In a deal that would be transformational for the US energy sector, and spark another shale revolution, the WSJ reports that US supermajor, the largest US energy E&P and formerly the world’s largest company by market cap, Exxon – the company that according to the Big Guy made more money than God in 2021, has held preliminary talks with shale giant Pioneer Natural Resources about a possible acquisition of the U.S. fracking giant, as the oil major hunts for a blockbuster deal in the shale patch.

Citing “people familiar” the WSJ notes that while discussions between the two companies about a potential deal have been informal, and there is no formal process between Exxon and Pioneer yet, now that Exxon is flush with cash thanks to record profits in 2022 it has been exploring options that could reshape a swath of the U.S. oil and gas industry while pushing Exxon deeper into West Texas shale.

WSJ sources said that any deal, if it happens, likely wouldn’t come together until later this year or next year – which makes sense since Biden’s DOJ would do everything in its power to prevent such a combination, and just like bitcoin bulls, energy shareholders are also eagerly awaiting the collapse of the authoritarian, senile occupier of the White House who picks corporate winners and losers at the behest of his handlers – and talks may not morph into formal negotiations at all or Exxon may pursue another company.

Still, with Exxon on the hunt for what the WSJ described as a “seismic deal” to put its windfall profits to use, it sees Dallas area-based Pioneer as a top target.

Should Exxon, whose stock price is near all time highs and sports a market cap just shy of half a trillion dollars, acquire Pioneer whose market cap is around $49 billion, it would be Exxon’s largest since its mega-merger with Mobil in 1999. It would give Exxon a dominant position in the oil-rich Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico, a region Exxon has said is integral to its growth plans.

Pioneer’s size would likely put an acquisition of the company ahead of the U.S. oil industry’s most recent blockbuster, Occidental Petroleum Corp.’s 2019 purchase of Anadarko Petroleum Corp. for about $38 billion, and top Exxon’s 2010 acquisition of XTO Energy Inc. for more than $30 billion. That said, nothing is guaranteed in the energy sector which together with crypto, has emerged as the most hated industry of the so-called Democrats. In 2020, when the price of oil collapsed, and when many were doubting that Exxon would avoid bankruptcy, it subsequently emerged (again via the WSJ) that Exxon was considering a merger with Chevron, the energy sector’s 2nd largest company.  Back then, talks between Exxon and Chevron were preliminary and yielded no result. Whether or not there is a favorable outcome for Exxon this time will depend on who the next president is.

Ever since the rapist-accepting nazification of The Supreme Court during President Trump’s term in office, the left has been desperate for ways to counter the trans-friendly conservative majority.

The latest cunning plan was to demand Justice Clarence Thomas be immediately impeached for – what can only be summarized as – having rich friends.

In case you missed it, the left was gleeful and cries of ‘we got em this time’ rang out on Twitter after:

ProPublica revealed in so-called bombshell reporting that right-wing Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has been taking luxury trips funded by a billionaire Republican megadonor for more than 20 years without formally disclosing them – a likely violation of federal law.

The investigative outlet reported Thursday that “for more than two decades, Thomas has accepted luxury trips virtually every year” from Dallas-based real estate magnate Harlan Crow.

“These trips appeared nowhere on Thomas’ financial disclosures,” the outlet noted.

“His failure to report the flights appears to violate a law passed after Watergate that requires justices, judges, members of Congress, and federal officials to disclose most gifts, two ethics law experts said. He also should have disclosed his trips on the yacht, these experts said.”

Thomas’s critics in Congress promptly seized on the report last week of the vacations, suggesting it raised the appearance of impropriety.

As The Epoch Times’ Matthew Vadum reported, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) demanded that the justice be impeached, saying his actions evidenced an “almost cartoonish” level of corruption.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee’s panel on federal courts, called for an independent investigation of the justice, who has long been a target of the left.

Whitehouse and other critics also say that justices whose spouses are involved in political activism, like Thomas, whose wife, Ginni Thomas, a supporter of former President Donald Trump, is active in conservative politics, should have to recuse themselves from involvement in cases related to that activism. Despite pressure, the justice declined to recuse himself from the various challenges to the disputed 2020 presidential election that made it to the Supreme Court.

Billionaire businessman and Republican Party donor Harlan Crow, who made the gifts to Thomas, has reportedly not had any business before the Supreme Court, so any allegation of a conflict of interest rests on weak grounds.

