Some 4 years ago, 2 discount retail kings — Dollar Tree and Dollar General — were fighting over who would absorb the third dollar store giant, Family Dollar. Dollar Tree won out.
Driving the news: But today, lagging sales at Family Dollar are actually dragging Dollar Tree down, reports the Wall Street Journal.
Two of Trump's most reliable media allies — Fox Business host Lou Dobbs and Matt Drudge — called him out last night over the direction of his administration.
Driving the news: Trump’s favorite TV host, Lou Dobbs, fired a warning shot at the president last evening after Trump hosted CEOs and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce at the White House.
Details: Set against the backdrop of the national campaign calling for a regime change, the Post also reports that Weddle's assistant, Venezuelan journalist Carlos Camacho, has been released. Reports further indicate that Weddle was accused of "betraying the homeland." Last week, Univision anchor and U.S. citizen Jorge Ramos and his crew were temporarily detained in Caracas before later being released.
The House Committee on Education and Labor voted along party lines Wednesday to advance a bill raising the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 by 2024.
The big picture: Democrats argue the bill would provide wage hikes to nearly 40 million Americans. Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to bring the legislation to the House floor for a vote, where it will likely be approved — marking "the most significant step toward raising the federal minimum wage since 2009," per CNBC. But with a Republican-controlled Senate and White House until at least 2020, that's as far as the bill will likely get.
Automation and AI has left some American workers worried they lack the skill sets to compete in a changing economy. Singapore's SkillsFuture program offers one national re-education model that aims to address such concerns.
The big picture: Since the launch of the program in 2016, over 285,000 people — more than 10% of adult residents — have participated, and 43% of Singaporean CIOs say the program has helped mitigate the economic effects of the skills gap.
The U.S. trade deficit grew to $621 billion in 2018, its highest level since 2008, according to a Commerce Department report released Wednesday that was delayed by the government shutdown.
The big picture: President Trump has made reducing the nation's trade deficit — especially with China — a major goal of his administration. However, the report showed a record-breaking $891.3 billion trade gap for the U.S. in goods and services and a trade deficit with China for goods that hit a record $419.2 billion.
It turns out a company's reputation — good or bad — doesn't make much difference in the stock market.
The big picture: Results from the Axios Harris Poll 100, a new partnership between Axios and Harris Poll, found little difference between the performance of shares for the 10 companies that had gotten the biggest ranking improvements and those with the biggest ranking declines.
Companies again are complaining about rising wages and the potential impact on corporate profits, but history has shown that higher pay doesn't squeeze S&P 500 companies' profit margins.
What it means: Profit margins have rebounded from recession lows, and are at the highest level in at least a half-century. But wages haven't kept pace.
R&B singer R. Kelly became tearful as he professed his innocence to charges of sexual abuse in an interview with "CBS This Morning" co-host Gayle King, to be broadcast Wednesday morning.
What he's saying: Kelly told King he was fighting for his life with the court case. "People are going back to my past... and adding it to all of the stuff going on now, to make it all feel real to people," said Kelly, who was acquitted in 2008 of child pornography charges. "I beat my case. You can't double jeopardy me like that. It's not fair."
All parts of America’s energy industry are having trouble hiring workers, according to a new report out today.
Driving the news: Hiring difficulty last year was cited by more than three-quarters of employers in areas like energy efficiency, electric power and vehicles. This is an increase of nearly 7% over 2017, per the annual report that had been conducted by the Energy Department and is now done by two nonprofits.
