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Rossen roundup: Top consumer stories from the past week [Video]
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Rossen roundup: Top consumer stories from the past week [Video]

Here are all of the Rossen Reports from this past week.’Oprah’s Favorite Things’ for 2024 revealedThe holidays are almost here, and many of you have already started checking off your shopping list.Rossen Reports is working with our Hearst partners at Oprah Daily, sharing some great gifts from Oprahs Favorite Things for you and your loved ones. Watch the video above to see Jeff Rossen and Adam Glassman, the Creative Director of Oprah Daily, test products from Oprahs Favorite Things 2024.For the full story, click here.TSA PreCheck scam alert for holiday travelersAs the holiday travel season approaches, travelers should be cautious of TSA PreCheck scams.The Federal Trade Commission has warned that scammers are sending emails directing people to fake TSA PreCheck websites that appear legitimate. These sites trick users into paying for enrollment or renewal, but the money goes to scammers instead.For the full story, click here.Maximize savings with credit card rewardsHoliday shopping events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday offer great savings on gifts, but they can also tempt you to overspend.A Bankrate survey reveals that over half of consumers made impulse purchases during last year’s holiday season.To avoid this, start planning your budget now, considering not just gifts but also travel, food, decorations, and even wrapping and shipping costs.For the full story, click here.First-time homebuyer programs you need to knowBuying a home is one of the most significant purchases you’ll make, and it can be a confusing process.A viewer reached out to Rossen Reports for guidance on programs available for first-time homebuyers.Federal options include FHA loans, which, depending on your credit score, allow purchases with as little as 3.5% down.For the full story, click here.

Donald Trump wins Nevada [Video]
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Donald Trump wins Nevada [Video]

Former President Donald Trump won Nevada on Saturday, returning the state and its six electoral votes to Republicans for the first time since President George W. Bush carried it in 2004.Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris made multiple campaign stops in the state this year. Most of Nevada’s counties are rural and voted heavily for Trump in 2020.Video above: Will the TikTok ban still happen under Donald Trump?But Democrat Joe Biden that year won the two most populous counties of Washoe and Clark, the latter of which includes Las Vegas and three-quarters of the state’s residents.The Associated Press declared Trump the winner at 12:15 a.m. EST.The Associated Press declared Trump the winner after concluding there were not enough uncounted ballots in the state’s strongest Democratic areas to overcome the former president’s 46,000-vote lead over the Democratic nominee.Trump clinched a second term early Wednesday when Wisconsin pushed him past the 270 electoral votes needed to win, so Nevada’s six electoral votes only added to the size of his victory: He now has 301 electoral votes and has won six of the seven battleground states. Only Arizona remains to be called.The AP only declares a winner once it can determine that a trailing candidate can’t close the gap and overtake the vote leader.Here’s a look at how the AP called this race:CANDIDATES: Harris (D) vs. Trump (R) vs. Chase Oliver (Libertarian) vs. Joel Skousen (Independent American Party) vs. “None of these candidates.”WINNER: Trump.POLL CLOSING TIME: 10 p.m. ETABOUT THE RACE:Nevada has one of the nation’s best overall track records as a presidential bellwether, although voters there supported Democrat Hillary Clinton over Trump in 2016. The state remains a hotly contested battleground. Both Harris and Trump made frequent visits to Nevada since becoming their parties’ nominees, including Halloween rallies in Clark County, home of Henderson and Las Vegas. Both campaigns concentrated their visit to those two cities, as well as Reno in Washoe County.In statewide elections, Democrats tend to carry only two of Nevada’s 17 counties: Clark and Washoe. Whether they win depends on how big their margins are in those two counties. Clark County has by far the largest population in the state. A large vote margin there is vital to Democratic electoral success. It comprised 69% of the total statewide vote in 2020. Washoe is more competitive, although Democrats have consistently prevailed there in high-profile statewide campaigns, including Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak’s unsuccessful 2022 reelection bid. Republicans tend to win the rest of the state by wide margins.WHY AP CALLED THE RACE:Most of the final ballots to be counted come from Clark and Washoe counties. They both have long-established histories of supporting Democrats for president. Statewide, votes counted after Election Day have also tended to favor Democrats.Trump’s vote lead narrowed as more of these ballots are counted over the course of the week, but Harris was not winning those ballots by a large enough margin to overtake Trump for the lead. At the time AP called the race, AP estimated Harris would need to win 85% of all ballots left to count a margin of victory she never achieved in any update since polls closed.Also in Nevada early Saturday morning, Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen won reelection, beating Republican Sam Brown in a tight but unusually quiet race for the battleground state.Rosen, a first-term senator, campaigned on abortion rights and positioned herself as a nonideological politician, a formula that also worked for the states senior senator, Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto, in her own reelection bid two years ago.Brown, a retired Army captain who moved to Nevada from Texas in 2018 and has never held elected office, unsuccessfully tried to ride Trump’s strong showing in the working-class state. He had Trumps support in the Republican primary and won easily, but he was significantly outspent during the campaign, leaving Rosen to dominate the airwaves for months.Rosen, a former Las Vegas-area synagogue president and computer programmer, ran ads touting herself as an independent who doesnt listen to party leaders.She also spotlighted her work on expanding broadband internet access and helping to connect Las Vegas with Southern California via light rail.And she hammered Brown for his opposition to abortion rights, saying he would support a national abortion ban despite Browns statements that he respects Nevada voters’ choice decades ago to legalize abortions.A ballot measure this year that would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution passed. Voters must again approve it in 2026 in order to amend the constitution.The Senate contest drew relatively little national interest for most of the campaign, a striking contrast with the presidential race as both Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris targeted the state and its six electoral votes. Conservative money flowed in during the final days as the GOP posted a strong showing in early period, but Brown was unable to fully fight back.Analysts note that Nevada has a history of backing no-nonsense senators who deliver funding from Washington.Brown, who was awarded a Purple Heart for his service in Afghanistan, was grievously wounded by an improvised explosive device there in 2008 and endured 30 surgeries as he recuperated. In campaign ads he repeatedly mentioned that his face remains heavily scarred from the attack.He is also the founder of a medical company that serves veterans.Brown previously made an unsuccessful bid in 2022 for the Republican nomination to face Cortez Masto.All four of Nevada’s U.S. House incumbents three Democrats and one Republican also won reelection this year.