Crow reportedly said the trips with Thomas and his wife were “no different from the hospitality that we have extended to many other dear friends.”

“Justice Thomas and Ginni never asked for any of this hospitality,” he said.

Thomas responded to the circus in a statement released by the Supreme Court’s public information office on April 7 that Harlan Crow, and his wife, Kathy Crow, have been friends with Thomas and his wife “for over twenty-five years.”

“As friends do, we have joined them on a number of family trips during the more than quarter century we have known them,” the justice said.

“Early in my tenure at the Court, I sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary, and was advised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable.”

“I have endeavored to follow that counsel throughout my tenure, and have always sought to comply with the disclosure guidelines. “

Furthermore, as is usually the case, the leftist media (and the twitterati) were too fast to jump on this as Adam Mortara noted on Twitter, there’s no there, there…

The “journalist” left and assorted Twitter folk who cannot bother to read are very very wrong regarding the issue of reporting staying at a friend’s house, boat, lodge, or castle, space station, or whatever. pic.twitter.com/ZzvcPkDQhx

— Adam Mortara (@AdamMortara) April 6, 2023

Specifically:

But, but, but, the left exclaimed… the rules have changed…

Assorted Twitter idiots cite new version of rules that just went into effect to support false allegations of failed reporting from years ago. Par for the course for the left. https://t.co/phyGBq8Zvw

— Adam Mortara (@AdamMortara) April 6, 2023

And sure enough, Justice Thomas knew that too, and explained…

“These guidelines are now being changed, as the committee of the Judicial Conference responsible for financial disclosure for the entire federal judiciary just this past month announced new guidance.”

“And, it is, of course, my intent to follow this guidance in the future,” Thomas said.

Additionally, attorney J. Christian Adams, president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), said he doubts the new ethics regulations apply to the Supreme Court.

“I think there is a fair chance they are unconstitutional,” Adams said.

“The Constitution does not give Congress the power to regulate the Supreme Court’s behavior,” he said.

So having cleared all that up and silenced the impeachment-demanders, we have one simple question still: Why now? The State Security Apparatus would have known about this for years. Why is it coming out now?

A former Meta recruiter who has ‘reinvented herself as a career coach’ says she was paid $190,000 per year to do nothing, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Tampa, Florida-based Madelyn Machado, 33, said that during a typical day she would log on around 11 a.m. when her West Coast colleagues would show up for work, sit in meetings from Noon until 3:30 p.m., and then check LinkedIn for an hour before logging off.

Ms. Machado, who held a position as a recruiter, says that after joining the company in September 2021, she spent much of her time in meetings that didn’t accomplish anything, and that the parent of Facebook and Instagram had too many recruiters and not enough work for them to do. -WSJ

“We just don’t hire anybody and, like, we still get paid,” she said in a TikTok video, relaying what she says other recruiters told her, adding that the company didn’t expect her to hire anyone in her first year, given that she was still learning the ropes.

“I do think a lot of these companies wanted there to be work, but there wasn’t enough,” she said of her six months at the company, which she says fired her for posting career advice on TikTok (and probably all that shit talking).

Machado isn’t alone

Over the past few weeks, other former tech workers have posted similar experiences – saying they collected paychecks from large tech companies without much work.

Such confessions—which have drawn plenty of criticism online—aren’t surprising, executives and industry professionals say. Tech companies that boomed during the pandemic were flush with cash, they say, and snapped up workers to build a deep bench and hoard talent from competitors, even if those workers weren’t being fully utilized. -WSJ

“They were just kind of, like, hoarding us like Pokémon cards,” a former Meta worker hired in April 2022 said in a recent TikTok video about her experience at the company. “I was like, am I being set up for failure?” said Britney Levy, 35, says she was hired as part of a yearlong training program dedicated to recruiting diverse talent, the Journal reports.

@clearlythere #stitch with @roilysm #meta #metalayoffs #tech #techtok #techlayoffs #businessinsider #news #google #work #career #metaseverance #fyp #business ♬ original sound – Brit

“They were hiring ahead of demand” according to Dartmough business school professor, Vijay Govindarajan, who says that a shortage of tech talent at the time contributed to an inflated sense of urgency that fueled recent hiring sprees.

“You want to hire ahead of others” when there’s a shortage of talent, he said, adding that there was similar overhiring during the early 2000s.

