Latest news with #June
CNET
2 hours ago
- Business
- CNET
CNET Daily Tariff Price Impact Tracker: I'm Watching 11 Key Products for Inflation
Price hikes resulting from Trump's tariffs could be closer than ever. James Martin/CNET The question of how new tariffs will impact prices is more relevant than ever, as President Donald Trump punts another major deadline down the road and a new Consumer Price Index summary showing that inflation was 2.7% in June, the biggest jump since February. We might not see the worst-case-scenario impacts of these tariffs until Aug. 1 at this point, but that CPI report makes it clear that their effects are very real. Amid these lingering concerns, I've been tracking prices every day for 11 key products likely to be hit by tariff-induced price increases, and the answer I've come to so far is this: Not so much, at least not yet. The winding road of tariff inflation still stretches before us into an uncertain future, so the threat of price hikes continues to cloud the horizon. To date, I've seen two noteworthy price increases, one for the Xbox Series X and the other for a popular budget-friendly 4K TV. Some other products -- including Apple's popular AirPods -- have gone on sale for brief periods. CNET Tariff Tracker Index Above, you can check out a chart with the average price of the 11 products included in this piece over the course of 2025. This will help give you a sense of the overall price changes and fluctuations going on. Further down, you'll be able to check out charts for each individual product being tracked. Based on the numbers so far, the average has gone up noticeably since the start of the year, but this has been driven mostly be a big shifts for a few products, as most price are still stable. We'll be updating this article regularly as prices change. It's all in the name of helping you make sense of things, so be sure to check back every so often. For more, check out CNET's guide to whether you should wait to make big purchases or buy them now and get expert tips about how to prepare for a recession. Watch this: Should You Buy Now or Wait? Our Experts Weigh In on Tariffs 09:42 Methodology We're checking prices daily and will update the article and the relevant charts right away to reflect any changes. The following charts show a single bullet point for each month, with the most recent one labeled "Now" and showing the current price. For the past months, we've gone with what was the most common price for each item in the given month. In most cases, the price stats used in these graphs were pulled from Amazon using the historical price-tracker tool Keepa. For the iPhones, the prices come from Apple's official materials and are based on the 128-gigabyte base model of the latest offering of the iPhone 16. For the Xbox Series X, the prices were sourced from Best Buy using the tool PriceTracker. If any of these products happen to be on sale at a given time, we'll be sure to let you know and explain how those price drops differ from longer-term pricing trends that tariffs can cause. The 11 products we're tracking Mostly what we're tracking in this article are electronic devices and digital items that CNET covers in depth, like iPhones and affordable 4K TVs -- along with a typical bag of coffee, a more humble product that isn't produced in the US to any significant degree. The products featured were chosen for a few reasons: Some of them are popular and/or affordable representatives for major consumer tech categories, like smartphones, TVs and game consoles. Others are meant to represent things that consumers might buy more frequently, like printer ink or coffee beans. Some products were chosen over others because they are likely more susceptible to tariffs. Some of these products have been reviewed by CNET or have been featured in some of our best lists. Below, we'll get into more about each individual product, and stick around till the end for a rundown of some other products worth noting. iPhone 16 The iPhone is the most popular smartphone brand in the US, so this was a clear priority for price tracking. The iPhone has also emerged as a major focal point for conversations about tariffs, given its popularity and its susceptibility to import taxes because of its overseas production, largely in China. Trump has reportedly been fixated on the idea that the iPhone can and should be manufactured in the US, an idea that experts have dismissed as a fantasy. Estimates have also suggested that a US-made iPhone would cost as much as $3,500. Something to note about this graph: The price listed is the one you'll see if you buy your phone through a major carrier. If you, say, buy direct from Apple or Best Buy without a carrier involved, you'll be charged an extra $30, so in some places, you might see the list price of the standard iPhone 16 listed as $830. Apple's been taking a few steps to protect its prices in the face of these tariffs, flying in bulk shipments of product before they took effect and planning to move production for the US market from China to India. A new Reuters report found that a staggering 97% of iPhones imported from the latter country, March through May, were bound for the US. This latter move drew the anger of Trump again, threatening the company with a 25% tariff if they didn't move production to the US, an idea CEO Tim Cook has repeatedly shot down in the past. This came after Trump gave a tariff exemption to electronic devices including smartphones, so the future of that move seems in doubt