(NEW YORK) — For anyone who marks their calendars timed to food celebrations, Taco Bell has a new date for you to highlight in October that aligns perfectly with a delicious day of the week — Taco Tuesday.
The California-based fast food chain announced Tuesday that this year, National Taco Day will fall on Oct. 1, three days earlier than in previous years, to ensure the food festivity aligns with the beloved weekly tradition of Taco Tuesday.
The permanent date change to the first Tuesday of October was set in motion by the fast food chain with the help of the National Day Calendar, the authoritative entity that curates national days, weeks, months and other tentpole events.
“For years, we’ve celebrated National Taco Day on October 4th, but it’s always felt like there was a bigger opportunity to align it with something even more special — Taco Tuesday,” Marlo Anderson, founder of National Day Calendar, said in a press release. “Thanks to Taco Bell’s efforts, we’re excited to officially move National Taco Day to the first Tuesday in October, creating the Taco Tuesday of all Taco Tuesdays.”
This marks the latest milestone in Taco Bell’s ongoing Taco Tuesday journey, which included a petition that relinquished the trademark title in all 50 states last year.
Taco Bell’s Chief Marketing Officer Taylor Montgomery said in a statement that after the brand “liberated Taco Tuesday last year … we couldn’t just stop there.”
“With National Taco Day coming up, it felt unnatural for it to not fall on a Tuesday, and as some of the biggest advocates of Taco Tuesday out there, we knew we had to help shift the holiday permanently to give taco makers and lovers the opportunity to celebrate bigger and better every year,” Montgomery said.
To celebrate the new date for National Taco Day, Taco Bell plans to host a “frenzy of Tuesday Drop celebrations” kicking off Oct. 1 that will roll out all month long.
(WASHINGTON) — The Federal Reserve on Thursday will announce its latest decision on the direction of interest rates, setting the path for borrowing costs just two days after the victory of President-Elect Donald Trump.
The Fed cut its benchmark interest rate a half of a percentage point in September, dialing back its yearslong fight against inflation and delivering relief for borrowers saddled with high costs.
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), a policymaking body at the Fed, has forecast further interest rate cuts.
By the end of 2024, interest rates will fall another half of a percentage point from their current level of between 4.75% and 5%, according to FOMC projections. Interest rates will drop another percentage point over the course of 2025, the projections further indicated.
The central bank is widely expected to cut interest rates by another quarter of a percentage point when it meets on Thursday, according to the CME FedWatch Tool, a measure of market sentiment.
In recent months, the U.S. has inched closer to a “soft landing,” in which inflation returns to normal and the economy averts a recession.
Government data released last week showed robust economic growth over a recent three-month period, alongside a continued cooldown of inflation.
U.S. hiring slowed in October, but fallout from hurricanes and labor strikes likely caused an undercount of the nation’s workers, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data on Friday showed.
Since 2021, the Fed has sought to rein in inflation with elevated interest rates. Even after the Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest in September, it still stands at a historically high level.
Inflation has cooled dramatically from a peak of about 9% in 2022, hovering right near the Federal Reserve’s target rate of 2%.
The trajectory of inflation could shift in the coming months. Trump’s proposals of heightened tariffs and the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants are widely expected to raise consumer prices, experts previously told ABC News.
To be sure, the Fed says it bases its decisions on economic conditions and operates as an independent government body.
When asked previously about the 2024 election at a press conference in Washington, D.C., in December, Powell said, “We don’t think about politics.”
The election of Trump appears to have delivered a boost for the stock market. The U.S. stock market soared at the open of trading on Wednesday, just hours after Trump declared victory.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed more than 1,300 points, amounting to a nearly 3% rise in the index. The S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq each jumped more than 2%.
Shares of Tesla, the electric vehicle company headed by Trump ally Elon Musk, spiked about 14.5% in early trading on Wednesday.
(NEW YORK) — A newly filed lawsuit has accused Subway of “unfair and deceptive trade practices” and selling its steak-and-cheese sandwiches based on “false and misleading advertisements,” that the lawsuit claims show customers getting at least three times more meat than is actually in the product.
The class-action complaint against Subway was filed on Monday in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York by plaintiff Anna Tollison, accusing Subway of using “photographs in its advertisements that make it appear that the Steak & Cheese sandwich contains at least 200% more meat than the actual sandwiches that customers receive,” according to the lawsuit.
“Subway’s advertisements for the Product are unfair and financially damaging to consumers as they are receiving a product that is materially lower in value than what is being represented,” the lawsuit says. “Subway actions are especially concerning now that inflation, food, and meat prices are very high and many consumers, especially lower income consumers, are struggling financially.”
The lawsuit also says that Subway’s promise of a portion that is larger is “causing consumers to come to, or order from, Subway restaurants and make purchases that they would not have otherwise made.”
The lawsuit says it stems from Tollison’s visit to a Subway in Jamaica, New York, on Aug. 23 when she picked up a steak-and-cheese sandwich after ordering it through Subway’s mobile app for $6.99 plus tax.
“After she picked up and began eating her sandwich, [Tollison] realized that there was barely any steak in the sandwich and that the photographs that she relied on were grossly misleading,” the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit is seeking unspecified damages for New Yorkers who bought the sandwiches in the last three years from Oct. 28, 2021 and alleges “egregious” violations of the state’s consumer protection laws.
