Around 204,000 people applied for first-time unemployment benefits last week, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

That’s down from the previous week’s total jobless claims and only slightly below the pre-pandemic weekly average of 218,000.

Continuing claims, which are filed by people who have received unemployment benefits for more than one week, decreased to 1.69 million for the week ended December 24, from 1.72 million.

Thursday’s data indicates continued resilience in the labor market despite inflation-fighting efforts by the Federal Reserve intended to cool the economy.

Many economists and investors fear the Fed’s aggressive actions, which have included seven-straight jumbo rate hikes, could throw the economy into a recession.

But so far, the labor market appears impervious. (CNN)

It’s about time we hear good news!

When Covid-19 hit, workers in teaching, nursing, hospitality and retail — occupations where women predominate —bore a fair part of the burden associated with the disease.

And no group felt this more acutely than Black and brown women.

Women struggle to balance self-care against filling the needs of their families.

But for Black women, juggling those competing needs often comes against a backdrop of intergenerational trauma and suppression of their emotions.

In the Black community, women have perfected obsessive selflessness to an art form.

We end up exhausted, emotionally drained — and in many cases, unhealthy — because we are conditioned to serve the needs of others, to our own detriment.

We have lost friends, sorority sisters and mentors to hypertension-induced strokes, heart attacks, diabetes complications and plain old exhaustion from a lack of meaningful self-care. (CNN)

So, self care comes first!

If not today, when?

The year has only just started but already Europe has broken an alarming number of weather records as extreme heat spread across the continent.

On New Year’s Day, at least eight European countries recorded their warmest January day ever:

Liechtenstein, the Czech Republic, Poland, the Netherlands, Belarus, Lithuania, Denmark and Latvia, according to the climatologist Maximiliano Herrera, who tracks extreme temperatures across the globe.

It’s “the most extreme heat wave in European history,” Herrera told CNN, based on how far above normal temperatures rose.

Cities that would often be covered in snow instead saw temperatures spike to levels usually seen in summer.

“The real ‘monster’ part of this warm spell was December 31 to January 1,” Herrera told CNN.

Well, you made it through New Year’s Eve.

Will 2023 see a new you, more focused, more determined?

Or the person with the same solution to the same problems?

Every day, you make decisions throughout the day.

Even a little different approach to those decisions can result in big accomplishments.

Are you prioritizing the problems that need a solution?

Remember to “Do The Worst First!”

If you are a parent, it would be a good idea to ask each child what his or her priorities are.

They may be more inclined if you share your priorities.

There are many opportunities in our changing economy.

Take a new look at the opportunities in your area.

If not today, when?

If there is drinking at tonight’s New Year’s Eve Party, it will become louder and louder.

People’s behavior will be more spontaneous and less guarded.

Maybe they will have had a designated driver? Maybe not.

The next morning, many drinkers will not remember many details.

And they may not feel all that well.

So, is there a healthy alternative to all of that?

Don’t drink. Stick with non-alcoholic beverages.

Try it. You may actually have a good time,

The next morning you will feel fine and enjoy the day.

If not today, when?

Everybody has them.

Ships are anchored in harbors waiting to be unloaded.

There aren’t enough truck drivers.

Trucks are waiting at their destinations to be unloaded.

We may run out of olive oil because the fields they grow in are too dry.

The only thing I can recommend is patience.

People are working to fix them.

Are you a person who prays regularly, sometimes or not at all?

If you do pray, do your prayers get answered?

Yes, sometimes or never?

I believe in the power of prayer!

Everyone on this earth is imperfect.

So, relying on a perfect God makes sense to me.

I know people pray to different Gods, but I think those prayers end up in the hands of the One and only God.

I feel my prayers have been answered and continue to be answered.

I think the best thing about prayer is subjecting your ego to a higher being.

Do you pray?

If not today, when?

Workers with the water district in Wenden, Arizona, saw something remarkable last year as they slowly lowered a camera into the drought-stricken town’s well: The water was moving.

But the aquifer which sits below the small desert town in the southwestern part of the state is not a river; it’s a massive, underground reservoir which stores water built up over thousands of years. And that water is almost always still.

Gary Saiter, head of the Wenden Water Improvement District, said the water was moving because it was being pumped rapidly out of the ground by a neighboring well belonging to Al Dahra, a United Arab Emirates-based company farming alfalfa in the Southwest.

Al Dahra did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this story.

Groundwater is the lifeblood of the rural Southwest, but just as the Colorado River Basin is in crisis, aquifers are rapidly depleting from decades of overuse.  (CNN)

Did you ever commit yourself to them?

If you did identify them, did you follow through on some or all of them?

If you didn’t follow through, why not and will you try again?

If you didn’t believe in New Year’s Resolutions, will you try this coming year?

Here is my question for you:

Are there certain aspects of your life in which you can become a better person?

I know I do!

It won’t be a Happy New Year for everyone because so many people are homeless in these frigid temperatures.

We can help.

The Salvation Army is actively providing warming shelters all across the U.S.

It is an organization you can trust.

Just Google Salvation Army near me.

There are also local churches in your town that may be providing assistance.

The city of New York has many homeless people this winter.

The city has a Department of Homeless Services.

Its phone number is 212-361-8000.

It closes at 5PM Eastern time.

Will you help in some way?

If not today, when?