with expectations.

The media U.S. mortgage payment was down nearly $400 in December from its October peak, enticing some homebuyers back into the market, according to a Thursday report from real estate group Redfin. The median mortgage payment was $2,361 for the four week period ending in Dec. 31, Redfin found. That’s $372, or 14 percent, less than it was in October and the lowest average monthly payment in nearly a year. The weekly average mortgage rate, which hit a 23-year high of 7.79 percent in October, also fell to 6.61 percent at the end of December after the Federal Reserve signaled...

Mortgage rates reached their highest level last week since a previous recent peak in November as incoming economic data sends more “mixed signals,” according to a report released by the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) on Wednesday. The average rate for the benchmark 30-year fixed rate mortgage hit 7.07 last week, up from 6.85 percent the week before, MBA’s data showed. “Incoming economic data continue to send mixed signals about the economy, with the overall impact leaving Treasury yields higher last week as markets expect that the Federal Reserve will need to hold rates higher for longer to slow inflation,” MBA...

falling by 2 percentage points in 10 years’ time, according to Census Bureau data released Thursday. Slightly more than 80 million out of 126.8 million occupied housing units across the country were inhabited by homeowners in 2020, putting the nation’s homeownership rate at 63.1 percent. This is the lowest homeownership rate since 1970. West Virginia and Maine had the highest 2020 homeownership rates at 72.6 percent and 71 percent, respectively. But each of these states experienced a decline from the 2010 Census figures.

The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits jumped to a 1-1/2-year high last week, pointing to widening cracks in the labor market, which together with subsiding inflation could allow the Federal Reserve to halt further interest rate increases next month. Cooling price pressures were underscored by other data from the Labor Department on Thursday showing producer prices rebounding modestly in April, leading to the smallest annual increase in producer inflation in more than two years. The reports suggested that demand was slowing and raised the risks of a recession later this year. “The Fed looks closer to...

Illinois health officials on Monday reported the highest number of new daily COVID-19 infections in the state since Dec. 1, 2020. The Illinois Department of Public Health reported 12,328 new COVID-19 cases on Monday, a yearlong high for the state. The Chicago Tribune noted, however, that the day's results could be inflated due to reporting delays caused by the holidays. The uptick in infections come amid heightened concerns over the new omicron variant, discovered in South Africa last month, which has not been detected in almost every U.S. state.

Pay for first year corporate attorneys has skyrocketed, with some firms now paying young graduates more than $200,000 starting salaries. New York-based corporate law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, which has 975 attorneys, upped pay on Friday for 2021 law school graduates to $202,500, the Wall Street Journal reported. Another New York law firm, 765-attorney Milbank LLP, reportedly raised first-year pay to $200,000 last week. Other firms that jacked-up pay in the past week include Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP; Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo PC; and Proskauer Rose LLP, according to the Journal, which also reported...

The last time Americans were this unhappy about prices of big-ticket purchases was 1982, when the Federal Reserve was fighting a war against double-digit inflation. The University of Michigan’s survey of consumer sentiment showed U.S. consumers more concerned with higher prices of appliances, houses, and cars than anytime in 39 years, according to the survey’s chief economist Richard Curtin.

The coronavirus pandemic continues to recede in America — as the average number of new cases and deaths plummeted to levels not seen in around a year. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Sunday that the rolling seven-day average of daily new coronavirus cases had dropped to 24,315 nationwide. The last time the average was that low was on June 15 of last year, when the CDC reported a seven-day average of 23,304 new cases.

(CNN)The number of new Covid-19 cases has plateaued at a "disturbingly high level," and the US is at risk from a new surge, Dr. Anthony Fauci warned on Wednesday. While lower than the peak earlier this year, there were still more than 61,000 new cases reported on Wednesday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. And the lack of continued significant decreases in infections is a concern, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases told CNN's Anderson Cooper, particularly given the spread of variants.

