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The automotive past offered predictability. A typical fender bender meant a repair, a short rental, and a completed claim with the car insurance provider. Today, that same minor collision is increasingly likely to result in a “total loss” designation from the insurer. Even seemingly fixable damage leads to vehicles being written off at an alarming rate. This change is not due only to visible damage; it is the result of the “Total Loss Tsunami,” driven by persistent global supply chain disruptions and soaring parts costs. This situation represents a significant financial hit for vehicle owners and a fundamental shift for the entire auto insurance industry. The rising frequency of total loss claims is a key driver behind increasing auto insurance premiums, a trend analyzed closely by resources such as Cheap Insurance.

The Perfect Storm: When “Fixable” Becomes “Unfeasible”

The decision for a car insurance company to declare a vehicle a total loss boils down to a cold, hard calculation: Is the cost of repairing the vehicle more than a certain percentage of its Actual Cash Value (ACV)? This total loss threshold is set by state law or by the insurer, but typically hovers around 70% to 80% of the ACV. If repair costs hit that mark, the vehicle is totaled.

The application of this rule varies drastically by location, creating different risk profiles for vehicle insurance providers nationwide. For example, Oklahoma has one of the nation’s lowest thresholds at 60%, meaning a vehicle with damage exceeding 60% of its value must be totaled. Conversely, states like Texas have a 100% threshold, though insurers there often use their own, lower economic threshold. This complexity means that the same repair cost on the same model of vehicle can lead to a total loss in one state but not another.

Before the pandemic, this calculation was relatively stable, allowing auto insurance providers to predict claim outcomes. Now, virtually every variable has been altered, making that total loss threshold far easier to breach for the insurer.

1. The Phantom Parts: Supply Chain Chokeholds

A vehicle needing a new bumper, a headlight assembly, and specific ADAS sensors faces severe challenges.

• Manufacturing delays: Global shutdowns, labor shortages, and raw material scarcity, especially for microchips, have crippled automotive parts production. A part once readily available might now be on backorder for months.
• Shipping bottlenecks: Ports are congested, shipping containers are scarce, and transportation costs have exploded. A part, once produced, often cannot reach the repair shop in a timely or cost-effective manner.
• Specialized components: Modern vehicles are intricate. If a complex ADAS sensor or a

By Jeanne Sahadi, CNN

(CNN) — The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which was signed into law in July, created several new tax provisions and made changes to others that are in effect for this year. So it’s worth having the rundown of some of the key ones before preparing your 2025 tax return.

Some of the provisions may result in a lower tax bill for you – or a higher refund. But figuring out whether you are eligible to claim them – and what documents you’ll need to do so – may be more confusing and time consuming than usual for tax filers and tax professionals.

“The United States tax code is complex, not simple. Unfortunately, the OBBBA further complicates tax filing,” a Tax Foundation analysis notes.

Here are 10 of the most notable changes for individual filers:

1. A higher standard deduction

The standard deduction for 2025 was raised to $15,750 for single filers, up from the $15,000 previously in place. For married couples filing jointly, it is increased to $31,500, up from $30,000. And for heads of households, their standard deduction will be $23,625, up from $22,500.

Most filers take the standard deduction because it is higher than the total of itemized deductions they are eligible to claim (e.g., mortgage interest, state and local taxes, charitable contributions, medical expenses, etc.).

2. A personal deduction for seniors

Anyone born before January 2, 1961 and who has a valid Social Security number may now take a $6,000 deduction (or $12,000 if married filing jointly and each spouse qualifies). This new deduction is taken on top of your standard deduction or itemized deductions.

But the your deduction will be reduced if your modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) is more than $75,000 ($150,000 for joint filers) but less than $175,000 ($250,000). Above those levels, the tax break is disallowed.

3. A higher state and local tax deduction

What had been a $10,000 cap on the amount of state and local taxes that itemizers may deduct on their federal income tax return is now $40,000 ($20,000 if married filing separately).

The so-called SALT deduction lets you deduct either your state and local income taxes or your state and local general sales taxes. On top of that, you also may be allowed to deduct your property taxes, assuming your income or sales taxes don’t put you over the cap.

If you’re a very high-income filer you will be limited in how much you may deduct. That includes anyone with a MAGI over $500,000 ($250,000 if married filing separately).

4. Car loan interest deduction

If you bought a new vehicle (eg, a car, motorcycle or van) for personal use this year and you took out a loan to finance the purchase, you may be allowed to deduct at least some of the interest. But only if the final leg of production for your vehicle was done in the United States, which is something that should be disclosed when you look up your Vehicle Identification Number (VIN).

