Carmakers are playing catch-up with Tesla on air filtration
In the U.S., the average person spends about five years of their life in a vehicle, which isn’t the best place to be from a clean-air perspective.
U.S. opens investigation into fatal Tesla crash in Virginia
The Fauquier County Sheriff’s Office said the 57-year-old Tesla driver was killed after the tractor trailer was attempting to turn onto a highway from a truck stop.
4 ways restarting student loan payments could impact economy
By Elizabeth Renter | NerdWallet
After more than three years of an interest-free payment pause on federal student loans, millions of Americans will soon be on the hook for monthly payments. The effects could be felt across the economy.
How resuming payments will affect a single borrower varies widely, depending on, among other things, whether they stopped making payments at all, how much debt they have, the repayment program they’re in, and their current and future expected income. It also depends on the other expenses competing for a piece of their monthly budget. Because so many people are affected — 43.6 million people hold federal student loan debt, according to the Department of Education — the impact to the economy stands to be broad even if some borrowers don’t have a difficult time adjusting.
Currently, there is $1.6 trillion in federal student loan debt outstanding, according to data from the New York Fed’s first quarter Household Debt and Credit Report. This will come down by at least an estimated $39 billion (about 2.4%) before repayment begins, as long-time debtholders who have been paying for 20 years or more stand to have their slates cleared in a one-time adjustment recently announced by the Biden administration.
EV maker VinFast set to list on Nasdaq in rare SPAC venue switch
The planned Nasdaq listing caps VinFast’s years-long efforts to become a publicly traded company.
As prices rise, some restaurants see fewer customers
Alejandro Martinez says sales at his Winter Springs restaurant, Stefano’s Trattoria, aren’t growing like they have since he bought the place in 2014.
Since Easter, he said, they are either slightly down year-over-year or only slightly up, depending on the day, not at the 6% to 10% growth he’s seen in the past few years.
And while his sales remain higher than in 2019 before the coronavirus pandemic transformed the restaurant industry, more expensive food costs and higher wages for employees have cut into profits. Martinez said after buying the restaurant he didn’t raise his menu prices for five years, but he has had to increase them three times since 2021 to cover higher costs.
Restaurants across the country are continuing to raise prices and reporting fewer customers coming in the doors.
In the National Restaurant Association’s June restaurant performance index, 57% of operators reported a decline in traffic from last June. This was the third straight month of decline, leading the association to say the current situation was “dampened.”