#currency

#currency

Japan's stock market has hit a record high after Sanae Takaichi's Liberal Democratic party (LDP) secured a comprehensive victory in Sunday's election. The LDP won 316 of the 465 seats in the country's lower house the first time a single party has secured two-thirds of the lower house since the establishment of Japan's parliament in 1947. The Japan Innovation party, the LDP's coalition partner, won 36 further seats, giving a supermajority of 352 seats.

California has regained its bragging-rights ranking as the world's fourth-largest economy. Using gross domestic product as the scorecard, my trusty spreadsheet compared fresh state-level data for the third quarter of 2025 from the Bureau of Economic Analysis with 2025 business output estimates for countries compiled by the International Monetary Fund, released in October. In the third quarter, California's economy produced goods and services at a nation-leading annual rate of $4.296 trillion a 4.5% increase from the previous year, according to the BEA.

In 1911, the children of Brooklyn took home to read from the Public Library a million and a half books, indicating a strong engagement with library resources.

The U.S. Mint plans to cease production of pennies as the cost to produce them has risen significantly, leading to an expected annual savings of $56 million.

The phase-out may require stores to round prices up or down to the nearest nickel, although the growing popularity of non-cash payments makes that less of a headache.