But you won’t be allowed to deduct more than $10,000 a year – an amount that is reduced if your MAGI is over $100,000 ($200,000 if married filing jointly). Once your MAGI exceeds $149,000 ($249,000 for joint filers) the deduction is disallowed.

While your lender will be required to furnish to both you and the IRS a form that reports on the interest you paid, they don’t have to do so this year. So, for record-keeping purposes, ask your lender or check your loan statements to help you document the interest you paid

By Nayeli Jaramillo-Plata, Matt Egan, CNN

New York (CNN) — President Donald Trump promised voters in 2024 that if they returned him to the White House, his policies would deliver a blue-collar jobs boom.

“We’re going to have a manufacturing boom,” Trump said during a September 2024 rally in battleground Georgia.

Trump said his policies would attract “energy-hungry industries,” creating “millions and millions of blue-collar jobs and jobs of every type.”

And yet as his first calendar year in office winds down, that blue-collar jobs boom has yet to arrive.

If anything, industries that rely on manual labor are cutting jobs, not adding them, a trend that economists blame at least in part on the president’s historic and volatile tariff policy.

The latest jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, released Tuesday, shows that most sectors traditionally considered blue collar have been shrinking headcount.

“You can’t say the economy is doing really well if these jobs aren’t growing alongside it.” said Hardika Singh, economic strategist at Fundstrat Global Advisors.

Manufacturing jobs hit 3.5-year low

For instance, the transportation and warehousing industry has cut jobs in each of the past three months. That industry has lost an average of 17,200 jobs over the past three months, according to BLS data.

Mining and logging payrolls are down by an average of 2,000 over the past three months.

Even manufacturing, the industry the president’s tariffs are designed to boost, is cutting jobs. Manufacturing employment fell by 5,000 in November to the lowest level since March 2022 during the rebound from Covid-19.

In fact, manufacturing employment is down seven months in a row, each month since Trump rolled out his “Liberation Day” tariffs that rocked Wall Street and alarmed Corporate America.

One of the only bright spots for blue-collar jobs is construction, which added a strong 28,000 jobs in November.

After shedding workers earlier this year, construction is averaging a gain of 17,333 over the past three months.

There’s no hard and fast rule around what qualifies as a blue-collar job — but traditionally these are positions that involve manual labor or skilled trades, such as operating machinery and building infrastructure.

Trump officials remain focused on blue-collar jobs.

As recently as June, the White House promised that Trump’s tax and spending cut law, the One Big Beautiful Bill, would “unleash our economy and deliver a Blue-Collar BOOM.”

Trump officials have also hailed pay increases among blue-collar workers as evidence that his economic agenda is working.

In June, the White House said real wages (after adjusting for inflation) for hourly workers increased by nearly 2% in the first five months of the president’s second term, the biggest such increase under any administration in nearly 60 years.

Why these sectors are struggling

Economists point to a variety of factors for the pressure on blue-collar jobs, including trade policy, high borrowing costs, automation and a shortage of skilled workers.

Although high tariffs on

By Casey Gannon, Katelyn Polantz, Annie Grayer, CNN

(CNN) — Former special counsel Jack Smith is set to testify Wednesday in a closed-door deposition before the House Judiciary Committee regarding his prosecutions of Donald Trump.

Smith plans to testify about Trump’s alleged mishandling and retention of classified documents and his role in attempting to overturn the 2020 election, according to sources familiar with the investigation. He also will seek to clarify issues surrounding the use of phone records.

But there may be details Smith may not be willing or able to testify about on Wednesday, such as parts of the second volume of his report around Trump’s handling of classified documents in Mar-a-Lago, the source added.

The high-stakes interview could go hours and carries significant risk for Smith since Trump has called for him to be prosecuted, and how Smith answers questions could carry risks with a federal judge in Florida, the Justice Department and the Republican-controlled Judiciary Committee.

Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, subpoenaed Smith to testify privately, accusing Smith of running a “partisan and politically motivated” probe of Trump and conducting “abusive surveillance” of lawmakers, among other things.

Smith has continually denied his work was politically motivated and said that he is willing to testify publicly regarding his investigations into Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort and the attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election culminating in the January 6, 2021, US Capitol riot.

“The idea that politics would play a role in big cases like this, it’s absolutely ludicrous and it’s totally contrary to my experience as a prosecutor,” Smith said during an interview in October with former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann at the University College London.

“Jack is looking forward to answering the committee’s questions, sharing the legal basis for his investigative steps, and discussing the evidence of President Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his unlawful possession of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago,” Smith’s attorney Peter Koski said in a statement to CNN.

