States, Small Businesses Urge Supreme Court To Block Trump’s Tariffs Ahead Of November Hearing

Seven businesses and a dozen states urged the Supreme Court on Monday to strike down President Donald Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose broad tariffs, calling it illegal and an unprecedented tax burden on companies. In September, the court directed the parties in the now combined case to deliver written briefs prior to the hearing. Monday’s arguments to the high court were in two separate response briefs countering the government’s Sept. 19 opening brief.

The two latest filings differed in emphasis and framing but held the same core message that tariffs are Congress’ constitutional domain and not a tool that the president can use without restraint through an emergency declaration. The plaintiffs challenged Trump’s claims of statutory and constitutional authority under IEEPA to impose tariffs globally. Combined, the briefs argued that the act only allowed the president to block or freeze property in which a foreign entity has an interest while disputing the president’s position on constitutional grounds.

Read more at Supply Chain Dive

Surveys Show C-Suites Confident, Doing ‘A Remarkable Job’ Managing Noise

Many C-suites are growing more confident about their firms’ outlooks for 2026 as well as the prospects for the U.S. economy, several recent surveys show. However, one report also shows they’re becoming more used to the idea that some layoffs will be part of the plan for next year. A key factor there: The growing number of use cases for artificial intelligence that already are starting to or soon will pay dividends.

Of the roughly 230 executives who responded to Grant Thornton’s survey, 51% said they are optimistic about the U.S. economy over the next six months. That’s a solid 12-point jump from the second quarter, when tariff turmoil had nearly all of us wary at best, and reflected respondents’ growing confidence that their team can handle the supply-chain and cost-control priorities in front of them. But that 51% figure is also right in line with the average of Grant Thornton’s three previous quarterly reports as well as the average of each of the two full years before that.

Read more at IndustryWeek

No Improvement Seen in Steel Demand Forecast

Global steel demand will remain unchanged from 2024 according to the World Steel Association, settling at about 1.75 billion metric tons for January-December 2025. Demand may improve by 1.3% to 1.77 billion metric tons in 2026, according to a new economic study conducted by the trade group’s statistical branch, World Steel Economics Committee. The principle reasons for the modest forecast is that global manufacturing activity is impaired by “elevated production costs and sustained affordability pressures on consumers,” according to World Steel’s chief economist Alfonso Hidalgo de Calcerrada.

The situation is most acute in China, which is the world’s largest steelmaking nation and the top exporter of semi-finished steel products. World Steel products that Chinese steel demand will continue to decline, falling -2.0% for 2025. “This forecast represents a moderation of the downward trend observed since 2021, driven primarily by the ongoing downturn in the housing market,” according to the Outlook report.“ The report offers a more optimistic view of growth in developing countries other than China (notably India, ASEAN and MENA regions), setting a target rate of 3.4% in 2025 and 4.7% in 2026. for the U.S. market the report forecasts steel demand will rebound by 1.8% in 2025 “thanks to front-loading of production ahead of increased tariffs and continued growth in infrastructure spending. In 2026, we expect steel demand to grow by 1.8%, aided by pent-up demand in residential construction and private investment, easing financing conditions, and reduced uncertainty.”

Read more at American Machinist

Middle East

• Trump Threatens Hamas Amid Push On Next Gaza Truce Steps – Reuters
• Vance Arrives In Israel As US Tries To Strengthen Gaza Ceasefire Deal - BBC
• Gaza Tries To Rebuild Amid Fragile Ceasefire – France 24
• Syria Hopes To Have US Sanctions Formally Lifted In Coming Months, Says Economy Minister - Reuters
• A Look At The Hostages Whose Remains Are Still Inside Gaza - AP
• Interactive Map- Israel’s Operation In Gaza – Institute For The Study Of War
• Map – Conflicts in the Middle East – Live Universal Awareness Map

Ukraine

• Trump Says Summit With Putin Would be a Waste of Time - WSJ
• Trump-Putin Summit Planned For Budapest Is On Hold After Rubio Spoke With Lavrov, US Official Says - AP
• European Leaders Say Ukraine's Battle Lines Must Be Starting Point For Peace Talks – France 24
• Russian Hard Line On Ukraine Ceasefire Appears To Jeopardise Putin-Trump Summit - Reuters
• Ukraine’s Allies Rush To Bolster Zelenskyy Amid Fears Over Trump-Putin Deal - Politico
• EU Closes In On Deal To Use Russian Frozen Assets To Fund Ukraine - Politico
• Poland Warns Russia's Putin Against Crossing Its Airspace For Trump Summit - Reuters
• Interactive Map: Assessed Control Of Terrain In Ukraine – Institute For The Study Of War
• Map – Tracking Russia’s Invasion Of Ukraine – Live Universal Awareness Map