Former Facebook and Salesforce tech worker Derrick McMillen, 32, says that during his time at Salesforce he felt like 20% of employees were doing 80% of the work, while the rest did on-site yoga and took long lunches.

“There’s this fluffy image of everyone’s just so nice,” he said. “But when the culture doesn’t let you tell people they’re underperforming, you end up with a team of slackers.”

Tech companies have laid off over 168,000 people since the start of the year, according to Layoffs.fyi.

By industry, tech jobs in retail, consumer and transportation lead the pack when it comes to layoffs.

In November, Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg issued a mea culpa for overhiring, and their mistaken belief that consumer spending habits would shift towards online spending.

“People were job-hopping from jobs where they were doing nothing, working from home, to another where they were doing nothing, working from home, and got paid 15% more,” said Thomas Siebel, head of the software company C3.ai Inc, who says that working full time from the office is essential to high performance and collaboration.

After a week of bloodbathery in labor market data, the ‘big one’ was a nothingburger of sorts relative to expectations – in fact more hawkish-leaning with record low black unemployment and prime-working-age participation rates back at pre-COVID levels.

As Academy Securities’ Peter Tchir noted: 

This allows/forces the Fed to remain on the “hawkish” side of things:

• 3.5% unemployment is almost the lowest it has been since they started hiking, so the “jobs for inflation fighting” argument has not materialized.

• 0.3% wage growth is “only” 3.6% annualized (ignoring rounding), which is getting into the comfort zone, but not as good as last month’s number and this Fed is likely to want to beat down any re-emerging pressures.

You could probably craft a “Goldilocks” scenario around this data for markets, but equally compelling, especially around current positioning, you could craft a scenario that isn’t great for markets.

The ‘relief’ news sent rate-hike odds for May soaring above 70% (from a coin toss)…

Was embraced by equity futures (though only back to barely green on the day)…

Bond yields spiked initially but are fading back now with the short-end underperforming…

The dollar’s kneejerk reaction was to spike higher but that is fading fast…

Gold is closed but bitcoin did nothing…

Tchir’s Bottom Line

• Rates. Higher yields and flatter curve. We should start pricing in more certainty of further hikes and a longer lag between them and when the Fed cuts (we are trading what the Fed will try and convince markets is necessary, not what I, or many others, think is the correct policy).

• Credit. Dull. Not looking for much movement in spreads and this market will ultimately be looking more at bank spreads and any signs of supply of credit not keeping pace of demand at the private/loan side of things creeping into the bond market side of things.

• Equities.  The whole “stocks are long duration” assets, especially high tech, mega growth companies, should experience more of a pullback. I could see banks, commodities (Russell 2000, in essence) doing better (the underperformance of Russell 2000 (IWM) versus Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) has been eye-opening. I’m leaning to the “normalization” trade in stocks where we drift slightly lower, but more of normalization between the year to data winners and year to date losers.

• I fully expect the data, on balance, to reinforce the recession is near narrative in the coming weeks (see Slowing, Slowing, Gone?) so that is why I cannot buy into any “goldilocks” theories on today’s numbers.

So now we wait for CPI…

Authored by Jordan McGillis via RealClear Wire,

America’s great cities are in trouble, Philadelphia included. The allure of the home office has enticed white-collar workers to the suburbs and reduced the value of commercial and residential real estate, shortchanging city tax coffers in the process. According to Philadelphia’s newly released FY2022 financial report, real property taxes dropped by over $20 million from the year prior.

To make matters worse, cities like Philadelphia are still on the hook for the billions of dollars they owe to the pension funds of retired police officers, firefighters, and civil servants. In late 2022, the City Council approved emergency funding of $210 million toward pension payments to make up for market shortfalls, with the total annual expenditure on pensions eclipsing $1 billion for the first time ever.

While Philadelphia and cities like it will continue to owe big on former employees’ pensions, they are attempting to stay afloat financially by trimming employment and services. In “Big City Pensions and the Urban Doom Loop”, Manhattan Institute colleague Dan DiSalvo and I reveal a broad trend across the country of pensions crowding out new city hiring, particularly in America’s police departments.

The City of Brotherly Love shows some of the worst signs of this urban doom loop. While the city has made strides toward stabilizing its pension problems – notably through the use of a “stacked hybrid” system that combines elements of a traditional pension and a 401(k) – the costs of tackling the pension issue have come with a disturbing side effect. Since 2019, Philadelphia has reduced city employment, particularly in policing and criminal justice, amid a horrific crime surge.

