Russell Vought, CFPB's new acting head, issues directives to halt parts of bureau activity
Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought issued a series of directives to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau employees Saturday night in his new capacity as the bureau's acting head, effectively slowing a large part of the bureau's activity to a standstill. In the email to CFPB employees, which was obtained by NBC News, Vought confirmed that he has taken on the role of acting head of the bureau and announced a dozen directives that would go into effect immediately. Employees were instructed to “cease all supervision and examination activity,” “cease all stakeholder engagement,” pause all pending investigations, not issue any public communications and pause “enforcement actions.”
New clothes feel cheap? They really don't make them like they used to
You’re not imagining it: Well-made clothing is harder to come by. The U.S. fashion industry is having a hard time maintaining quality standards amid stiff competition from overseas rivals and supply-chain shakeups. Twenty-seven percent of textile and apparel professionals reported that ensuring consistent quality was “difficult” or “very difficult” over the past year, up from 23% in 2024, according to a recent survey the product auditing firm QIMA provided to NBC News. “There has been a significant reduction in the quality of the fabric for a number of the major brands and retailers,” said Margaret Bishop, a textile development and marketing professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. She said the decline intensified during the recovery from the pandemic, when apparel makers scrambled to untangle disrupted supply chains and contended with weak sales during global lockdowns.
Minneapolis Fed's Neel Kashkari expects lower interest rates later this year
Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari said Friday he expects to see interest rates lower this year if the economic data continues to move in the same direction. In a CNBC interview, the central bank official expressed confidence that inflation will continue to drift down to the Fed’s 2% target, while Friday’s nonfarm payrolls report showed the labor market continues to look strong. “Ultimately, our job is maximum employment and stable prices. If we see very good data on the inflation front while the labor market stays strong, then I think that would move me towards supporting easing further,” Kashkari said on “Squawk Box.” “I don’t know why we’d have to keep rates where they were if we really saw inflation coming down quickly.”
Even at $8 million per Super Bowl commercial, ad executives say it's still bang for your buck
Advertisers shelled out up to $8 million for a spot during Super Bowl 59. Ad industry executives still consider the price tag worth it, and argue it’s even a bang for their buck. The NFL’s championship game between the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs will air this year on Fox Corp.’s broadcast network, as well as on Fox’s free streamer Tubi. It’ll likely be the biggest audience watching live television at the same time this year. “The scale and buzz factor still delivers a punch,” said Amy Leifer, DirecTV’s chief advertising sales officer. “Where else can you get 100 million viewers at once, right? Especially in this fragmented landscape ... there’s virtually few places you can go to get that type of scale.”
Many workers would take a pay cut to work from home — some would forgo at least 20% of their salary
Many workers value remote work to such a degree that they’d take a pay cut to be able to work from home, even on a part-time basis, studies show. The prevalence of remote work ballooned during the Covid-19 pandemic. Many experienced telework perhaps for the first time in their careers; employees cite work-life balance as by far the biggest perceived benefit, according to Pew Research Center. Some researchers have quantified the financial value workers assign to telework. For example, about 40% of workers say they’d accept a pay cut of at least 5% to keep their remote job, according to a recent study by researchers at Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Consumer inflation fears spike in February as tariff worries hit sentiment
Consumers grew dramatically more worried about near-term inflation as President Donald Trump pushed aggressive tariffs against major U.S. trading partners, a closely watched survey showed Friday. The University of Michigan consumer survey for February showed that respondents expect the inflation rate a year from now to be 4.3%, a 1 percentage point jump from January and the highest level since November 2023. Though Trump postponed tariffs against Canada and Mexico, the looming threat of price pass-throughs to consumers shook sentiment. China has levied retaliatory tariffs following Trump’s move. The survey window ran from Jan. 21, the day after Trump took office, to Feb. 3.
Trump taps Vance to negotiate sale of TikTok ahead of April deadline
President Donald Trump has tapped Vice President J.D. Vance to broker a potential sale of TikTok to a U.S.-based entity before the most recent ban extension elapses in April, according to two people familiar with the arrangement. In the latest chapter of the TikTok saga — which began in 2020 with Trump and culminated in the app going dark for a few hours last month — the president selected Vance, along with National Security Adviser Michael Waltz, to oversee a congressionally mandated potential deal between Chinese-based owner ByteDance and an American entity. The White House negotiators will have their work cut out for themselves. It remains to be seen what type of arrangement, if any, ByteDance and China will agree to. Trump recently floated the idea of 50/50 American and Chinese joint ownership, but the situation remains fluid. It’s also uncertain whether such a split would satisfy the ongoing U.S. national security concerns that spurred the ban in the first place.
Chappell Roan was one of the 25 million uninsured Americans — here's why health coverage is still out of reach for some artists
With a Grammy win for best new artist, Chappell Roan is at a career high. A few years ago, she was one of the millions of Americans without a job or health insurance. “I told myself that if I ever won a Grammy and got to stand up here in front of the most powerful people in music, I would demand that labels, and the industry profiting millions of dollars off of artists, would offer a livable wage and health care, especially to developing artists,” she said at the Grammy awards show in Los Angeles on Feb. 2. “When I got dropped, I had zero job experience under my belt. And like most people, I had a difficult time finding a job in the pandemic and could not afford health insurance,” she said in her acceptance speech.
Nonalcoholic booze scores big ahead of the Super Bowl
Beer has long been king on Super Bowl Sunday, but this year more Americans may be reaching for alcohol-free brews. U.S. sales of nonalcoholic beer, wine and spirits surged 26% over the past year to top $800 million, according to the market research firm NIQ. Traditional alcohol sales, on the other hand, fell for the first time in three years, though by a modest dip of less than 1%. Consumers report drinking less than they did during the pandemic, with 58% telling Gallup pollsters in mid-2024 that they consumed alcohol, down from 67% in mid-2022.
Super Bowl 2025 commercials: Budweiser, Google and more ads released so far
A barrage of new, glitzy, celebrity-filled ads debuted during Super Bowl 59 on Sunday. Fox, which aired the game, said in November that it had sold out of ad spots — with more than 10 of those commercials costing advertisers $8 million apiece, according to CNBC. This year’s lineup of commercials touched on everything from smart glasses to pizza rolls. There were also a handful of artificial intelligence-related spots. “AI is coming. If it’s not already here in almost every business, it will be coming like a freight train,” Mark Evans, executive vice president of sales for Fox Sports, told The Hollywood Reporter. “So you will see some more AI focused creative, which I think intuitively would be expected.”