Things To Do In SW Florida

By JOSH BOAK

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. job market has gone from healthy to lethargic during President Donald Trump’s first seven months back in the White House, as hiring has collapsed and inflation has started to climb once again as his tariffs take hold.

Friday’s jobs report showed employers added a mere 22,000 jobs in August, as the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.3%. Factories and construction firms shed workers. Revisions showed the economy lost 13,000 jobs in June, the first monthly losses since December 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The new data exposed the widening gap between the booming economy Trump promised and the more anemic reality of what he’s managed to deliver so far. The White House prides itself on operating at a breakneck speed, but it’s now asking the American people for patience, with Trump saying better job numbers might be a year away.

“We’re going to win like you’ve never seen,” Trump said Friday. “Wait until these factories start to open up that are being built all over the country, you’re going to see things happen in this country that nobody expects.” read more

By MATT O’BRIEN and THALIA BEATY

The attorneys general of California and Delaware on Friday warned OpenAI they have “serious concerns” about the safety of its flagship chatbot, ChatGPT, especially for children and teens.

The two state officials, who have unique powers to regulate nonprofits such as OpenAI, sent the letter to the company after a meeting with its legal team earlier this week in Wilmington, Delaware.

California AG Rob Bonta and Delaware AG Kathleen Jennings have spent months reviewing OpenAI’s plans to restructure its business, with an eye on “ensuring rigorous and robust oversight of OpenAI’s safety mission.”

But they said they were concerned by “deeply troubling reports of dangerous interactions between” chatbots and their users, including the “heartbreaking death by suicide of one young Californian after he had prolonged interactions with an OpenAI chatbot, as well as a similarly disturbing murder-suicide in Connecticut. Whatever safeguards were in place did not work.” read more

Q: What are the changes in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) signed into law in July that will benefit children?

A. The OBBBA established tax-advantaged investment accounts for children, known as “Trump accounts,” that are structured similarly to traditional (non-Roth) IRA accounts. For U.S. citizens born after January 1, 2025 through December 31, 2028 and who have a Social Security number, the federal government will deposit $1,000 in each account.

No contribution will be made before July 4, 2026, even for children born in 2025, and earlier in 2026. This will give the Treasury Department time to develop rules for parents to initiate these accounts and about how these accounts will be established.

Children born before January 1, 2025, can get a Trump account, but they will not get the federal contribution. Parents, or any other person, may contribute to a child’s Trump account. Total annual contributions on behalf of one child cannot exceed $5,000, indexed for inflation starting in 2028. No contribution will be allowed before July 4, 2026. (Parts or all of the $5,000 annual contribution may also be made by the parents’ employers without adding to the parents’ taxable income. No single employer can contribute more than $2,500 per year to a single account.) read more

By DEE-ANN DURBIN and BARRY HATTON

RIO FRIO, Portugal (AP) — U.S. winemakers have something to celebrate: the corks they’re popping aren’t subject to tariffs.

Related Articles

• 
  Trump executive order will rename the Department of Defense as the Department of War

• 
  Deported Venezuelan mothers ask Melania Trump to help reunite them with their children

• 
  A deadly strike marks a moment in Rubio’s long desire to confront Venezuela

• 
  Operation Warp Speed was one of Trump’s biggest achievements. Then came RFK Jr. and vaccine skeptics

• 
  Pentagon-funded research at colleges has aided the Chinese military, a House GOP report says

Cork comes from the spongy bark of the cork oak tree, which is primarily grown and harvested in the Mediterranean basin. The framework trade agreement between the United States and the European Union singled out the material as an “unavailable natural product.”

So as of Sept. 1, cork joined a handful of other items, including airplanes and generic pharmaceuticals, that are exempt from a 15% U.S. tariff on most EU products. read more

By Will Wade, Bloomberg News

Swelling U.S. demand for electricity has the potential to boost coal consumption as much as 57%, according to mining giant Peabody Energy Corp., in what would be a major shift for an industry that’s been waning for years.

With the U.S. seeking to meet skyrocketing demand and the Trump administration pushing to prop up the coal industry, Peabody expects utilities to ramp up output from coal plants that are running well below full speed, the company said in an investor presentation on Wednesday. Boosting usage to “historic capacity factors” could lead to more than 250 million tons of additional annual demand in the coming years, it said.

Still, analysts see this forecast as a mathematical maximum that’s unlikely to be achieved in the real world.

U.S. coal usage has been steadily declining as utilities shift away from the dirtiest fossil fuel. But President Donald Trump’s pro-coal and anti-renewable approach has included blocking plans to shut down this from a Michigan power plant that burns fuel from Peabody. Total consumption is expected to be 439 million tons this year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That’s up 6.7% from last year, but well down from its 2007 peak of 1.13 billion tons. read more