This is not the first time Subway has dealt with lawsuits critical of their business. In 2021, Ireland’s Supreme Court issued a ruling declaring that for the purposes of tax law, the bread served in Subway’s hot sandwiches does not actually meet the legal definition of “bread” because of its sugar content and is rather a “confectionary or fancy baked good.”
In that case, Justice Donal O’Donnell in the Ireland Supreme Court said that the definition of “bread” was originally established to make a distinction between the starch in other baked goods, like cookies or cake or brownies, that are sugary and therefore not healthy enough to be considered essential foods.
“Subway’s bread is, of course, bread,” Subway said in a statement given to ABC News. “We have been baking fresh bread in our stores for more than three decades and our guests return each day for sandwiches made on bread that smells as good as it tastes.”
Subway also previously defended themselves against a lawsuit for more than four years claiming that their “footlong” sandwiches were too short. That case was dismissed in 2017.
(NEW YORK) — After once deriding cryptocurrency as a “scam,” former President Donald Trump on Monday formally threw his support behind World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture whose business model remains largely unclear but has already drawn scrutiny as a potential ethics headache for his administration if he returns to the White House in January.
Joined Monday by his two adult sons and others involved in the fledgling business, including billionaire donor Steve Witkoff, Trump declared in a livestream on X that “crypto is one of those things we have to do,” and suggested that he would work to limit regulation of the industry if elected.
“Right now, you have a very hostile [Security and Exchange Commission] … they’ve been very hostile toward crypto,” Trump said. “My attitude is different.”
Details about the venture, including Trump’s role and potential compensation, remain unclear. The company’s website, which bears an image of a backlit Trump speaking at a podium, suggests the platform will have its own crypto token, called $WL, and aspires to “empower our users to operate their finances … with no direct oversight of any government agencies or officials.”
Industry experts said the website provides few details about the company — including what it will offer, who will have access to its profits, and how the Trump family stands to make money from it. James Butterfill, the head of research at CoinShares, a digital asset management firm, told ABC News that the website contains little more than “buzzwords.”
Government ethics watchdogs consulted by ABC News were quick to point out potential conflicts of interest posed by a candidate for president launching or becoming otherwise involved with a new business within weeks of Election Day — particularly in an industry as polarizing and unregulated as crypto, in which users directly exchange digital currencies without the oversight of banks or the government.
Jordan Libowitz, a spokesperson for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, said a future Trump administration would have wide latitude to impact crypto policy — and Trump’s own personal stake in the industry could potentially rub up against the best interests of the country.
“We’re still in the Wild West with crypto. It’s clear there is going to be some kind of regulation, but to what extent and how friendly they are to the industry, we don’t yet know,” Libowitz said. “The president obviously appoints the people in charge of that.”
Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign, rejected any suggestion that Trump’s role in World Liberty Financial could pose an ethical dilemma if he’s reelected, calling Trump “the most ethical president in American history.”
“When President Trump first ran for office, he stepped away from his very successful and lucrative businesses because the job of saving America was the most important job he’d ever have,” Cheung said in a statement to ABC News. “Before he entered the White House, he ensured everything was done within the ethics guidelines set forth.”
In addition to Trump’s adult sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, who have for months been promoting World Liberty Financial on social media, a so-called “white paper” first reported by CoinBase indicated that Trump’s youngest son, Barron, 18, would also play a role in the firm.
Witkoff, who appeared Monday on the X livestream, said he introduced the Trumps to two other partners in the venture, Zak Folkman and Chase Herro, both of whom have a colorful business history.
Herro, who previously called himself a “dirtbag of the internet” at a crypto conference in 2018, has said he has made millions from an ecommerce business after spending three years in jail for selling drugs when he was in high school. Folkman, who first joined forces with Herro in the ecommerce business more than a decade ago, has reportedly previously taught classes on “how to date hotter girls.”
On ABC’s Good Morning America on Tuesday, Witkoff — a longtime friend to Trump and one of his campaign’s biggest financial supporters — downplayed any potential conflict posed by Trump’s foray into crypto.
“If the president is elected, which I expect him to be, then everything that he — all of his of his ownership, his businesses, will be put in some sort of a trust.” Witkoff said. “His children, I would assume, will be involved in running it. And I doubt that, therefore, that there is any conflict.”
But Danielle Brian, the executive director of the Project On Government Oversight, said that would be nothing more than “window dressing.”
“A trust managed by family members will not eliminate the conflict of interest created by a sitting president owning any business,” Brian said.
Trump’s announcement on Monday marked his transition from a vocal skeptic of digital currencies to one of the industry’s most enthusiastic proponents. As president, he complained on Twitter that crypto markets were “highly volatile and based on thin air.” In 2021, shortly after leaving the White House, Trump called cryptocurrencies a “scam.”
But during his 2024 bid for the White House, Trump has cozied up to crypto interests.
In May, his campaign said it would begin accepting contributions in cryptocurrency. Trump has regularly hosted industry enthusiasts at his properties and, in July, at the annual Bitcoin Conference, he pledged to make the U.S. the “crypto super-power” of the world.
