The financial news that actually matters
Hundreds of thousands of workers across Chicago will see their hourly pay floor rise to $17.05 when the city’s updated minimum wage takes effect on July 1, 2026. The increase widens the gap between what employers inside the city limits must pay and the rates set by Cook County and the state of Illinois, creating…
GameStop Corp. ended its latest fiscal year with 1,598 stores across the United States, a figure that reflects years of steady downsizing. The company’s own annual filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, covering the period through January 31, 2026, includes a forward-looking statement that the retailer does not expect to close a large number…
More than 430 investors, many of them elderly, lost money in a scheme that federal prosecutors say stretched across five funds and relied on misleading promissory notes sold by a registered adviser on Long Island. Vincent Camarda, who operated through A.G. Morgan Financial Advisors, pleaded guilty to investment fraud in Central Islip after the government…
Ramil Ventura Palafox, the founder of PGI Global and CEO of Praetorian Group International, sold investors on the promise of daily returns from crypto and foreign-exchange trading. Federal regulators say those returns never came from real trading profits. Instead, the SEC has charged Palafox with orchestrating a $198 million fraud scheme built on membership-package sales…
Albert Saniger, the founder and former CEO of the shopping app Nate, told investors his product used artificial intelligence to complete online purchases automatically. He raised over $42 million on that promise. Federal prosecutors and the Securities and Exchange Commission now allege the technology never worked as described, and that the real engine behind the…
The IRS has confirmed that the annual gift-tax exclusion for 2026 holds steady at $19,000 per recipient, the same figure that applied in 2025. That means any individual can transfer up to $19,000 to as many separate people as they choose during the calendar year without reducing the lifetime estate and gift tax exemption or…
Roughly nine out of ten U.S. tax filers take the standard deduction rather than itemizing, and for years that choice meant forgoing any write-off for charitable giving. Starting with tax year 2026, those filers can subtract up to $1,000 in cash donations to qualified charities from their taxable income, or $2,000 for married couples filing…
Households facing steep bills for surgeries, chronic prescriptions, or long-term care have a federal tax break available, but only if their total unreimbursed costs clear a specific income-based threshold. Under federal law, taxpayers who itemize deductions on Schedule A can subtract qualified medical and dental expenses that exceed 7.5% of their adjusted gross income. Congress…
Berkshire Hathaway’s combined cash, cash equivalents, and short-term U.S. Treasury bill holdings hit $381.7 billion as of Sept. 30, 2025, a figure that more than doubles the conglomerate’s previous all-time high. The balance sheet entry, drawn from a quarterly SEC filing, represents the largest liquid reserve ever assembled by a single publicly traded company. For…
Macy’s plans to shut 150 of its namesake stores over three years, with roughly 50 locations expected to close by the end of 2024. The retailer disclosed the strategy in a regulatory filing and an accompanying press release titled “A Bold New Chapter,” framing the cuts as a way to concentrate resources on fewer, higher-performing…