Anthropic Rushes Staff To D.C. After A National-Security Order Yanked Fable In Three Days

World Cup Hangover Triggers Retail Sales Slump In July, K-Shaped Economy Waning Based on BofA's almost omniscient analysts, traders should expect a big disappointment this morning from US retail sales as the bank's data showed a huge drop in online retail (card not present) in July... ...because Prime Day and related promotions were pulled forward from July to June this year. Many other retail categories also saw m/m declines, including clothing, gas (due to lower prices) and furniture. Other factors driving the weakness in July likely included the heat wave around July 4...

Visualizing America's Slide In 'Happiness Rankings' Since 2011 The United States has steadily slipped in the global happiness rankings over the past decade. While it still ranks among the top 25 in the latest World Happiness Report, the U.S. is no longer close to the leading group of Nordic countries that consistently dominate the top spots. This visualization, via Visual Capitalist's Niccolo Conte, tracks the U.S. happiness ranking from 2011 to 2025, based on data from the World Happiness Report 2026. Each annual ranking is based on a three-year average of life evaluation survey responses...

Jobless Claims & JOLTs Confirm 'Higher Hire, No Fire' Economy With JOLTs data showing record hiring (and ADP signaling acceleration in job additions), today we get some signal on firings as the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits for the first time was at 200k last week (below the 205k exp) and continuing to languish near multi-decade lows (near 1967 lows!!)... Source: Bloomberg Non-seasonally adjusted across all the states saw a 299k drop in claims led by Rhode Island and Arizona (California and Michigan saw the biggest increases)... Continuing jobless claims also...