While the number of total city employees has fallen by 8% since 2019, according to the financial report, the number of police officers has fallen by 9%, from 7,336 in 2019 to 6,681 in 2022; the number of prison employees, meanwhile, has fallen by a staggering 37%.

The reductions bear an inverse relationship to a crime explosion. In both 2021 and 2022, Philadelphia recorded more than 500 murders, a number never previously reached. This year is off to another gruesome start, with more than 100 murders committed in the first three months.

“People are scared. They’re afraid to walk on the streets. A woman on the first day of [return-to-office] got punched to the ground on the way to work across the street from our campus,” one Philadelphian told the Brookings Institution. “Now it’s back to the 1990s, it’s just mayhem on the train right now,” said another. “Nobody wants to take it.” Property crime, too, is adding to Philadelphia’s chaos and disorder, up 17% since before the pandemic.

Statistics and anecdotes like these push the city further down its negative spiral, keeping the property market in a sorry state. A partner at one of Philadelphia’s largest commercial real estate brokerages said in January that while small- and medium-sized deals are still getting signed, the pace is greatly reduced relative to the pre-Covid baseline. Larger deals, he says, are “mostly stuck in neutral.”

With every deal that stalls, more potential tax dollars are lost and fewer services are rendered to the Philadelphians who need them. But looming city elections offer a chance for the city to reflect on where things are going. As the field of candidates shapes up to replace Mayor Jim Kenney and members of the City Council, Philadelphians should press them on their strategies both to cover pension obligations in a proactive way and to shore up the tax base and public safety.

The solution for Philadelphia and other great but struggling American cities is to identify efficiency improvements. The most promising avenue for such gains is through the creative embrace of new digital technologies that allow cities to improve performance even without big hiring sprees. One possibility is adopting emerging artificial intelligence technologies that can automate certain governance tasks. This can help the Philadelphia city government both in the back office and in the field.

To that point, City Council candidate Jalon Alexander deserves credit for his suggestion of assisting the police with aerial drones, something Chula Vista, California – a San Diego suburb – does already. Alexander’s proposal would establish a 10-person team to pilot and monitor 42 drones that would respond to shootings, carjackings, and other violent crimes.

Drones in the field and AI software behind the desk won’t correct Philadelphia’s trajectory overnight, but creative ideas such as Alexander’s are vital to delivering better service while using fewer human resources—and that’s become more necessary than ever, as pensions eat up the city budget.

After it emerged last week that Disney pulled a fast one on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) – by enacting a new rule that any changes to the company’s long-held special taxing district in Orlando ‘must be made to benefit Walt Disney world’ – weeks before DeSantis announced a hand-picked board to take over the district, DeSantis on Thursday promised a new round of action against Disney.

Items on the table include looking at taxes on Disney’s hotels, and imposing tolls on roads that serve its theme parks, Politico reports.

The DeSantis administration is also looking at whether they can dismantle the agreement made by the outgoing board – asking his chief inspector general on Monday to conduct a “thorough review and investigation” into actions that “undercut Florida’s legislative process, and defy the will of Floridians.”

“They are not superior to the people of Florida,” DeSantis told a crowd at Hillsdale College. “So come hell or high water we’re going to make sure that policy of Florida carries the day. And so they can keep trying to do things. But ultimately we’re going to win on every single issue involving Disney I can tell you that.”

Disney “tried to pull a fast one on the way out the door,” DeSantis said during a breakfast earlier in the day hosted by the Midland County Republican Party of Michigan. “That story’s not over yet. Buckle up. There’s more coming down the pike,” he added.

The rapid escalation between Disney and DeSantis this week comes in the aftermath of a Central Florida governing board that had been controlled by Disney passing a series of agreements that ensured Disney would keep a large degree of power despite a new law passed in February that created a new board controlled by the governor.

The moves stunned the DeSantis administration and the governor’s hand-picked board, which has since hired lawyers to examine whether it should challenge the legality of the agreements -Politico

Disney CEO Bob Iger told shareholders earlier this week that Florida’s actions were retaliatory, as well as “anti-business” and “anti-Florida.”

