Things To Do In SW Florida

By WYATTE GRANTHAM-PHILIPS and PAUL WISEMAN

Since returning to the White House in January, President Donald Trump has overturned decades of U.S. trade policy — building a wall of tariffs around what used to be a wide open economy.

His double-digit taxes on imports from almost every country have disrupted global commerce and strained the budgets of consumers and businesses worldwide. They have also raised tens of billions of dollars for the U.S. Treasury.

Trump has argued that his steep new import taxes are necessary to bring back wealth that was “stolen” from the U.S. He says they will narrow America’s decades-old trade deficit and bring manufacturing back to the country. But upending the global supply chain has proven costly for households facing rising prices. And the erratic way the president rolled out his tariffs — announcing them, then suspending or altering them before conjuring up new ones — made 2025 one of the most turbulent economic years in recent memory.

Here’s a look at the impact of Trump’s tariffs over the last year, in four charts. read more

By MATIAS DELACROIX and REGINA GARCIA CANO

MARACAY, Venezuela (AP) — This was not the Christmas that Mariela Gómez would have imagined a year ago. Or the one that thousands of other Venezuelan immigrants would have thought. But Donald Trump returned to the White House in January and quickly ended their American dream.

So Gómez found herself spending the holiday in northern Venezuela for the first time in eight years. She dressed up, cooked, got her son a scooter and smiled for her in-laws. Hard as she tried, though, she could not ignore the main challenges faced by returning migrants: unemployment and poverty.

“We had a modest dinner, not quite what we’d hoped for, but at least we had food on the table,” Gómez said of the lasagna-like dish she shared with her partner and in-laws instead of the traditional Christmas dish of stuffed corn dough hallacas. “Making hallacas here is a bit expensive, and since we’re unemployed, we couldn’t afford to make them.”

Gómez, her two sons and her partner returned to the city of Maracay on Oct. 27 after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border to Texas, where they were quickly swept up by U.S. Border Patrol amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration. They were deported to Mexico, from where they began the dangerous journey back to Venezuela. read more

By Jarrell Dillard, Bloomberg News

This year was a difficult one for Americans looking for work. Forecasters don’t see much improvement in their prospects coming in 2026.

The unemployment rate is set to remain elevated through almost all of next year despite solid economic growth, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg. That unusual combination owes to the growing role of investments in artificial intelligence in powering the expansion without boosting hiring, some say.

A stagnant labor market likely means another year of limited job opportunities and cooling wage increases, exacerbating affordability concerns for American families heading into the midterm elections. It also spells an even greater reliance on the health-care sector, which accounted for nearly all job growth in 2025.

“A lot of the GDP growth we’re getting is from AI infrastructure investments, which don’t generate very many jobs, and there’s some displacement from AI,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at KPMG. “We don’t know how much that is yet. It looks like it’s only the beginning phases of it.” read more

By MATT OTT, AP Business Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The average rate on a 30-year U.S. mortgage ticked down modestly this week, remaining in the same narrow range of the past two months.

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The average long-term mortgage rate fell to 6.18% from 6.21% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Wednesday. A year ago, the rate averaged 6.85%.

Borrowing costs on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, popular with homeowners refinancing their home loans, rose this week. The rate averaged 5.50%, up from 5.47% last week. A year ago it averaged 6%, Freddie Mac said.

Mortgage rates are influenced by several factors, from the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy decisions to bond market investors’ expectations for the economy and inflation. They generally follow the trajectory of the 10-year Treasury yield, which lenders use as a guide to pricing home loans. read more

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street closed higher and reached more records Wednesday on a holiday-shortened trading day.

The S&P 500 index rose 22.26 points, or 0.3%, to 6,932.05. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 288.75, or 0.6%, to close at 48,731.16, and the Nasdaq composite added 51.46, or 0.2%, to 23,613.31

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Trading was extremely light as markets closed early for Christmas Eve and will be closed for Christmas Thursday. Roughly 1.8 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday, which is roughly a third of the average trading day.

Markets will reopen for a full day of trading on Friday; however volumes are expected to remain light this week with most investors having closed out their positions for the year. read more