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By Gerson Freitas Jr., Bloomberg News

American beef lovers may face even leaner plates and higher prices next year as US production shrinks to a decade low and tariffs limit imports, according to a US government projection.

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Total beef supply in the US is expected to drop 2.5% in 2026 to 31.1 billion pounds — the lowest since 2019 — the US Department of Agriculture said in a monthly report. The decline threatens to push record beef prices even higher, with tariffs limiting importers’ ability to soften the blow.

US beef supplies have been constrained by a shrinking herd. For years, ranchers have been culling cows due to a combination of persistent drought and high costs, reducing the domestic inventory to its lowest level in several decades. read more

By MATT OTT, Associated Press Business Writer

The number of Americans filing for jobless benefits fell modestly last week, remaining in the historically low range since the U.S. economy emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Applications for unemployment benefits for the week ending Aug. 9 fell by 3,000 to 224,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That’s below the 230,000 new applications that economists had forecast.

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Weekly applications for jobless benefits are seen as a proxy for U.S. layoffs and have mostly settled in a historically healthy range between 200,000 and 250,000 since COVID-19 throttled the economy in the spring of 2020. read more

By PAUL WISEMAN, Associated Press Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. wholesale inflation surged unexpectedly last month, signaling that President Donald Trump’s sweeping taxes on imports are pushing costs up and that higher prices for consumers may be on the way.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that its producer price index — which measures inflation before it hits consumers— rose 0.9% last month from June, biggest jump in more than three years. Compared with a year earlier, wholesale prices rose 3.3%.

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  South Korean Supreme Court dismisses US composer’s ‘Baby Shark’ copyright claim

The numbers were much higher than economists had expected. read more

By KIM TONG-HYUNG, Associated Press

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s Supreme Court rejected a $21,600 damage claim Thursday by an American composer who accused a South Korean kids content company of plagiarizing his version of “Baby Shark,” ending a six-year legal battle over the globally popular tune known for its catchy “doo doo doo doo doo doo” hook.

The top court upheld lower court rulings dating back to 2021 and 2023 that found no sufficient grounds to conclude the company, Pinkfong, infringed on Jonathan Wright’s copyright.

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