Other Headlines

• Sanae Takaichi Elected As Japan's First Female Prime Minister – Nikkei Asia
• What Will Change Under Japan's New Coalition? 4 Things To Know – Nikkei Asia
• U.S. Banks Are Hunting for Collateral to Back $20 Billion Argentina Bailout - WSJ
• Macron Publicly Backs PM’s Decision To Freeze Landmark Pensions Reform -Politico
• Sarkozy’s Five-Year Prison Term Starts With Fingerprints and a Mug Shot - WSJ
• Bolivia Turns Page On Socialist Era, Elects Great-Nephew Of 1952 Revolution Leader – France 24
• Bolivia’s President-Elect Rodrigo Paz Vows To Restore US Ties After Two Decades – France 24
• Marco Rubio Is Leading Trump’s Pressure Campaign Against Venezuela - WSJ
• US Chess Grandmaster Daniel Naroditsky Dies Aged 29 – BBC

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Uncertainty Swirls as CMMC Rollout Nears

Implementation of the Defense Department’s Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program is set to begin Nov. 10. But how the rollout will affect the Pentagon and its contractors remains to be seen, experts say. Originally launched in 2019 but delayed and revamped in the years since, CMMC is meant to serve as the department’s mechanism for verifying contractors are complying with its cybersecurity requirements. The first of four implementation phases will begin Nov. 10, with full implementation — when all Pentagon solicitations and contracts will include applicable CMMC level requirements as a condition of contract award — set to be achieved in 2028.

Despite the lengthy lead-up to the rollout, “the thing that keeps me awake is the unknown unknowns,” said Buddy Dees, director of the CMMC program management office. “Whenever you implement anything, you can plan it out as best you can. You can try to address scenarios that you create as you lay those out on paper, but once you go live … you really don’t know things that you may not have thought of that may pop up,” Dees said in an interview. “On Nov. 10, what are we going to see that we did not anticipate?” One unknown is the preparedness of the defense industrial base. While the call to get ready for CMMC has been made “for a number of years … unfortunately, not everybody has heeded that advice,” said Thomas Graham, vice president and chief information security officer at Redspin.

Read more at National Defense

How Do Government Shutdowns Usually End?

The ongoing government shutdown is now the second-longest in U.S. history, reaching its 21st day, still with no end in sight. It passed the shutdown of December 1995-January 1996 during the Clinton administration and surpassed it for the second-longest today. It’s only eclipsed by the record-long shutdown during President Trump’s first term, which lasted 35 days. With no major negotiations happening between Republicans and Democrats, how this current shutdown will end seems unclear. Both sides appear committed to their demands. But this has also been the case in previous shutdowns until a deal was reached, restoring full government services. Here’s how the three other shutdowns that lasted longer than a week came to an end:

• 1995-1996 - Public opinion ultimately weighed heavily in ending the shutdown, as polls showed most of the public blamed Republicans for shutting down the government. The GOP caved and accepted Clinton’s budget proposal.
• 2013 - Like the current shutdown, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) played a key role in the 2013 shutdown in the first year of former President Obama’s second term. polling showed the public blamed Republicans more for shutting down the government, and the GOP wasn’t unified behind this strategy, as some including then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) stepped in to negotiate a deal.
• 2018-2019 - Polls showed most Americans didn’t view Trump’s holdup for border wall funding as worth the shutdown and blamed the White House and GOP. After Democrats took control of the House, Trump showed openness to a measure to reopen the government. He later declared a national emergency to direct funding to a border wall without needing congressional authorization.

Read more at The Hill

DOT Seeks to Add Fentanyl to Drug Tests

A rule proposed by the Department of Transportation (DOT) would add fentanyl and norfentanyl (a metabolite of fentanyl) to its drug testing panels for the operators of transportation equipment in interstate commerce who come under federal jurisdiction. The proposed rulemaking would harmonize part 40 with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Mandatory Guidelines for Federal Workplace Drug Testing Programs, which DOT is required to follow when adopting its minimum list of drugs for which it will require testing, the department said.

