Axios

It's a good thing New York is the city that never sleeps — it's now handling more cargo volume from container ships than any other port in the country.

What's happening: The Port of New York and New Jersey processed more goods in August than either Los Angeles or Long Beach, the historic leaders given their convenience to ships coming from Asia.

Retailers are approaching holiday hiring with caution, adding fewer temporary workers than last year as they brace for a smaller bump from this year's shopping season.

Why it matters: At least half a million people relied on seasonal retail jobs in 2021, according to the National Retail Federation.

Leading progressive super PAC Priorities USA announced a $15 million campaign on Monday to combat voter suppression in battleground states.

Driving the news: The group says the investment is a bid to counter policies that unfairly disenfranchise people of color, especially Black and Latino voters, after GOP-run state legislatures introduced more than 100 bills to restrict voting access following the 2020 election.

August 2007 was, on the surface, a fine month for the U.S. and global economy. Unemployment was low. The stock market had a few bumpy days, but nothing too dramatic.

Why it matters: Many consider it to be the beginning of what we now call the global financial crisis. And there are some ominous parallels with what the world is experiencing right now.

Britain's central bank issued a rare statement on Monday that failed to stem its currency freefall, as the U.K. government's tax-slashing proposals continue to spark turmoil across financial markets.

What they're saying: The Bank of England "will not hesitate to change interest rates as necessary to return inflation to the 2% target sustainably in the medium term," the statement reads.

President Biden is slated to announce a new rule on Monday that will require airline and travel websites to disclose upfront any additional fees when displaying ticket prices.

Why it matters: The new rule would require these websites to display additional fees — such as for checked luggage, seat selection and flight changes — the first time the airfare price is displayed, according to a Department of Transportation press release.

A surprise regulatory order last week signals Washington has run out of patience with decentralized finance's skirting of rules around tying customer identity to transactions.

Why it matters: The crypto industry has been, from its earliest days, a protest against the rules tying all financial transactions to real identities. Such rules became the norm after 9/11, but fans of bitcoin and subsequent technologies have been partly motivated by seeing how far they could push them.

A federal judge on Friday ruled that U.S. Sugar can proceed with its $315 million acquisition of rival Imperial Sugar, rejecting a Justice Department antitrust lawsuit.

Why it matters: This is the latest in a string of losses for Biden antitrust officials, in both DOJ and the FTC, as Axios reported last week. The next big test will be DOJ's efforts to stop book publisher Penguin Random House's proposed acquisition of Simon & Schuster.

Private equity anxiety is peaking over a debt ceiling that has nothing to do with Congress and everything to do with Citrix.

Driving the news: Banks last week lost between $600 million and $700 million, after they were forced to discount junk bonds tied to the $16.5 billion acquisition of Citrix by Elliott Management and Vista Equity Partners.

The pandemic shook most industries — and child care is no exception.

The big picture: In-home care is ascendant, while fewer child care centers are operating now than in 2019. Better-paying nanny jobs are luring workers away from child care centers and even preschools.

The skies could soon be filled with electric, autonomous air taxis, but they'll need a place to take off, land and recharge — hence the arrival of the "vertiport."

Why it matters: These transportation hubs could become critical parts of urban or regional mobility ecosystems, linking fast and convenient air travel to other forms of transit, like airports, buses, trains and ride-hailing networks.

Downtown traffic congestion in major U.S. cities has risen significantly since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, but remains short of pre-outbreak levels, per a new analysis.

Why it matters: The pandemic has been an opportunity for cities to rethink their approach to car traffic.

Critics call it bossware. Technology used to surveil workers, already widely adopted in lower-wage industries, is growing popular in the white-collar world — managers track keystrokes, mouse clicks and even take screenshots of monitors.

Why it matters: The uptick in monitoring happened as more workers went remote, and managers increasingly worried that they weren't working. "Productivity paranoia," is what Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella called it in an interview last week.

Amazon is the latest retailer to kick off holiday shopping with its first-ever “Prime Early Access Sale,” an October members-only event similar to Prime Day.

Why it matters: Holiday spending growth is poised to trail last year's big bounce as customers seek out deals, Mastercard SpendingPulse projected this month.