Trump’s win brings uncertainty to borrowers hoping for student loan forgiveness [Video]
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Trump’s win brings uncertainty to borrowers hoping for student loan forgiveness [Video]

Savannah Britt owes about $27,000 on loans she took out to attend college at Rutgers University, a debt she was hoping to see reduced by President Joe Bidens student loan forgiveness efforts.Her payments are currently on hold while courts untangle challenges to the loan forgiveness program. But as the weeks tick down on Biden’s time in office, she could soon face a monthly payment of up to $250.”With this new administration, the dream is gone. Its shot, said Britt, 30, who runs her own communications agency. I was hopeful before Tuesday. I was waiting out the process. Even my mom has a loan that she took out to support me. She owes about $18,000, and she was in the process of it being forgiven, but its at a standstill.President-elect Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans have criticized Biden’s loan forgiveness efforts, and lawsuits by GOP-led states have held up plans for widespread debt cancellation. Trump has not said what he would do on loan forgiveness, leaving millions of borrowers facing uncertainty over their personal finances.The economy was an important issue in the election, helping to propel Trump to victory. But for borrowers, concerns about their finances extend beyond inflation to include their student debt, said Persis Yu, managing counsel for the Student Borrower Protection Center.Thats a big part of what is making life unaffordable for them is this burden of expenses that they cant seem to get out from under, Yu said.Student loan cancellation was not a focus of the campaign for either Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris, who steered clear of the issue at her political events. The issue came up just once in the September presidential debate, when Trump hammered Harris and Biden for failing to deliver their promise of widespread forgiveness. Trump called it a total catastrophe that taunted young people.Biden promised the student loan cancellation program during his run for the presidency. From its launch, Biden’s loan forgiveness faced relentless pushback from opponents who said it heaped advantage on elites and came at the expense of those who repaid their loans or did not attend college.Bidens first plan to cancel up to $20,000 for millions of people was blocked by the Supreme Court last year. A second, narrower plan has been halted by a federal judge after Republican-led states sued. A separate policy intended to lower loan payments for struggling borrowers has been paused by a judge, also after Republican-controlled states challenged it.Overall, Biden’s efforts were relatively unpopular, even among those with student loans. Three in 10 U.S. adults said they approved of how Biden had handled student loan debt, according to a poll this spring from the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Four in 10 disapproved. The others were neutral or didnt know enough to say.Project 2025, the blueprint for a hard-right turn in American government that aligns with some Trump priorities, calls for getting the federal government out of the student loan business and doing away with repayment plans that pre-date the Biden administration.Even without directly addressing student loans, Trump has made promises that would affect them. He has pledged to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education, which manages the $1.6 trillion federal student loan portfolio. It’s unclear which entity would take that responsibility if the department were eliminated, which would require approval from Congress.Yu noted the Biden administration managed to cancel student loans for about 5 million borrowers, even though the signature forgiveness effort has been blocked. The administration did it by leaning into loan cancellation programs already in effect. For example, an existing student loan forgiveness program for public service workers has granted relief to more than 1 million Americans, up from just 7,000 who were approved before it was updated by the Biden administration two years ago.A lot of the cancellation that we saw in the last couple of years was because the Biden administration was committed to making the programs that are actually enshrined in law work for people,” Yu said.Sabrina Calazans, 27, owes about $30,000 on federal student loans from her college days at Arcadia University in Pennsylvania. Her payments also have been on hold, but she could soon face a monthly payment of over $300.As a first-generation American, I live at home with my family, I contribute to our household finances, and that payment is a lot for me and so many others like me, said Calazans, who is originally from Brazil.In her role as managing director for Student Debt Crisis Center, Calazans said she has been telling people to stay up to date on developments by using the loan simulator on the Federal Student Aid website and reading updated information on forgiveness qualifications and repayment programs.Theres a lot of confusion about student loans,” Calazans said, and not just among young people. “Were seeing a lot of parents take out more debt for their children to be able to go to school. Were seeing older folks go back to school and having to take out loans as well.

China poised to approve more help for ailing economy [Video]
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China poised to approve more help for ailing economy [Video]

China is expected to unveil a huge support package for the struggling economy Friday as officials wrap up a key meeting with an eye on the possibility of intensified trade tensions with US president-elect Donald Trump. Economists predict Beijing will approve hundreds of billions of dollars of help, with a focus on indebted local governments