Florida’s spat with Disney began after the company opposed a state law which prohibits the instruction of sexual orientation and gender identity until the third grade, and allows for “age appropriate” instruction in older grades. In response, DeSantis and Florida GOP lawmakers eliminated the Reedy Creek Improvement District, the special taxing authority which gave Disney control of the land surrounding its Orlando-area properties. Republican lawmakers in control of the state legislature voted to fire the board overseeing the district and gave DeSantis power to name all five replacements. The move also renamed the district as the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, and reduced its powers.

Authored by Kate Daugherty via FinanceBuzz.com,

Easter is traditionally a time of regrowth and renewal. These statistics offer insight into how consumers shop for the holiday and their favorite Easter treats.

We may receive compensation from the products and services mentioned in this story, but the opinions are the author’s own. Compensation may impact where offers appear. We have not included all available products or offers. Learn more about how we make money and our editorial policies.

In 2023, Easter is on Sunday, April 9, so there is still time to dye eggs and help the Easter Bunny fill those baskets with delicious treats.

Many families in the U.S. will likely hunt for Easter eggs and sit down to a meal with family and friends. With rising prices and shortages of everything from meat to eggs, this year’s celebration might be a little more subdued but no less memorable.

Check out these Easter facts to help you wow your dinner guests and make a plan to help you spend on the things that matter this year.

Key takeaways

• 72% of people say rising food costs will impact their Easter plans.

• In 2022, about 51% of people planned in-person celebrations, compared to 43% in 2021.

• $2.6 billion worth of Easter candy is sold annually in the U.S. alone.

• 8 in 10 Americans celebrate Easter.

• Americans spent $6.58 billion on Easter food in 2022.

• 90% of U.S. consumers plan to include chocolate and candy in Easter baskets.

• 37% of those surveyed planned to attend Easter church services in person in 2022, up from 28% in 2021.

In this article

72% of people say rising food costs will impact their Easter plans

According to a 2023 survey of 1,000 U.S. adults conducted by our team at FinanceBuzz, inflation and the rising costs of items like eggs and candy are leading people to change their Easter plans. The majority of respondents (72%) said rising costs will impact their Easter plans, including 43% who said they’d be looking for more sales than normal, 16% who said they’d likely cut back on food for their holiday dinner, and 14% who plan on having fewer guests for dinner.

Other modifications to Easter plans include using more coupons (24%), limiting the type and the amount of candy put into Easter baskets (22%), and switching from real eggs to fake or plastic eggs (20%).

Source: FinanceBuzz

Easter is the second biggest candy holiday

Although Halloween is usually the biggest candy holiday overall, Easter is a close second and, according to some reports, occasionally overtakes the spooky season.

The U.S. is estimated to have spent just under $3 billion on Easter candy in 2022, an increase of $1 billion since 2007.

According to the National Retail Federation, in 2022, U.S. adults spent an average of $169.79 on Easter overall, and candy was the top purchase for 90% of respondents.

Food and gifts were second and third, with 88% and 63% of respondents, respectively, saying they planned to purchase those items for Easter. Clothing and decorations were closely linked, with just under half (49% and 48%, respectively) of those surveyed saying they planned to purchase those items.

Source: Statista, National Retail Federation

The majority of candy purchased is chocolate

Candy is a key part of the Easter celebration for people in the U.S., and 70% of the candy purchased for Easter is chocolate. Reese’s milk chocolate peanut butter eggs and Cadbury creme eggs are the two most popular chocolates purchased, followed by chocolate bunnies, which came in third.

According to Statista, the chocolate market in the U.S. is $49.48 billion, with seasonal chocolate making up about $3.3 billion across all holidays. The annual sales growth of seasonal chocolate is 13.5%.

Source: Dosomething.org, Statista

76% of Americans think the ears of a chocolate bunny should be eaten first

If you eat chocolate bunny ears first, you’re not alone — about three-quarters of Americans do the same. About 90 million chocolate bunnies are sold in the U.S. annually, and $2.6 billion is spent on Easter candy in the U.S. alone. In 2021, Germany produced 214 million chocolate Easter bunnies.

The largest chocolate bunny ever created, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, was made in Brazil in 2017 by the Equipe de Casa de Chocolate at Shopping Uberaba. The bunny weighed 4,245.5 kg. (9,359 lbs.) and was created by nine professionals working eight consecutive days. It was 4.52 meters tall (14.82 feet) and 2.11 meters wide (6.92 feet).