In addition to the fentanyl addition, the DOT is proposing to change certain provisions of its drug testing regulations to ensure that they are in congruence with the current HHS mandatory testing guidelines regarding the use of urine (UrMG) and oral fluid (OFMG) testing procedures. The DOT proposal also seeks to clarify certain other DOT drug testing program provisions, including those applying to tester training, and will make other technical and language changes to the rule. These technical changes apply to some of the procedures used and the gathering of additional evidence surrounding urine and oral testing—which was added to DOT testing requirements relatively recently—along with additional clarification of the training requirements’ language required under the rules for testing personnel.

Read more at EHS

• Trump's Approval Edges Up Despite Americans Blaming Republicans For Shutdown – Reuters
• Trump Hosts GOP Senators At White House As Shutdown Drags On - AP
• An Eerie Silence About the State of Education in New York – Empire Center
• Ex-FBI Director Comey Seeks Dismissal Of Charges, Cites Vindictive Prosecution - Reuters
• Treasury Tells Employees Not to Share Photos of White House Ballroom Construction - WSJ
• Kathy Hochul’s Uneasy Trump Relationship Will Be Tested By Mamdani - Politico
• SCOTUS To Review Federal Arbitration Exemption Again – Law 360
• Maine Democrat Running To Unseat Susan Collins To Stay In Race After Discovery Of Reddit Postings - AP
• Interest in American M.B.A. Programs Shrinks, but Schools Across Asia Are Booming - WSJ
• Trump Looking Forward To Thailand-Cambodia Ceasefire Deal At ASEAN Summit, Malaysia Says - Reuters
• Trump Is Going To Asia — What Happens Next Is Anyone’s Guess – AP

The Biggest Cost Of Mental Health Support At Work? Doing Nothing.

Today’s multi-generational, multi-cultural workforce needs more to support its mental health than the employer-sponsored wellness programs of past generations. To address those needs, there are systematic initiatives employers can take to create healthy work environments that are good for individuals and the organizations as a whole for which they work. Companies, whether they are proactive about supporting their employees’ mental health or not, will most likely be dealing with support sooner or later. Leaders should think now about outcomes and the key metrics that matter to their organization such as:

• healthcare costs
• retention
• customer service and client satisfaction
• patient satisfaction or clinical outcomes in a healthcare setting
• employer reputation – the ability to attract and retain the best employees

Perhaps the “magic pill,” for fixing an entire company culture, comments Jim Kinville, senior director of employee resource company EAP WorkPartners, is as simple as leaders consistently and compassionately asking their staff how they’re doing. It’s part of building mental health programs from the bottom up, not from the top down.

Read more at the Business Journal

Upcoming Council Programs

Events

2025 Annual Luncheon - November 21, 2025 -11:00 AM Expo, 12:00 Lunch. The Grandview, Poughkeepsie.

Networks

HR Sub Council Meeting Topic TBD, January 14, 2026, 8:15 - 11:00. Selux Corporation, Highland.

Insight Exchange On Demand Webinars

• See previous episodes here!

Webinars and Seminars

Check back soon

Training

NEXT WEEK - FILLING FAST Introduction to Lean with Simulation - This full-day Lean Foundations course, led by Vin Buonomo from RIT CQAS, is designed as a starting point for those interested in Lean certification—including Yellow Belt and Green Belt. October 28, 2025 - Location TBD.

2 Seats Left Lean Six Sigma: Yellow Belt - Yellow Belt is an approach to process improvement that merges the complementary concepts and tools from both Six Sigma and Lean approaches. 3 Full days - November 12, 13 & 14 - DCC Fishkill.

