The financial news that actually matters
A gallon of regular gasoline now costs the average American driver $4.30, the most expensive fill-up the country has seen since the summer of 2022, according to the latest weekly survey from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The price has climbed roughly 60 cents since early March 2026, driven largely by a military confrontation between…
Social Security’s three-Wednesday payment cycle rolls through May 2026 starting on May 13, delivering retirement checks to roughly 70 million Americans, including retirees, survivors, and disability beneficiaries. For a small slice of retirees who earned at or above the taxable maximum for 35-plus years and waited until age 70 to file, those deposits can reach…
Not long ago, buying a home in Austin meant racing against a dozen other offers and waiving inspections just to stay competitive. That frenzy has faded. The median home value across the Austin-Round Rock metro area settled to roughly $530,000 as of the first quarter of 2026, according to closed-sale data tracked by Redfin and…
Millions of Americans who paid premiums to a Blue Cross Blue Shield health plan between February 2008 and October 2020 are about to see something rare: actual money from a class action lawsuit. The first checks from a $2.67 billion antitrust settlement, the largest in U.S. health insurance history, are scheduled to go out in…
Trading floors across Asia opened to a wall of red on Wednesday as two forces collided: a spike in oil prices driven by the U.S.-Iran standoff near the Strait of Hormuz and a Federal Reserve that made clear overnight it has no plans to lower interest rates anytime soon. Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell more than…
Australia’s government wants to hit Meta, Google, and TikTok with a 2.25% charge on their Australian revenue if they refuse to pay local news publishers for content. Draft legislation for what Canberra calls the News Bargaining Incentive was released for public consultation in late April 2026, presenting the platforms with a stark choice: negotiate commercial…
For years, for-profit developers in North Carolina have avoided property taxes on affordable housing projects by partnering, sometimes in name only, with nonprofit organizations. A state House committee now wants to shut that door. The House Select Committee on Property Tax Reduction and Reform advanced “Legislative Proposal #4: Affordable Housing Exemption Modifications” at its April…
In Swannanoa, North Carolina, where Hurricane Helene’s floodwaters gutted homes and buckled roads in late 2024, residents waiting on federal rebuilding dollars are now watching a new threat form: FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund has dropped below $3 billion, and the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season is already underway. The DRF, the single pot of money Congress…
Nearly a year ago, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon stood before an audience at the Reagan National Economic Forum and made a prediction that still reverberates through financial markets: “A crack in the bond market is going to happen.” Dimon, speaking in late May 2025, said he could not pinpoint when. His window was deliberately…
Every Smokey Bones restaurant in Georgia has gone dark, and the barbecue-and-grill chain is pulling back in other states too, just months after its parent company promised that filing for bankruptcy would not mean closing its doors. WSB-TV in Atlanta reported that Smokey Bones confirmed the statewide Georgia shutdowns directly to the station. (The link…