Source: Guinness World Records, Good Housekeeping, Statista

80% of people celebrated Easter in 2022

Although most of the country said they intended to celebrate Easter in 2022, Easter still tends to be less popular than other holidays.

Christmas and Thanksgiving are the most popular holidays in the U.S., with 85% and 84%, respectively, saying that they celebrate the particular holiday. Most people say they spend the Easter holiday cooking a special meal, visiting family and friends, watching TV, and doing an Easter egg hunt.

Eight in ten Americans say they will celebrate Easter, and both men and women are equally as likely to celebrate the holiday (79% of men and 80% of women). The number of people celebrating Easter in 2020 and 2021 decreased compared to previous years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Source: Statista, National Retail Federation

The largest Easter egg hunt had more than 500,000 eggs

The White House Easter Egg Roll tends to be the most talked about Easter egg hunt in the U.S. The first White House Easter egg roll was held in 1878 by President Rutherford B. Hayes, although some accounts believe the egg roll itself may have started with Abraham Lincoln.

In 2022, an estimated 30,000 people participated in the egg roll celebration, including military families and the crew from the U.S.S. Delaware, a U.S. Naval submarine. The event is so popular that tickets are distributed via a lottery.

The biggest Easter Egg hunt was held in Florida in April 2007 at Adventure Parks Group, LLC. There were 501,000 eggs scattered over the grounds, and 9,753 children (with their parents) took part in the hunt.

Source: Guinness World Records, White House History, Whitehouse.gov

People between the ages of 35 and 44 plan to spend more than other age groups

While it’s likely that most spending is done by parents or people buying things for children, in 2019, people ages 35 to 44 spent $185.37 on their Easter celebrations, second only to the age group of 25 to 34, who paid $189.25. Those aged 18 to 24 spent $146.03 in 2019, and those aged 45-54 paid $148.37. People aged 65+ spent the least, averaging $108.96 per person.

Comparatively, in 2022, the National Retail Federation says people aged 35 to 44 spent more than all other groups, with average spending of $232.65, although that is almost $30 less per person than in 2021.

Men were expected to spend more than women on Easter in 2022 ($189.94 versus $150.64). The per-person average is down about $20 for men from 2021, while women will likely spend the same amount as in 2021.

Source: National Retail Federation, Statista

Peeps are the best-selling non-chocolate Easter candy

Although those neon-colored marshmallows tend to be a love ‘em or hate ‘em Easter item, the holiday just wouldn’t be the same without them. According to Good Housekeeping, Americans eat about 1.5 million Peeps during the Easter season, and the Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, factory that makes Peeps creates about 5.5 million daily.

Despite being so associated with the holiday, 33% of people surveyed by grocery delivery company Instacart said that Peeps are among their least favorite candies. Roughly 25% of those surveyed say they still eat the marshmallow chicks and bunnies for the sake of tradition.

Fun Fact

In 1953, it took 27 hours to make one Peep, according to Good Housekeeping. Today, it takes about six minutes, thanks to a machine called The Depositor, which creates the iconic shape automatically.

Source: PR Newswire, Good Housekeeping, Instacart via Real Simple

More than 16 million jelly beans are eaten during Easter

Jelly beans were first produced in 1930 and quickly became a symbol of the Easter holiday. According to Instacart’s 2022 survey conducted by The Harris Poll, jelly beans were on the top ten list of favorite Easter candies twice. In the number three spot were the Starburst Easter Jelly Beans, the favorite Easter candy in North and South Dakota, North and South Carolina, and Florida.

Brach’s Jelly Bird Eggs were number eight on the list, just ahead of marshmallow Peeps at number nine. According to Real Simple magazine, jelly beans see a 109% sales growth in the two weeks leading up to Easter and are second only to marshmallow treats, which experience a 111% growth over the same time frame.

Source: Good Housekeeping, Instacart via Real Simple

Cooking is the most popular Easter activity

According to a National Retail Federation 2022 survey, the top Easter celebration plan in the U.S. was cooking food to share with family and friends. 56% of the 8,155 people surveyed said they plan to cook a meal, down slightly from 2021 at 59%.

Respondents also said they plan to visit family and friends in person (51%, up from 43% in 2021), watch TV (33%, down from 43% in 2021), plan an Easter egg hunt (32%, slightly up from 2021’s 31%), and go to church in person (37%, up from 2021’s 28%).