Coronavirus tests in New York City are coming back positive at the highest rate since the first wave of the pandemic receded in June, Big Apple officials revealed Wednesday as they again sounded the alarm about a COVID-19 second wave. “This is our LAST chance to stop a second wave,” tweeted Mayor Bill de Blasio. “We can do it, but we have to act NOW.” Figures from the city Health Department show that the average positivity rate for coronavirus tests taken over the last seven days has climbed to 2.52 percent — the highest rate since the Big Apple recorded...

White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said Thursday he’s “not comfortable” with the level of Covid-19 cases in the United States as the nation enters its fall and winter seasons. The U.S. is reporting roughly 40,000 new coronavirus cases a day, which may get even worse as temperatures get cooler and people head indoors, Fauci said during an interview with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell. “I’m not comfortable with that. I would like to see that level, way, way down, well below 10,000.” Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said some regions of the country...

The UK's terror threat level has been raised from severe to critical, meaning an attack is considered imminent. Prime Minister Theresa May announced the decision from Downing Street. The move means that military personnel could be deployed to support armed police officers. "It is a possibility that we cannot ignore that there a wider group of individuals linked to this attack," Mrs May said. She said that the threat level was under constant review. "The change in the threat level means there will be additional support available to the police as they work to keep us safe," she said.

"In January 2013, Lake Michigan hit its lowest water mark ever. Just two years later, the big lake has seen what some are calling an unparalleled turnaround. “We’re up almost two feet from there. Last fall, we had an unprecedented event where lake levels continued to rise through the fall. It has not rebounded this quickly I think in any recorded history that we have,” said Chris Schropp of the U.S Army Corps of Engineers."

"A wet spring, and heavy winter snows, also raised lake levels. So, what's ahead? Researcher Olga Lyandres of the Alliance for the Great Lakes said that it's difficult to say, but fluctuations are a sign of a healthy ecosystem. “The most recent models suggest that it could either rise or fall, compared to the long term average,” said Lyandres."

The intense political polarization of the United States is most clearly reflected by the dysfunctional nature of the federal government. At a more local scale, it is seen as well in the growing movement to create new states by splitting existing ones. Most of these cases involve the desire of people in rural, conservative counties to secede from the more liberal states in which they are currently located. A front-page story in the October 7 edition of the New York Times, for example, highlights a drive to devise a new state of “Northern Colorado.” Eleven Colorado counties will vote on...

Climate.gov’s Brian Kahn interviews Cynthia Rosenzweig, a climate impacts expert at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, co-chair of the New York City Panel on Climate Change, and director of the NOAA-sponsored Consortium for Climate Risk in the Urban Northeast. Why should New Yorkers care about sea level rise? First of all, sea level rise is a big issue for millions of people in the U.S., not just New Yorkers. Twenty-three of the 25 most densely populated U.S. counties are on the coast. In New York, the full brunt of Hurricane Sandy has shown how powerful and damaging the effects...

The retail sector reports that sales for June, for stores open at least one year, gained an anemic 0.1%, the slowest rise since August 2009. This was the third month in a row of significant weakness in the retail sector! When compared to the 6.7% rise in sales in the same period last year for the retail sector, this 0.1% rise in retail sales from last month reveals how weak consumer spending in this supposed economic recovery is. Remember, dear reader: 70% of gross domestic product (GDP) is composed of consumer spending. The retail sector uses this measure—stores open at...

Criticisms Convince State To Back Off Projections of Dramatic Sea Level RiseState officials still pushing coastal counties to prepare for a one-meter rise By Sara Burrows Feb. 20th, 2012 RALEIGH — State officials are pressuring local governments to plan for a one-meter sea-level rise by 2100, even though many independent scientists have argued the rise is highly unlikely if not impossible. Even though a state advisory panel no longer recommends regulations based on the one-meter projection, local government officials worry that state regulators will try to implement those rules. Such a policy, they say, would have a devastating impact on...