Trade Wars

• US And Australia Sign Rare Earths Deal To Counter China's Dominance – BBC
• Carney Cautious About Report Of Potential Canadian Trade Deal With US - Reuters
• Automaker Execs’ Confidence Slips As Tariffs Bite, EV Strategies Change – Automotive News
• China’s Soybean Imports Surge As Orders To US Hit Zero, And South America Is Cashing In - SCMP
• MDMA Warns Section 232 Tariffs Could Hurt US Medtech Manufacturing – Manufacturing Dive
• GM To Stop Making BrightDrop Electric Vans, Will Reassess CAMI Plant ‘For Future Opportunities’ - Bloomberg
• How China Took Over the World’s Rare-Earths Industry – WSJ

Consumers to Spend Record Amount on Holidays

Consumers seem to be in a spending mood. According to the National Retail Federation’s annual consumer survey consumers plan to spend $890.49 per person on average this year on holiday gifts, food, decorations and other seasonal items. The amount is the second-highest in the survey’s 23-year history and falls only 1.3% less than last year’s record of $901.99. “Time and again, Americans prioritize spending on loved ones for holidays despite economic uncertainty,” NRF Vice President of Industry and Consumer Insights Katherine Cullen said in a statement.

Out of the total, $627.93 will go to gifts for family and friends. The remaining $262.56 will be used on seasonal items like food or candy, decorations and greeting cards. As with other years, consumers plan to shop across numerous destinations this holiday season. Online continues to be the top holiday shopping destination, with 55% planning to make purchases digitally. That is followed by grocery stores (46%), department stores (44%) and discount stores (42%). According to the survey, the top gifts consumers would like to receive include gift cards (50%), clothing or accessories (46%), books and other media (27%), personal care or beauty items (23%) and electronics (22%).

 Read more at Material Handling & Logistics

GM Shares Surge on Raised Guidance

General Motors raised its 2025 financial guidance Tuesday after beating Wall Street’s top- and bottom-line earnings expectations for the third quarter, while lowering its expected impact from tariffs. GM’s third-quarter revenue of $48.59 billion was down less than 1% from $48.76 billion in the same period last year. Earnings per share were $2.80 adjusted vs. $2.31 expected and adjusted EBIT was $3.38 billion vs. $2.72 billion expected.

GM’s new outlook signals strength for the automaker heading into the fourth quarter and beats Wall Street analysts’ current expectations for the last three months of the year. The updated guidance includes adjusted earnings before interest and taxes of between $12 billion and $13 billion, or $9.75 to $10.50 adjusted EPS, up from $10 billion to $12.5 billion, or $8.25 to $10 adjusted EPS, and adjusted automotive free cash flow of $10 billion to $11 billion, up from $7.5 billion to $10 billion.

Read more at CNBC

Coca-Cola Tops Earnings And Revenue Estimates But Says Demand For Drinks Is Still Soft

Coca-Cola reported quarterly earnings and revenue that topped expectations, but the beverage giant said that demand for its drinks is still soft. Earnings per share were 82 cents adjusted vs. 78 cents expected and revenue was $12.41 billion adjusted vs. $12.39 billion expected Coke reported third-quarter net income attributable to shareholders of $3.7 billion, or 86 cents per share, up from $2.85 billion, or 66 cents per share, a year earlier. Net sales rose 5% to $12.46 billion. Coke’s organic revenue, which strips out acquisitions, divestitures and foreign currency, increased 6%.

Worldwide, Coke saw the largest volume growth from its water, sports, coffee and tea segment. Its bottled water and sports drinks both saw volume increase 3%, while coffee and tea reported volume growth of 2%. The company’s sparkling soft drinks volume was flat for the quarter, while its juice, value-added dairy and plant-based beverage segment reported that volume shrank 3%. The company reiterated its full-year forecast. Coke is expecting comparable earnings per share to rise 3% and organic revenue to increase 5% to 6%. Looking ahead to 2026, Coke is projecting a slight tailwind to both its revenue and comparable earnings from currency fluctuations.

Read more at CNBC

Nestlé Cutting 4K Jobs In Supply Chain, Manufacturing

Nestlé said Thursday it will cut 16,000 jobs during the next two years as the packaged food giant reduces costs to accelerate a turnaround of its business. The reduction represents about 6% of the company’s 277,000 global workforce. The job cuts will include 12,000 corporate workers across functions and geographies. Another 4,000 people will come from staffing reductions in manufacturing and supply chain.

The Nespresso and Hot Pockets maker also increased its cost savings target, aiming to trim 3 billion Swiss francs, or $3.8 billion, in expenses by the end of 2027 from the company’s previous goal of $3.14 billion. The moves by Nestlé indicate newly appointed CEO Philipp Navratil plans to continue efforts started by his predecessor to rightsize the sprawling food and beverage company that has been embroiled by executive turmoil and challenges to its business in recent years.

