TV News LIES

Before Sayuri Tsuchitani became an entrepreneur, she spent two decades on her feet: cutting, coloring and styling hair. A hairdresser's work is physically tough, and Tsuchitani often wondered how she'd manage as she grew older.

When the pandemic shut the Los Angeles salon where she worked, she recognized a chance to make a change: She applied for a loan from the U.S. Small Business Administration, or the SBA, for a business of her own.

"The SBA led me to my success of the American dream," said Tsuchitani, who took advantage of a pandemic-era funding program to open a Japanese head spa: a salon offering blood-flow massages, ayurvedic oil treatments and deep scalp cleanses. She launched one location, then two more; hired one worker, then nine more.

But today, the SBA would disqualify Tsuchitani from its loan program because of a new policy. Tsuchitani is a green-card holder, also known as a lawful permanent resident; she moved from Japan 28 years ago. And in March, the U.S. small-business agency, for the first time in its history, stopped approving loans to firms that are not fully owned by U.S. citizens — and only citizens.

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Soaring gasoline prices, triggered by the U.S. war with Iran, have pushed inflation to its highest level in more than three years.

A report from the Labor Department on Wednesday showed consumer prices in May were up 4.2% from a year ago. That's the biggest annual increase since April of 2023. By contrast, the Labor Department says average wages have risen only 3.4% over the last year, so workers' real spending power has declined.

Prices rose 0.5% between April and May, with higher energy costs accounting for more than 60% of that monthly increase. Gas prices have jumped by well over a dollar a gallon since the war began, strangling shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz — a critical pathway for much of the world's oil supply.

Higher fuel costs also pushed up airfares in May. Airline tickets cost about 27% more than they did a year ago.

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The U.S. Court of International Trade’s 2-1 decision leaves the temporary tariffs in place for all other importers while any appeal by the Trump administration plays out. They are expected to expire in July.

The court ruled that Trump’s imposition of the tariffs under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 was misguided. One of the judges said it was premature to grant victory to the plaintiffs.

While the ruling applies to a set of levies due to expire in about two months, it marks another major setback for Trump’s global tariff ambitions and comes a week before he is due to discuss trade tensions with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing.

It sets the stage for another protracted legal battle over billions of dollars’ worth of tariff refunds three months after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Trump’s sweeping global tariffs imposed under a national emergencies law.

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Average US gas prices have hit a new high at $4.23 a gallon, their highest since 2022 and a record since the start of the war with Iran, according to the motor club AAA.

The price of Brent crude, the benchmark that influences the price of gasoline in the US, now stands at $114.60 a barrel, up nearly 25% from the recent low since mid-April. US gas prices a year ago averaged $3.16 a gallon.

The milestone comes as US officials contemplate an extended blockade by the US and Iran of the strait of Hormuz, the transit chokepoint for 20% of the world’s oil.

“A significantly bigger risk arises if higher gasoline and oil prices leak into other necessities such as grocery and utility prices – though so far there is little evidence for this,” said Bank of America analysts in an NBC News report.

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More than a dozen newborn lambs cavorted around a fenced-in yard beneath the scrutiny of their mothers and a few watchful students taking turns attending to them.

The lambs' successful births have been a needed bright spot at tiny Sterling College, which uses a 130-acre farm to teach agriculture and other disciplines in a part of northeastern Vermont so isolated there's no cell service and it's rare to see a passing car.

LillyAnne Keeley, a senior, likes that remoteness. "We have a beautiful view," said Keeley, in the barn where she's come for her turn checking on the lambs. "There are beautiful sunsets here. I kind of take it for granted every day."She and her classmates have started taking such experiences less for granted now, since Sterling has announced that it will close in May at the end of this semester.

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Maggie was faced with a tough choice in February 2025: quit her job at the US office of personnel management or be unceremoniously fired.

Though she was a few months pregnant at the time, Maggie was offered one of the buyouts that were offered to tens of thousands of federal government employees by the office of personnel management.

“I couldn’t be without health insurance through the delivering of my baby,” said Maggie, who requested to omit her last name for fear of professional repercussions. “I was going to have six to seven months of paid parental leave, because I’d been on my job for five years and I accrued time.”

She took a buyout offer in May 2025 and, like many federal employees who took buyouts, and was placed on administrative leave until September 2025. She delivered her baby in September, just 10 days before she formally lost her job.

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