now. Duracell AA batteries A lot of the tech products in your home might boast a rechargeable energy source but individual batteries are still an everyday essential and I can tell you from experience that as soon as you forget about them, you'll be needing to restock. The Duracell AAs we're tracking are some of the bestselling batteries on Amazon. Samsung DU7200 TV Alongside smartphones, televisions are some of the most popular tech products out there, even if they're an infrequent purchase. This particular product is a popular entry-level 4K TV and was CNET's pick for best overall budget TV for 2025. Unlike a lot of tech products that have key supply lines in China, Samsung is a South Korean company, so it might have some measure of tariff resistance. After spending most of 2025 hovering around $400, this item has now seen some notable upticks on Amazon, most recently sitting around $450. This could potentially be in reaction to Trump's announcement of 25% tariffs against South Korea this week. Xbox Series X Video game software and hardware are a market segment expected to be hit hard by the Trump tariffs. Microsoft's Xbox is the first console brand to see price hikes -- the company cited "market conditions" along with the rising cost of development. Most notably, this included an increase in the price of the flagship Xbox Series X, up from $500 to $600. Numerous Xbox accessories also were affected and the company also said that "certain" games will eventually see a price hike from $70 to $80. Initially, we were tracking the price of the much more popular Nintendo Switch as a representative of the gaming market. Nintendo has not yet hiked the price of its handheld-console hybrid and stressed that the $450 price tag of the upcoming Switch 2 has not yet been inflated because of tariffs. Sony, meanwhile, has so far only increased prices on its PlayStation hardware in markets outside the US. AirPods Pro 2 The latest iteration of Apple's wildly popular true-wireless earbuds are here to represent the headphone market. Much to the chagrin of the audiophiles out there, a quick look at sales charts on Amazon shows you just how much the brand dominates all headphone sales. While Prime Day might be in the rearview mirror at this point, you can grab a pair of these earbuds for $169, a $30 discount from where they've been most of the year. HP 962 CMY printer ink This HP printer ink includes cyan, magenta and yellow all in one product and recently saw its price jump from around $72 -- where it stayed for most of 2025 -- to $80, which is around its highest price over the last five years. We will be keeping tabs to see if this is a long-term change or a brief uptick. This product replaced Overture PLA Filament for 3D printers in this piece, but we're still tracking that item. Anker 10,000-mAh, 30-watt power bank Anker's accessories are perennially popular in the tech space and the company has already announced that some of its products will get more expensive as a direct result of tariffs. This specific product has also been featured in some of CNET's lists of the best portable chargers. Bose TV speaker Soundbars have become important purchases, given the often iffy quality of the speakers built into TVs. While not the biggest or the best offering in the space, the Bose TV Speaker is one of the more affordable soundbar options out there, especially hailing from a brand as popular as Bose. Oral-B Pro 1000 electric toothbrush They might be a lot more expensive than their traditional counterparts but electric toothbrushes remain a popular choice for consumers because of how well they get the job done. I know my dentist won't let up on how much I need one. This particular Oral-B offering was CNET's overall choice for the best electric toothbrush for 2025. This product hasn't seen its price budge one way or another most of the year, but while Prime Day might have come and gone, there's still a $10 coupon listed on Amazon right now, letting you save a little bit of money for the time being. Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook Lenovo is notable among the big laptop manufacturers for being a Chinese company making its products especially susceptible to Trump's tariffs. For now, its price has been largely unchanged in the last few months. You can, however, grab it on Amazon right now at a $20 discount, but we'll have to see how long that actually lasts. Starbucks Ground Coffee (28-ounce bag) Coffee is included in this tracker because of its ubiquity -- I'm certainly drinking too much of it these days -- and because it's uniquely susceptible to Trump's tariff agenda. Famously, coffee beans can only be grown within a certain distance from Earth's equator, a tropical span largely outside the US and known as the "Coffee Belt." Hawaii is the only part of the US that can produce coffee beans, with data from USAFacts showing that 11.5 million pounds were harvested there in the 2022-23 season -- little more than a drop in the mug, as the US consumed 282 times that amount of coffee during that period. Making matters worse, Hawaiian coffee production has declined in the past few years. All that to say: Americans get almost all of their coffee from overseas, making it one of the most likely products to see price hikes from tariffs. While this particular bag of beans from Starbucks hasn't seen its price budge for most of the year, in recent days it ticked up by less than a dollar on Amazon, which could be a sign of further increases to come. Other products As