Jobless claims: The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits dropped below 2 million last week for the first time since mid-March, but remains high as companies adjust to an environment that has been significantly changed by COVID-19, Reuters reports. New claims for state unemployment benefits totaled a seasonally adjusted 1.877 million for the week ended May 30, down from 2.126 million the prior week, the Labor Department reported this morning. Read the full report.
Imports and exports: The U.S. trade deficit hit the highest level in eight months in April. Exports and imports both posted record monthly drops as the coronavirus pandemic smothered America’s commerce with other countries. The gap between what the U.S. sells and what it buys abroad jumped to $49.4 billion in April, up 16.7% from $42.3 billion in March and the highest since last August, the Commerce Department said this morning. April’s exports were the lowest in exactly 10 years; imports were lowest since July 2010. Read the full report.
One space or two? Ever since computers displaced typewriters, a rift has grown between people who put two spaces after a period and people who put one, The Wall Street Journal reports. Two-spacers have fretted for some time they are losing ground to one-spacers who learned to type in the digital age. One example: After deeming either one or two spaces as acceptable for years, Microsoft recently changed the default setting in Word so that two spaces after a period summons the annoying blue squiggle indicating an error. So many were upset by the change that Microsoft rolled out a new settings option so two spaces don’t get flagged. Read the full story.
