For Friday, June 19th, 2026
>>Wall Street Closes With Stocks Higher
(New York, NY) -- Wall Street closed with stocks higher Thursday. Intel has been leading chip stocks after President Trump announced the company and Apple will be partnering to designing chips in the U.S. Markets will be closed on Friday to observe the Juneteenth holiday. At the closing bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 72 points to 51-564. The S&P 500 gained 80 points to 75-00. The Nasdaq rose 496 points to 26-517.
>>First Time Since March Gas Falls Below $4
(Undated) -- Falling gas prices are bringing some relief to consumers after months of elevated prices due to the conflict with Iran. According to motor club AAA data, gas prices have fallen below four dollars per gallon for the first time since March. While prices have dropped sharply from this year's peak at four-dollars and 56-cents to three-dollars and 97-cents, the cost is still more than 34 percent higher than before the U.S. and Israel launched the war in February. The drop in retail gas prices is thanks to tumbling oil prices, but experts are cautious about how much further prices can fall.
>>California's Billionaires Tax Will be On November Ballot
(Sacramento, CA) -- A highly debated proposal to tax California's billionaires will appear on the November ballot. The proposal would charge a one-time five-percent tax on people with a net worth over one-billion-dollars. The tax would apply to anyone living in California as of January 1st of this year. Billionaires would have to pay the tax in 2027, or they could choose to pay it over five years at a higher total amount. Most of the money raised would go to health care programs run by the state. With roughly 255 billionaires in the state, experts say the tax could raise tens of billions of dollars. Critics argue that amount is uncertain and say the tax may drive wealthy residents out of California ultimately reducing state revenue.
>>Weekly Jobless Claims Down Slightly
(Washington, DC) -- Over a quarter of a million Americans found themselves filing for first-time unemployment benefits last week. The Labor Department says it received 226-thousand initial claims in the week ending June 13th. That's about four-thousand less than the previous week's revised total and basically in line with what most analysts were expecting today.
>>Gemini AI Leader Leaves Google To Join OpenAI
(San Francisco, CA) -- A top leader for Gemini AI is leaving the company and joining OpenAI. Google's vice president of engineering, Noam Shazeer, made the announcement Wednesday on X. Shazeer posted, "It was a difficult decision to move," and he was proud of the work he did at Google. Shazeer had left Google back in 2021 to begin the startup CharacterAI, and returned to Google in 2024 to help lead its DeepMind AI unit.
>>Federal Court Gives Ohio Green Light To Restrict Social Media From Kids
(Cincinnati, OH) -- A federal court is giving Ohio permission to restrict childrens' use of social media. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday overturned a ruling which put Ohio's parental-consent law on hold, and found the law did not violate free speech protections guaranteed by the First Amendment. The law had been put on hold at the request of the tech industry trade group NetChoice, which said it "remains fully confident" that the law will ultimately be struck down. The ruling comes as countries around the world have started restricting children's access to ?social media over mental health concerns.