Smith, a longtime public corruption prosecutor, was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland in November 2022 to oversee the investigations after Trump announced he was running for president again.

He brought criminal charges against Trump in 2023. The former president pleaded not guilty in both cases and neither went to trial. The case on mishandling classified documents ended with District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, nullifying Smith’s office. The 2020 election and January 6 case was hamstrung by a landmark Supreme Court decision and dropped after Trump was re-elected.

Trump has continued to say that he did not do anything wrong on January 6, and since taking office for a second term, he has pardoned over 1,000 people who had been charged in connection to the violent attack.

What the Republicans want

Jordan has said the Republicans are interested in how the investigation into Trump came to be, how the special counsel’s office interacted with the bipartisan House Select Committee that investigated January 6, and the efforts by investigators to obtain information about members of Congress related to the US Capitol riot.

Some of those efforts took place before Smith took over when other established Justice Department offices and the FBI were running the investigations.

In his letter to Smith demanding testimony, Jordan said he believed Smith’s team had attempted to silen

Por MJ Lee, CNN

Cuando la semana pasada se hizo público un conjunto de fotos confiscadas de la cuenta de Gmail y la computadora portátil de Jeffrey Epstein, una en particular dejó atónita a Dani Bensky.

Era una foto de Epstein en su oficina, una habitación que le traía muchos recuerdos oscuros.

Recordaba el gran escritorio de caoba y un marco de fotos, aunque no las obras de arte que contenía. También se puso a buscar rastros de un tigre disecado que Epstein había guardado en esa oficina.

Sharlene Rochard reconoció de inmediato una de las habitaciones en otra serie de fotos publicadas a principios de este mes, tomadas en la isla privada de Jeffrey Epstein en el Caribe.

Al mismo tiempo que Rochard recordaba el abuso que sufrió en Little Saint James años atrás, otros detalles aparentemente más triviales también le llamaron la atención, como una mesa que no estaba en el mismo lugar que recordaba.

Y para Jess Michaels, ver el infame libro del cumpleaños 50 de Epstein le había provocado un recuerdo perturbador.

En él había un dibujo de varias mujeres masajeando diversas partes del cuerpo de Epstein. Esto la hizo recordar que Epstein le había dicho a principios de los 90 que hay partes del mundo donde un hombre puede recibir masajes de tres mujeres a la vez: una en la cabeza, una en los pies y una en el centro.

“Me hizo recordar ese momento cuando me dijo eso”, comentó Michaels. Al recordarlo, dice que ahora entiende que bromas sexuales como esa formaban parte de la estrategia de Epstein para manipularla poco a poco.

Rochard, Bensky y Michaels son solo algunas de las cientos de mujeres que se cree que fueron abusadas por Epstein y que se preparan para la esperada publicación por parte del Departamento de Justicia de los llamados archivos Epstein.

Un proyecto de ley promulgado por el presidente Donald Trump el mes pasado exige que el Departamento de Justicia publique los archivos antes del viernes, un momento que innumerables sobrevivientes de Epstein llevan años reclamando.

Pero la simple anticipación ha sido un desafío inmenso para ellos.

Los sobrevivientes de Epstein que hablaron con CNN afirmaron que no habían recibido ninguna comunicación del Departamento de Justicia antes de la publicación de los archivos.

Por ahora, desconocen por completo el momento y el contenido de la publicación, así como las medidas —si las hubiera— que el Gobierno pudiera estar tomando para garantizar que la información confidencial de las víctimas se maneje con cautela.

“Estamos trabajando en esto a ciegas ahora mismo”, declaró Bensky en una entrevista conjunta con otros sobrevivientes, un formato que el grupo solicitó porque dijeron que encuentran un gran consuelo en la presencia de los demás al hablar de su trauma. “Es un poco complicado porque no veremos los archivos antes de que lleguen. No sabemos a qué hora los entregarán el 19. No lo sabemos”.

El Departamento de Justicia no ha comentado públicamente ningún aspecto de sus planes de publicar los archivos de Epstein y no respondió a la solicitud de CNN de comentarios para esta historia.

Se espera que la próxima divulgación sea mucho más completa y de mayor alcance que cualquier información parcial sobre Epstein que se haya hecho pública hasta la fecha.

La divulgación intermitente de documentos e imágenes relacionados con Epstein en los últimos meses, incluso por parte de comités del Congreso, ya ha tenido un grave impacto psicológico, y los sobrevivientes se preparan para que la publicación del Departamento de Justicia sea especialmente difícil de gestionar.