Source: National Retail Federation

Rising prices may affect the most popular Easter meal

Many Americans will serve ham on their Easter tables, though it cost more in 2022 than in recent years. According to data analytics company NielsenIQ, ham cost 52.9% more in 2022 than in 2021, and spiral-cut ham cost 46.1% more. In general, meat was up 13.6% from 2021 to 2022, and lamb, another popular Easter meat, was up 18.5%.

According to 210 Analytics via IRI Worldwide, rising inflation didn’t stop Americans from spending on meat last year. In April 2022, meat sales reached $6.5 billion, up 7.5% from 2021. In 2022, people in the U.S. bought $252 million worth of ham, up 19.6% from 2021.

Source: NielsenIQ, 210 Analytics via IRI Worldwide

Americans spent $3.44 billion on new clothes for Easter

Wearing new clothes for good luck the rest of the year is an old Easter tradition that some people still embrace. According to Good Housekeeping, wearing your new clothes to church and showing off your style became the basis of the famous Easter Parade. In 2019, U.S. consumers spent an average of $27.29 per person on new Easter clothes. According to the National Retail Federation, that number increased slightly in 2022 to $27.93, or $3.44 billion in total.

Physical shopping became increasingly popular after two years of primarily online shopping due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Only one in three people (about 35%) said they planned to buy Easter supplies online, while 50% said they would shop in person at discount stores. Four in 10, or 41%, said they planned to shop at a department store for Easter clothing and supplies.

Source: Good Housekeeping, Statista, National Retail Federation

Almost half of Americans say dyeing eggs is a popular family activity at Easter

49% of Americans will spend time coloring hard-boiled eggs over Easter and say that egg dyeing is an integral part of the holiday. In a 2022 study conducted by Suzy, Inc. for Signature Brands, 56% of people said they were looking to make family memories, 54% said they were looking for a fun family activity, and 53% said it was a way to spend quality time with family.

81% of respondents said they planned to purchase a kit to help them dye Easter eggs. Sixteen million dye kits and 180 million eggs to dye are purchased yearly, though inflation and recent shortages may reduce that number in 2023.

Purple Easter eggs are the favorite color of 31% of the people surveyed, followed by blue (24%), pink (19%), and green (10%).

Source: PR Newswire, Insider.com

Easter is the fifth largest card-sending holiday in the U.S.

According to greeting card company Hallmark, an estimated 40 million Easter cards are sent annually in the U.S. While that is a lot of cards, it’s nothing compared to Christmas, the largest card-sending holiday, where an estimated 1.3 billion cards are sent out.

Of course, we cannot forget Easter baskets. It’s estimated that as many as 60% of parents send Easter baskets to their adult kids, even after they’ve moved out of the family home. 44% of consumers say chocolate is the best treat to include in an Easter basket, followed by jelly beans at 20%. Candy-coated eggs and marshmallow candy came in third and fourth, with 18% and 15%, respectively, according to the National Confectioners Association.

Source: Hallmark, National Confectioners Association

Outspoken women’s rights activist and former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines – who first made headlines for speaking out for being snubbed of a trophy in favor of trans swimmer Lia Thomas – was assaulted by a pro-trans crowd at a speech at San Francisco State University Thursday night.

She was “physically assaulted” following a speech she made at a Turning Point USA event, Fox News reported. 

Her husband, Louis Barker, said she had to be barricaded in a room for nearly three hours to protect herself after. 

He said: “She told me she was hit multiple times by a guy in a dress. I was shaking. It made me that mad. It makes me sick to feel so helpless about it. She was under police protection and was still hit by a man wearing a dress.”

She wrote on Twitter after the incident: “The prisoners are running the asylum at SFSU…I was ambushed and physically hit twice by a man. This is proof that women need sex-protected spaces. Still only further assures me I’m doing something right. When they want you silent, speak louder.”

She also posted video of the chaos that ensued after the incident: 

The prisoners are running the asylum at SFSU…I was ambushed and physically hit twice by a man. This is proof that women need sex-protected spaces.

Still only further assures me I’m doing something right. When they want you silent, speak louder. 🗣️ pic.twitter.com/uJW3x9RERf

— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) April 7, 2023

Eli Bremer, Gaines’ agent, told Fox News: “Tonight, Riley Gaines spoke at San Francisco State University to share her personal story of competing against a biological male athlete, Lia Thomas, at the Women’s NCAA Swimming Championships last year.”

