Author: Leslie Stewart

December’s jobs report is likely to provide limited clarity on where the labor market is headed, with experts divided on how pronounced the slowdown in employment will be.Economists consensus predicts that the Bureau of Labor Statistics will report a 155,000-job increase in nonfarm payrolls on Friday morning, down from November’s surprising 227,000-job gain. This is almost in line with the four-month average. The unemployment rate is expected to remain stable at 4.2%.However, the details of the report matter, and some on Wall Street expect the number could be a little lower, depending on how seasonal trends and other factors play…

President Jimmy Carter will be honored with a state funeral Thursday, capping days of honoring the contributions of a man who remained an influential leader on the world stage even after leaving office. Carter, who died late last month at the age of 100, was interred this week in the Rotunda of the Capitol. His casket will be moved from the Capitol with his family to the Washington National Cathedral for his funeral. President Joe Biden is expected to pay his respects there. Condolences from former President Gerald Ford and former Vice President Walter Mondale will also be delivered by…

WASHINGTON – A former FBI informant who fabricated a story about President Joe Biden and his son Hunter accepting bribes at the center of the Republican impeachment effort was sentenced Wednesday to six years in prison.Alexander Smirnov pleaded guilty in Los Angeles federal court last month to tax evasion and lying to the FBI about a bogus bribery scheme that prosecutors say was an attempt to influence the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. .Smirnov, who holds dual U.S. and Israeli citizenship, falsely claimed to FBI agents that executives at Ukrainian energy company Burisma paid then-Vice President Joe Biden and…

WASHINGTON – Special Counsel Jack Smith has handed over his completed final report on two investigations that resulted in felonies against President-elect Donald Trump to Attorney General Merrick Garland, who plans to release portions of it publicly. announced the Ministry of Justice. Submit on Wednesday.The filing was made by the Justice Department separately from Smith’s office and temporarily blocked the release of a report on Trump’s handling of classified documents by U.S. District Judge Eileen Cannon, a Trump appointee. It was done after. Cannon is the Florida judge who dismissed the charges against Trump, upholding the argument that Smith’s appointment…

US President-elect Donald Trump speaks at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, USA on January 7, 2025.Carlos Barria | ReutersPresident-elect Donald Trump is considering calling a national economic emergency to implement sweeping tariff policies, four sources familiar with the matter told CNN.A declaration of this nature would give Trump the authority to create the tariff program he made the apex of his White House campaign through the International Economic Emergency Powers Act, CNN reported. The law, also known as IEEPA, authorizes the president to oversee imports during times of national crisis.Stock futures fell after CNN’s report Wednesday morning, and the U.S.…

A worker adjusts an employment sign during an employment and resource fair hosted by the Mountain Region Workforce Development Board in partnership with NCWorks, Tuesday, November 19, 2024, in Hendersonville, North Carolina, USA. Alison Joyce | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesPrivate-sector job creation slowed more than expected in December, payment processor ADP said on Wednesday, while wage growth was at its slowest pace in nearly three-and-a-half years.Businesses added a seasonally adjusted 122,000 jobs in the month, down from November’s 146,000 jobs and below the Dow Jones consensus estimate of 136,000. This was the first slight increase since August.Wages grew by 4.6%…

Federal authorities executed a search warrant in St. Louis on Tuesday in connection with the investigation of a tourist accused of arson of a store in Puerto Rico last week.The St. Louis Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is assisting U.S. territorial authorities with the arson investigation, but no arrests have been made, spokeswoman Lisa Storey told NBC News.The ATF unit investigating this incident is located at the Robert A. Young Federal Building in St. Louis.Google MapsPuerto Rico’s largest newspaper, El Nuevo Día, reported on Tuesday that Puerto Rican authorities are close to indicting a suspect in the incident…

People shop at a Whole Foods Market grocery store on December 17, 2024 in New York City. Spencer Pratt | Getty ImagesActivity in the U.S. services industry accelerated in December, as companies worried about the impact of tariffs on inflation and expectations for price increases rose sharply.The Institute for Supply Management’s service index on Tuesday hit a reading of 54.1%, representing the percentage of companies expected to grow. That’s up 2 percentage points from November and beat the 53.4% ​​consensus estimate in a Dow Jones survey of economists.Along with the improvement in overall numbers, the price index rose to 64.4%,…

In a packed Las Vegas arena, NVIDIA founder Jensen Huang stood on stage and marveled at the vivid real-time computer graphics displayed on the screen behind him. He watched as a dark-haired woman stepped through ornate golden double doors, catching the rays of light streaming in through the stained glass windows.”The amount of geometric patterns you saw was just insane,” Huang told an audience of several thousand people at CES 2025 on Monday night. “It would not have been possible without artificial intelligence.”The chipmaker and AI darling has announced GeForce RTX 50 Series desktop and laptop GPUs, the most advanced…

A man rides a bicycle on a snow-covered road after a snowfall in Frankfurt am Main, western Germany, on December 29, 2024. Kirill Kudryavtsev | AFP | Getty ImagesStatistics agency Eurostat said on Tuesday that the euro zone’s annual inflation rate rose for the third consecutive month, reaching 2.4% in December.The preliminary figure was in line with economists’ forecasts polled by Reuters and was up from a revised 2.2% in November. Core inflation remained at 2.7% for the fourth straight month, also in line with economists’ expectations, while services inflation rose to 4% from 3.9%.Headline inflation was widely expected to…