Heating and electric bills set to surge this winter: "There is a lot of pain"
CBSN
Americans are in store for an expensive winter when it comes to paying their heating and electric bills.
The average household will pay about 17% more this winter to heat their property, reaching a 10-year high of about $1,200 per home, according to a forecast from the nonprofit National Energy Assistance Directors Association. Electric bills are also set to rise, with the U.S. residential price of electricity expected to jump about 7.5% from 2021, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Those forecasts follow a year of already elevated costs for homeowners, and are likely hit low- and middle-income consumers the hardest, Mark Wolfe, executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, told CBS News. Rising energy costs are linked to Russia's war in Ukraine, which has disrupted natural gas flows to Europe, and a hotter-than-normal summer in the U.S. that caused electric companies to draw down their supplies of natural gas, Wolfe noted.
President Biden on Monday signed into law a defense bill that authorizes significant pay raises for junior enlisted service members, aims to counter China's growing power and boosts overall military spending to $895 billion despite his objections to language stripping coverage of transgender medical treatments for children in military families.
It's Christmas Eve, and Santa Claus is suiting up for his annual voyage from the North Pole to households around the world. In keeping with decades of tradition, the North American Aerospace Command, or NORAD, will once again track Santa's journey to deliver gifts to children before Christmas 2024, using an official map that's updated consistently to show where he is right now.
An anti-money laundering law called the Corporate Transparency Act, or CTA, appears to have been given new life after an appeals court on Monday determined its rules can be enforced as the case proceeds. The law requires small business owners to register with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, by Jan. 1, or potentially pay fines of up to $10,000.