mentioned, we occasionally swap out products with different ones that undergo notable price shifts. Here are some things no longer featured above, but that we're still keeping an eye on: Nintendo Switch: The baseline handheld-console hybrid has held steady around $299 most places -- including Amazon release of the Switch 2 remains to be seen. This product was replaced above with the Xbox Series X. release of the Switch 2 remains to be seen. This product was replaced above with the Xbox Series X. Overture PLA 3D printer filament: This is a popular choice on Amazon Here are some products we also wanted to single out that haven't been featured with a graph yet: Razer Blade 18 (2025), 5070 Ti edition: The latest revision of Razer's largest gaming laptop saw a $300 price bump recently, with the base model featured an RTX 5070 Ti graphics card now priced at $3,500 ahead of launch, compared to the $3,200 price announced in February. While Razer has stayed mum about the reasoning, it did previously suspend direct sales to the US as Trump's tariff plans were ramping up in April. Asus ROG Ally X: The premium version of Asus's Steam Deck competitor handheld gaming PC recently saw a price hike from $799 to $899, coinciding with the announcement of the company's upcoming Xbox-branded Ally handhelds.
Forbes
21 hours ago
- Business
- Forbes
Getting A Job Is Getting Harder With Layoffs And Fake Listings
Newspaper job listing pages, stacked to illustrate job search and employment opportunities and the ... More job hunting process of looking for careers and occupations in the classified ad section of printed papers. For concepts of unemployment, employment issues, recession, economic depression, recovery, job seeking and discovery. Horizontal image with no people. Jobs market data of late, which should describe the reality of businesses and workers, seems misleading. Not intentionally, but through the mechanisms of trailing data and the need to dig to find early signs of what might be happening. A Data Recap The monthly job numbers for June were not as comforting as they seemed on the surface. Although above expectations, that didn't tell the full story. The number of long-term unemployed, who have been jobless for at least 27 weeks), grew by 190,000 to 1.6 million. They were 23.3% of all unemployed people. Government employment was up by 73,000 in June, with state government employment up by 47,000 (40,000 of that being in education). Healthcare employment was up by 39,000 in June. Other major industries — mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction; construction; manufacturing; wholesale trade; retail trade; transportation and warehousing; information; financial activities; professional and business services; leisure and hospitality; and other services — were flat. As ManpowerGroup President and Chief Strategy Officer Becky Frankiewicz wrote at the time, 'The top-line numbers look positive, but our real-time data reveals underlying shifts. June marked the weakest hiring month of the year, with new postings down 7% month-over-month and 2% year-over-year. Open postings fell 8% from May.' What Else Is Happening To try and better understand some of the larger dynamics in labor markets, here are data about new jobs and job openings in a single graph using data available from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Announced job openings and actual hires. New jobs shows the number of jobs added every month by taking the total number of employed persons in that month and subtracting the employed persons in the previous month. These are jobs where someone has been hired. If the number is negative, there are fewer jobs than in the previous month; if the number is positive, there are more jobs. New job openings are the number of job openings that companies say they have. These are supposedly open positions for which companies say they want to hire. The treatment is the same as with added jobs, by subtracting from a month's number the number from the previous month. Again, it can be negative if fewer or positive if more. To make the graph easier to understand and see, it starts right after the big pandemic swings in 2020. The number of lost jobs in April 2020 was 20,471,000, which makes everything else virtually impossible to see because of the relative scales. The number of jobs added is significantly higher than the number of new job openings. Looking at the averages for each in 2025, there were 127 jobs added each month but only 52 job openings were announced. This suggests that while there is still hiring in some areas, corporate projections of new jobs have dropped. Positions Getting Slashed Many companies are slashing positions. According to a site that tracks tech and federal layoffs, tech 163 companies discharged 80,103 employees so far in 2025. In government, DOGE laid off 67,749 employees and there was a total 178,296 total federal departures. There are serious shifts going on in employment. Many job advertisements are reportedly fake and one study of 1,641 hiring managers found 40% of respondents admitted to posting fake job notices. The practice isn't new, but it has jumped in popularity to create an impression to competitors and shareholders. How many of the new job openings have been fake? To what degree are government statistics being manipulated by corporate trolls? Job seekers, corporate strategists, investors, and even the Federal Reserve have their work cut out for them when trying to grasp what the labor market is doing.
