American employers announced 52,881 planned layoffs in August 2026, a 38% decline from the same month a year ago and the lowest August total since 2022, according to the monthly report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas released on September 3. The report marks a notable shift in what is driving
An executive order published in the Federal Register on Monday, August 31, declares a national emergency over foreign-produced equipment operating within the United States bulk-power system, the network of high-voltage transmission lines, substations, transformers, and generation infrastructure that delivers electricity across the country. Executive Order 14421, signed August 26 under
A study published August 25, 2026, in The BMJ by researchers at Harvard University and Boston University found that at least one in four former NFL players who died over a recent five-year span had chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the degenerative brain disease caused by repeated head impacts. The research, conducted
Target removed a children’s Halloween costume from stores and its website on August 25, 2026, after widespread social media backlash over a design critics said evoked racist minstrel-era caricatures. The retailer issued a public apology, acknowledged the product should never have reached shelves, and said it is reviewing internal processes
The Hawk Fire burning northwest of Reno, Nevada has grown to 15,051 acres with zero containment as of Monday morning, August 24, forcing approximately 42,000 people from their homes and placing another 45,000 under evacuation warnings. The human-caused fire, which ignited near Verdi on Saturday morning and exploded overnight into
Moderna and Merck announced on August 19 that their jointly developed personalized mRNA cancer vaccine, intismeran, met both its primary and key secondary endpoints in a Phase 3 clinical trial involving 1,137 melanoma patients. The treatment reduced cancer recurrence and prevented the spread of disease to other parts of the
An NPR analysis published on August 19 found that 15 U.S. states still have laws permitting public school employees to use corporal punishment on students, and that nearly 32,000 reported instances of paddling, hitting, or other forms of physical discipline were recorded in the 2021-22 school year. The feature arrived
The unemployment rate for recent college graduates ages 22 to 27 held at approximately 5.6% through the second quarter of 2026, above the national unemployment rate of 4.1%, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s latest labor market data. The underemployment rate for the same group edged up
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration upgraded a nationwide egg recall to Class I this week, its highest-risk classification, after linking nearly 19 million recalled eggs to a multistate Salmonella Enteritidis outbreak that has sickened 98 people across 17 states and hospitalized 26. The classification means the FDA has determined
Anthropic, the San Francisco-based artificial intelligence company behind the Claude model family, is in talks to acquire Israeli AI startup Decart for approximately $6 billion, a deal that would mark the company’s largest known acquisition and arrive just months before an anticipated public offering expected later this year. Key Takeaways
Taylor Farms, one of North America’s largest producers of packaged salads and fresh-cut vegetables, is now at the center of two simultaneous foodborne illness investigations after recalling jalapeno-containing products linked to a multistate salmonella outbreak on August 9 while still managing the fallout from a cyclospora outbreak that has sickened
The only total solar eclipse of 2026 swept across the Northern Hemisphere on Wednesday, August 12, plunging parts of Greenland, Iceland, and northern Spain into darkness for up to 2 minutes and 18 seconds while delivering a partial eclipse visible from Alaska to the mid-Atlantic coast. The event marked the
A Staten Island state court judge granted a temporary restraining order on August 10 pausing enforcement of New York City’s new pied-à-terre tax on high-value second homes, but the city immediately filed a motion to appeal, a procedural step that stays the lower court order and allows the surcharge’s implementation
The U.S. economy shed 23,000 jobs in July, the Labor Department’s Friday jobs report showed, a contraction economists had not expected after months of modest growth. The unemployment rate ticked down to 4.1%, but only because hundreds of thousands of people stopped looking for work altogether. Key Takeaways The U.S.
U.S. employers cut 23,000 jobs in July, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said on August 7, missing consensus forecasts that called for gains of roughly 83,000 positions. The unemployment rate ticked down to 4.1%, but the drop came alongside a shrinking labor force rather than a hiring surge. Key Takeaways
Governor Kathy Hochul signed legislation on August 5 requiring building owners in New York City to certify twice a year that their cooling towers have been inspected, tested, cleaned, and disinfected in compliance with the NYC Administrative Code. The law, Senate Bill S08472-A, introduces faster remediation timelines, 24-hour notification requirements
Manhattan’s office market posted 3.87 million square feet of leasing activity in July 2026, a 22 percent increase over June and a 28.4 percent jump year-over-year, according to Colliers’ latest monthly market report. Year-to-date leasing volume has now reached 26.66 million square feet, putting the borough on pace for its
Emergency dispatch centers across the United States are deploying artificial intelligence systems that move beyond answering calls to predicting where emergencies will occur before they happen. The shift from reactive to anticipatory operations is being driven by a convergence of factors: a staffing crisis that has left one in four
The New Jersey legislature passed the New Jersey Kids Code Act on June 30, sending one of the most comprehensive state-level online child safety frameworks in the country to the desk of Governor Mikie Sherrill. Assembly Bill 4015 cleared the Assembly 73-5 and the Senate 36-4, establishing an Age-Appropriate Design
Working remotely across state lines creates tax filing obligations in multiple states, and the rules determining where someone owes income tax differ sharply depending on residence, physical location, and employer headquarters. A software developer living in Florida while working for a New York company faces different liabilities than a consultant
Labor shortages, supply chain gaps, and policy uncertainty block American manufacturers from relocating production despite tariffs and government incentives pushing them to reshore from China. Manufacturing reshoring barriers have stopped the wave of factory relocations cold, leaving many firms stuck in overseas supply chains they once hoped to abandon. Policy