Business News

  • Federal officials say they have asked the FBI to consider criminal charges against more than 250 unruly airline passengers since late 2021. The Federal Aviation Administration said Thursday that 17 of those cases have been referred to the FBI in the first three months of this year. That's a slower pace, and it seems tied to a decline in passengers acting up on planes since a judge struck down the requirement for passengers to wear masks. The FAA can levy civil fines for misbehaving on planes, but it has to ask the FBI to file criminal charges in the most serious cases.

    April 13, 2023
  • Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy says he’s growing increasingly concerned about President Joe Biden’s unwillingness to negotiate on lifting the nation’s borrowing authority. He says in a letter to the president dated Tuesday that the White House position “could prevent America from meeting its obligations and hold dire ramifications for the entire nation.” The White House says McCarthy and the Republicans are to blame, refusing to put forward their own budget plan before formal negotiations. The Treasury Department has resorted to “extraordinary measures” to avoid default on the nation’s $31.4 trillion borrowing authority. But those measures will run out, possibly as early as June.

    March 28, 2023
  • Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has notified Congress that the U.S. is projected to reach its debt limit on Thursday and will then resort to “extraordinary measures” to avoid default.

    January 13, 2023
  • Thousands of flights across the U.S. were canceled or delayed after a system that offers safety information to pilots failed. The government launched an investigation into the breakdown, which grounded some planes for hours. The Federal Aviation Administration said preliminary indications traced the outage to a damaged database file.

    January 11, 2023
  • Explaining the history of locality pay and how it affects federal employees on the General Schedule.

    January 05, 2023
  • The new leader of Navy shipbuilder Bath Iron Works said he's been rejuvenated by a shift from his former aerospace job to building ships.

    December 27, 2022
  • House investigators say a federal contractor that provided identity verification services for the Internal Revenue Service overstated its capacity to perform its services. The investigators say ID.me also made false claims about the amount of money lost to pandemic fraud in an apparent effort to increase demand for its services. The investigation of firm ID.me began in April after critics said the facial recognition software could become a target of cyberthreats and presented privacy concerns. A company representative says “calling ID.me’s estimate too high or baseless is premature, and we welcome additional oversight on this important matter."

    November 17, 2022
  • The U.S. Interior Department's plan to withdraw hundreds of square miles in New Mexico from oil and gas production for the next 20 years is expected to result in only a few dozen wells not being drilled on federal land surrounding Chaco Culture National Historical Park. Land managers on Thursday released an environmental assessment of the plan first outlined by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland in 2021 in response to the concerns of Native American tribes in New Mexico and Arizona. Environmentalists say the agency needs to take a broader look at the cumulative effects of development if they want to preserve cultural sites and limit pollution from ongoing development beyond the proposed withdrawal zone.

    November 11, 2022
  • The U.S. is celebrating Veterans Day at a time when the nation is experiencing some of its lowest monthly veteran unemployment rates on record. The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the seasonally adjusted veteran jobless rate was 2.7% in October. Experts say the low numbers are due in part to the tight labor market. But they also credit significant efforts in recent years by the federal government and veteran service organizations to provide assistance to former service members. Leaving the military can be one of the most difficult transitions a person can make. The transformation sometimes takes years of working unfulfilling jobs, while finding a new purpose beyond serving one’s country.

    November 11, 2022
  • Postmaster General Louis DeJoy says the postal service gave a solid performance in delivering mail-in ballots for the midterm elections and is ready to dive into the crush of holiday deliveries. DeJoy told the Board of Governors on Thursday that 11.3 billion pieces of mail and 567 million packages were delivered last month. He says the Postal Service has stabilized its workforce and is ready for the next challenge of delivering holiday cards and parcels. The Postal Service announced an adjusted annual operating loss of $473 million for the fiscal year when a one-time adjustment under the Postal Service Reform Act was excluded from the results.

    November 10, 2022
  • U.S. Army officials say investigators have launched a broad review of at least 1,900 National Guard and Reserve soldiers who were swept up in a recruiting bonus scandal up to a decade ago and may have been wrongly blamed and punished.

    November 03, 2022
  • Congress is moving quickly to avoid a government shutdown

    September 29, 2022
  • Sen. Joe Manchin has abandoned his push to speed up the permitting process for energy projects

    September 27, 2022
  • For the first time in a decade, Americans will pay less next year on monthly premiums for Medicare’s Part B plan, which covers routine doctors’ visits and other outpatient care

    September 27, 2022