Read more at Supply Chain Dive

Cleveland-Cliffs Executives See ‘Significant Rebound’ in Steel Demand

Leaders of steel manufacturer Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. said Oct. 20 they are seeing “a significant rebound in domestic steel demand” now that tariffs have been in place for several months. And they say the automotive industry is in the lead and likely to bring with the construction and broader manufacturing sectors. Chairman, President and CEO Lourenco Goncalves and CFO Celso Goncalves said the tariffs and other trade measures put in place this year by the Trump administration have started to change user behavior.

That, Lourenco Goncalves said on a conference call with analysts, is showing up most conspicuously among automotive original equipment manufacturers, a hatful of whom have recently signed multi-year agreements for Cliffs steel that “will generate a lot more margin, including margin per ton.” In addition, Celso Goncalves pointed out that other parts of the steel market also are showing signs of better demand. “We have finally started to see a bit of restocking activity in the distributor and end-user markets, an indication that the new tariff reality for those buyers is setting in,” he said. “The signs of a real recovery are forming.”

Read more at IndustryWeek

Amazon's Massive AWS Outage Points To A Key Weakness In The Modern Internet

Amazon's AWS is back online after a day-long outage that impacted companies and organizations across the country and globe, knocking out websites and apps for millions. According to Amazon, the outage originated at the company's Virginia data center, called US-East-1, and had to do with a domain name system issue and Amazon's DynamoDB database service. Think of the domain name system as a kind of phone book for the internet that takes the URLs that we type into our browsers' address bars — www.yahoofinance.com, for instance — and translates them into the numerical IP addresses that computers recognize. Amazon's DynamoDB, meanwhile, is a database that allows customers to store and access data.

This isn't the first time we've seen global internet outages as a result of one of the three main cloud players, which also include Microsoft and Google, going offline. AWS had an issue in 2023 that knocked websites offline, and CrowdStrike's faulty update took down large swaths of Microsoft's cloud services in 2024. And while major enterprises and government offices often rely on more than one cloud provider to avoid going offline, smaller companies and organizations may not have the kind of cash necessary to subscribe to multiple cloud services.

Read more at Yahoo Finance

Viasat Expands Into Defense Satellite Market Through Space Force Program

Viasat has expanded beyond commercial broadband services to develop customized satellites for defense applications, leveraging its commercial satellite portfolio to meet the Pentagon’s growing demand for secure, resilient communications in orbit, SpaceNews reported Thursday. The company is developing a dual-band X/Ka-band geostationary satellite for the U.S. Space Force’s Protected Tactical Satcom-Global, or PTS-G, program, which seeks smaller, jam-resistant satellites based on commercial technologies. The satellite’s design is built on the Viasat-3 high-throughput broadband satellite, built for geostationary Ka-band communications.

Viasat’s entry into the defense satellite sector follows its 2023 Inmarsat acquisition, which broadened its space portfolio and refocused its priorities on mobility and government markets. The company plans to explore opportunities on the Maneuverable Geosynchronous Orbit Commercial Satellite-Based Services, or MGEO, program and the Golden Dome missile defense initiative.

Read more at Executive Biz

Self-Driving Trucks Transport Goods On Texas Freeways In Expansion Push

Aurora driverless trucks have begun transporting goods on the nation's freeways. That means more efficiency, but also job losses for truck drivers. Chris Urmson knows his big idea to revolutionize the trucking industry can cause uneasiness at first. "It's really rational for people to have doubts; this is something new. It's interesting, challenging," said Urmson, CEO of Aurora Innovation, a company developing self-driving technology for big rig trucks.

Aurora trucks without a safety driver on board are already on the road in Texas, hauling loads for FedEx on the busy Interstate 45 corridor between Dallas and Houston. The Aurora Driver uses a combination of cameras, radar and LiDAR to see around it, similar to other autonomous vehicles like Waymo robotaxis currently deployed in San Francisco and other cities in California. Aurora developed a special kind of light-sensing LiDAR, First Light, that it placed around the trucks so the autonomous driver can see much farther down the road. Urmson calls it the company's secret sauce.

Read more at ABC7 California

Quote of the Day

"He who is incapable of feeling strong passions, of being shaken by anger, of living in every sense of the word, will never be a good actor."

Sarah Bernhardt - French Stage and Film Actor who was born on this day in 1844.

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