Cannabis advocates were celebrating the release of WNBA player Brittney Griner ahead of her return to the U.S. Friday after spending 10 months imprisoned in Russia for possession of cannabis vaping oil. Griner landed in Texas following a prisoner exchange in which the U.S. returned convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout. She was released from…
The Internal Revenue Service has been turning up its scrutiny on cryptocurrency investors in recent years, and as that happens, more investors have been turning to the tax code’s rules on investment losses. That’s according to a study released this week that shines a light on the link between IRS enforcement and “tax-loss harvesting.” The…
Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Oracle Corp., Amazon.com Inc., and Microsoft Corp. will share a $9 billion hybrid contract to provide secure cloud services for the Pentagon worldwide, the Department of Defense said Wednesday. In the Pentagon’s daily contract announcements, Alphabet GOOG, -2.22% GOOGL, -2.10%, Oracle ORCL, -0.16%, Microsoft MSFT, -0.31%, Amazon AMZN, +0.24% were jointly…
Is this an opportune time to ask for a raise? Or, given the recent spate of tech layoffs, is it better to lie low for a while? The good news: Employers are giving pay raises. The increase in wages over the past year climbed to 5.1%, from 4.9% in the prior month, the Labor Department…
The U.S. said it would allow Chevron Corp. to resume pumping oil from its Venezuelan oil fields after President Nicolás Maduro’s government and an opposition coalition agreed to implement a humanitarian program and continue dialogue in Mexico City on efforts to hold free and fair elections. Following the agreement, the Biden administration granted Chevron CVX, -0.29% a…
Two turkeys have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. President Joe Biden ceremoniously pardoned gobblers Chocolate and Chip on the South Lawn of the White House on Monday in a plucky presidential tradition that some reports date to as early as the 1860s. “It’s a wonderful Thanksgiving tradition here,” said Biden, who kept…
It’s official: Former President Donald Trump is running to “make America great again” — again — in 2024. “America’s comeback starts right now,” said Trump, who officially entered the 2024 race with a primetime campaign announcement from Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday night. “In order to make America great and glorious again, I am tonight announcing my…
Donald Trump will seek the presidency for a third time in 2024, the former president announced in a speech from his Florida estate Tuesday night, paving the way for a contentious Republican primary and a potential rematch between Trump and President Joe Biden for the White House in two years. “In order to make America…
Within days of the epic collapse of the crypto trading platform FTX, lawyers from an alphabet soup of U.S. regulatory and investigative agencies were lining up to open probes. Two major questions loom for FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried: could he possibly face criminal charges in the U.S. and can U.S. government agencies assert jurisdiction over…
Democrats are projected to keep their hold on the U.S. Senate after winning a key race in Nevada on Saturday, giving President Joe Biden’s party control of at least one chamber of Congress for the next two years. The Associated Press called Nevada’s Senate race for Democratic incumbent Catherine Cortez Masto over Republican challenger Adam…
Less than three months ago, a bill dedicating $80 billion for sweeping technological upgrades, staff additions and more enforcement at the Internal Revenue Service passed with no Republican votes, but a lot of fiery GOP criticism. Republican lawmakers could wind up with a majority in the House of Representatives and Senate after the dust settles…
Japanese Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki on Wednesday showed a broader concern about the yen’s weakness, saying the slower pace of the yen’s depreciation, not just sharp movements, isn’t desirable for the Japanese economy. “I am very concerned about the gradual weakening of the yen” because a weaker yen could accelerate inflation in Japan by increasing…
Only three people have ever been both secretary of defense and director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Leon Panetta, who for good measure was also an eight-term congressman and White House chief of staff, is one of them. I spent half an hour with him recently to get his views on Russian President Vladimir Putin…
There’s a difference between the amount of taxes that people and businesses owe the Internal Revenue Service and the amount they actually pay. From 2014 to 2016, that multibillion-dollar gap widened, and the divide will likely get even wider later in the decade, the IRS said Friday. For each of those years, taxpayers failed to…
More than 60% of statewide markets measured by Rent.com saw rents drop in September compared to August — another sign of prices cooling down after soaring to dizzying highs earlier this year, according to a new analysis from the company. What’s more, national median rent prices month over month fell 2.5% overall, though rents still…
People can contribute up to $22,500 in 401(k) accounts and $6,500 in IRAs in 2023, the IRS said Friday. For 401(k)s, that’s an almost 10% increase from 2022’s contribution limit of $20,500. For IRAs, it’s a more than 8% rise from 2022’s limit of $6,000. As added context, the inflation-indexed bumps tax year 2023 income…
The Japanese yen suddenly rallied against the U.S. dollar on Friday amid reports and widespread speculation that Japan’s Ministry of Finance and Bank of Japan had intervened to prop up the yen after the currency tumbled to a fresh 32-year low against the greenback. Earlier in the day, the yen had weakened more than 1%…
Aides from the administration of former President Donald Trump interfered with communications from a leading public health agency to downplay the risks of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a damning new report published Monday. Aides “usurped control of CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) communications and blocked public health officials from providing accurate information…
America’s high inflation rate will produce a 7% increase in the size of the standard deduction when workers file their taxes on their 2023 income, according to new inflation adjustments from the Internal Revenue Service. It’s also going to pump up tax brackets by 7% as well, according to the annual inflation adjustments the IRS…
WASHINGTON — Federal investigators contacted at least two aides to former President Donald Trump months before the FBI searched his Mar-a-Lago resort and have sought to talk to them again in recent weeks, people familiar with the matter said, as the Justice Department examines possible obstruction of its efforts to retrieve hundreds of government and classified documents. The aides,…
U.S. chip-equipment suppliers are pulling out staff based at China’s leading memory-chip maker and pausing business activities there, according to people familiar with the matter, as they grapple with the impact of Commerce Department semiconductor export restrictions. State-owned Yangtze Memory Technologies Co. is facing a freeze in support from key suppliers including KLA Corp. KLAC, -2.17% KLAC -2.17%▼ and Lam Research Corp….