The Trump administration is going back to the “tough on crime” policies of the 1980s and ’90s. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has ordered federal prosecutors to bring charges that carry heavy penalties – sometimes mandatory minimum sentences. This is a roll-back of Obama administration rules telling prosecutors not to charge nonviolent drug offenders with crimes that […]

China was hailing its new trade deal with the United States today. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said yesterday the agreement will help cut the U.S.’s massive trade deficit with China. The deal will open China’s beef market to U.S. cattle for the first time in 15 years, and benefit American natural gas and credit card […]

Department stores, those vestiges of the past, just can’t catch a break these days. Yesterday, shares of both Macy’s and Kohl’s plummeted as investors grow more pessimistic about brick-and-mortar retail in an e-commerce world. There is one silver lining: Business from store-branded credit cards is up, but it likely won’t be enough to reverse the […]

One more of President Trump’s nominees can move into his office and take up the president’s agenda on international trade, specifically NAFTA. Robert Lighthizer, an international trade lawyer and former trade official in the Reagan administration, was confirmed as U.S. trade representative today by the Senate on a vote of 82 to 14.  He’s likely […]

Snapchat’s first quarter earnings fell short of expectations on many fronts, and that has investors wondering if Instagram and its owner, Facebook, are beating Snap at its own game. Instagram and Facebook have copied many popular features of Snapchat and its “stories” platform, and they have the bigger user base in place that Snap wants […]

The resignation of the U.S. Census Bureau director leaves the agency with no leader just month before it begins a big hiring and technology push for the 2020 census. Data from the census is useful far beyond counting the population. Economists and businesses use census numbers to decide where and when to expand, or pull […]