Bremer continued: “In the past year, her goal in speaking at universities has been to educate her peers about her experience and what the impact of the growing number of biological males in women’s sports will do to the integrity of Title IX. She has been questioned in civil and somewhat uncivil manners about her views many times, and she thoroughly encourages diverse viewpoints and debate on this issue.”

“Instead of a thoughtful discussion tonight at SFSU, Riley was violently accosted, shouted at, physically assaulted, and barricaded in a room by protestors. It is stunning that in America in 2023, it is acceptable for biological male students to violently assault a woman for standing up for women’s rights. This will not stop Riley from boldly educating people of the dangers of biological males in women’s sports. She will continue to speak the truth against the radical left that no longer understands the difference between men and women.”

This was the initial speech that catapulted Gaines to prominence:

Please write and show your support for @Riley_Gaines_ who was violently attacked by a biological male tran-activist after a speech @SFSU

Riley, a champion NCAA swimmer, has the courage to speak out against competing with biological males like Leah Thomas. pic.twitter.com/YZIFOj1N1g

— Larry Mendte Show (@LarryMendteShow) April 7, 2023

By Kelly Gooch of Becker’s Hosptial Review

Healthcare announced the third-most job cuts out of 30 industries and sectors measured in the first quarter of 2023, according to one new analysis.

The finding comes from an April 6 report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an executive coaching firm that examines job cuts by U.S.-based employers.

Healthcare, which includes hospitals and healthcare products manufacturers, has announced 22,950 cuts in the first three months of 2023. That’s a 65 percent increase from the 13,923 cuts announced in the first quarter of 2022. 

All U.S.-based employers tracked by Challenger, Gray & Christmas announced a combined 270,416 cuts in the first quarter of 2023, up 396 percent from the 55,696 cuts announced in the same period one year prior. It is the highest first-quarter total recorded by the firm since 2020.

“We know companies are approaching 2023 with caution, though the economy is still creating jobs,” Andrew Challenger, senior vice president of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, said in the report. “With rate hikes continuing and companies’ [reining] in costs, the large-scale layoffs we are seeing will likely continue.”

In a major faux pax in US-Israeli relations, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak acknowledged the existence of the country’s nuclear weapon arsenal via Twitter — then deleted the tweet, presumably after realizing he’d violated the long-standing US-Israeli practice of pretending that arsenal doesn’t exist. 

Barak’s Tuesday tweet addressed growing worries about the growing presence of ultra-nationalist and ultra-religious factions in Israel’s government. Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and his Religious Zionism party, for example, openly aspire to turn Israel into a theocracy. 

Barak wrote: 

“In conversations between Israelis and Western diplomatic officials, there are deep concerns raised of the possibility that if the coup in Israel succeeds, a messianic dictatorship — that possesses nuclear weapons and fanatically wishes for a confrontation with Islam centered on the Temple Mount — will be established in the heart of the Middle East.”  

Thanks in part to a former nuclear technician’s 1986 revelations, Israel is widely known to have a nuclear arsenal, with one estimate sizing it at 90 warheads. However, it’s never joined the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). It’s just one of only five countries in the world that haven’t done so, along with North Korea, India, Pakistan and South Sudan. 

Whether intentional or not, Ehud Barak just committed an act of negligence of stratospheric proportions. He ought to be indicted immediately.

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) April 4, 2023

That combination of facts means every dollar of US aid to Israel breaks American law. As Brian McGlinchey explains at Stark Realities:

“U.S. aid to Israel [is] illegal under the Symington Amendment of 1976, which bars economic and military assistance to countries that acquire nuclear reprocessing technology without submitting to international safeguards and inspections.”

Israel has never officially acknowledged its nuclear power, and the United States government caters to Israel’s policy of so-called “nuclear ambiguity.” However, there have been several occasions where US documents or officials have acknowledged the fact, typically either under pointed questioning or in communications they thought would be kept secret. 

For example, in a 2015 email to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that was published by Wikileaks, an assistant secretary of state said, “What Israeli military leaders really worry about—but cannot talk about—is losing their nuclear monopoly.”

Only rarely does the Washington press corps confront US officials about their ongoing conspiracy to break American law where billions of dollars of annual aid to Israel are concerned. Journalist Sam Husseini is a welcome and repeat exception to that sad pattern. In February, he treated us to this grilling of State Department spokesman Ned Price: