Por Jose Rivera, CNN en Español

El desempleo en EE.UU. golpea de manera desproporcionada a los latinos. La presidenta de Honduras denuncia que Juan Orlando Hernández planifica “un golpe”. ¿Quiénes son las víctimas del tiroteo en la Universidad de Brown? Esto es lo que debes saber para comenzar el día. Primero la verdad.

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El presidente de EE.UU., Donald Trump, dijo el martes que ordenó un “bloqueo total y completo” a los petroleros sancionados que llegan y salen de Venezuela. Con la medida, anunciada en una publicación en Truth Social, el mandatario intensificó su retórica contra el Gobierno del presidente de Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro.

• Venezuela rechaza la “grotesca amenaza” de Trump tras el anuncio de un bloqueo en el Caribe a petroleros sancionados
• Una crisis que va en aumento: cronología de los ataques de EE.UU.
• Hegseth dice que no difundirán entero el video del doble ataque en el Caribe
• Read more

Andrey_Popov // Shutterstock

As your business grows, so does your spending. And when spending increases, you’re suddenly faced with the burden of managing more and more expense documentation. If you’re still manually organizing paper receipts for expenses, you should know automation software makes the process much easier.

Automating the expense management process improves efficiency, saves precious time, and significantly reduces the risk of human error. In fact, Bain & Company found that companies leading in automation cut costs in the processes they automate by about 17%, compared with just 7% for those making smaller investments.

In this article, Ramp outlines a practical, step-by-step guide on how to organize expense receipts, including both digital and paper formats, compliance requirements, and how automation can help streamline the process.

Why should you keep track of business receipts?

Business receipts play an essential role in many financial processes. That’s why an organized system for managing receipts is critical for businesses of all sizes. These are just a few of the most important reasons for tracking your receipts effectively:

• Tax deductions and compliance: The IRS and other tax authorities require accurate documentation of all business tax deductions. If you’re not careful with your expense receipts all year, the IRS could reject the deductions you claim on your tax return come tax season. This could potentially result in fines, penalties, and a lengthy tax audit.
• Financial audits: Whether it’s an internal review or an external audit, receipts are key for validating business transactions. Auditors will scrutinize large expenses and use your saved receipts to confirm the charges are legitimate and properly recorded. Missing receipts can lead to failed audits and serious consequences.
• Expense tracking and budgeting: Receipts help track and categorize your business expenses. A centralized system for organizing small business receipts, especially when paired with expense tracking software, provides real-time visibility into all your spending activity, enabling more accurate financial planning and budgeting.
• Expense reimbursement: If your employees routinely make purchases on the company’s behalf, you need their receipts to reimburse them properly. Receipts ensure fair and transparent expense reimbursement, helping you maintain accurate financial records.

Staying organized can also help address common pain points like lost receipts, inefficiency associated with manual data entry, potential errors, and IRS-related stress. An organized receipt tracking system lets you quickly retrieve crucial documentation, protecting your business from fraudulent claims or billing

Karolis Kavolelis // Shutterstock

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