Letter from Google CEO to Employees: 12,000 jobs to be cut

Chicago Approves 19% Hotel Tax To Fund Tourism Push The Chicago City Council has approved a plan to boost tourism marketing by raising hotel taxes. Under Ordinance 2026-0022544, the total tax rate on hotel rooms will increase from 17.5% to 19% in downtown and nearby areas, according to Fox News. The higher rate will apply to hotels with more than 100 rooms that choose to participate. The report says that alongside the tax increase, the council created a Tourism Improvement District (TID) to fund Choose Chicago, the city’s tourism marketing organization. Revenue...

Western Australia Establishes Strategic Fuel Reserve Australia is facing a historic energy crisis with much of its gulf-sourced energy facing not one but two blockades. But at least some parts of the country are doing something about it, even if it is too little, too late.  Western Australia will establish its own strategic reserves of diesel fuel to ease “acute shortages,” the state’s government said. As Bloomberg reports, the government signed a deal with Cambridge Gulf to buy and store 4 million liters of diesel, which is expected to arrive in the...

As the Trump administration continues to grapple with the fallout from the betrayal of its core campaign promise to abandon the cycle of endless wars in the Middle East that have marred U.S. history since the dawn of the new millennium, the American public isn’t the only target of the barrage of propaganda it has […]