CNET
a day ago
- Business
- CNET
With Tariffs Now Linked to Inflation, I'm Tracking 11 Key Products for Price Moves
Price hikes resulting from Trump's tariffs could be closer than ever. James Martin/CNET The question of how new tariffs will impact prices is more relevant than ever, as President Donald Trump punts another major deadline down the road and a new Consumer Price Index summary showing that inflation was 2.7% in June, the biggest jump since February. Despite the heaviest of Trump's tariffs being continually delayed, that CPI report appears to confirm the concerns of economists and consumers alike that costs are creeping up nonetheless. Amid those worries, I've been tracking prices every day for 11 key products likely to be hit by tariff-induced price increases, and the answer I've come to so far is this: Not so much, at least not yet. The winding road of tariff inflation still stretches before us into an uncertain future, so the threat of price hikes continues to cloud the horizon. To date, I've seen two noteworthy price increases, one for the Xbox Series X and the other for a popular budget-friendly 4K TV. Some other products -- including Apple's popular AirPods and a notable brand of printer ink -- have gone on sale for brief periods. CNET Tariff Tracker Index Above, you can check out a chart with the average price of the 11 products included in this piece over the course of 2025. This will help give you a sense of the overall price changes and fluctuations going on. Further down, you'll be able to check out charts for each individual product being tracked. Based on the numbers so far, the average has gone up noticeably since the start of the year, but this has been driven mostly be a big shifts for a few products, as most price are still stable. We'll be updating this article regularly as prices change. It's all in the name of helping you make sense of things, so be sure to check back every so often. For more, check out CNET's guide to whether you should wait to make big purchases or buy them now and get expert tips about how to prepare for a recession. Watch this: Should You Buy Now or Wait? Our Experts Weigh In on Tariffs 09:42 Methodology We're checking prices daily and will update the article and the relevant charts right away to reflect any changes. The following charts show a single bullet point for each month, with the most recent one labeled "Now" and showing the current price. For the past months, we've gone with what was the most common price for each item in the given month. In most cases, the price stats used in these graphs were pulled from Amazon using the historical price-tracker tool Keepa. For the iPhones, the prices come from Apple's official materials and are based on the 128-gigabyte base model of the latest offering of the iPhone 16. For the Xbox Series X, the prices were sourced from Best Buy using the tool PriceTracker. If any of these products happen to be on sale at a given time, we'll be sure to let you know and explain how those price drops differ from longer-term pricing trends that tariffs can cause. The 11 products we're tracking Mostly what we're tracking in this article are electronic devices and digital items that CNET covers in depth, like iPhones and affordable 4K TVs -- along with a typical bag of coffee, a more humble product that isn't produced in the US to any significant degree. The products featured were chosen for a few reasons: Some of them are popular and/or affordable representatives for major consumer tech categories, like smartphones, TVs and game consoles. Others are meant to represent things that consumers might buy more frequently, like printer ink or coffee beans. Some products were chosen over others because they are likely more susceptible to tariffs. Some of these products have been reviewed by CNET or have been featured in some of our best lists. Below, we'll get into more about each individual product, and stick around till the end for a rundown of some other products worth noting. iPhone 16 The iPhone is the most popular smartphone brand in the US, so this was a clear priority for price tracking. The iPhone has also emerged as a major focal point for conversations about tariffs, given its popularity and its susceptibility to import taxes because of its overseas production, largely in China. Trump has reportedly been fixated on the idea that the iPhone can and should be manufactured in the US, an idea that experts have dismissed as a fantasy. Estimates have also suggested that a US-made iPhone would cost as much as $3,500. Something to note about this graph: The price listed is the one you'll see if you buy your phone through a major carrier. If you, say, buy direct from Apple or Best Buy without a carrier involved, you'll be charged an extra $30, so in some places, you might see the list price of the standard iPhone 16 listed as $830. Apple's been taking a few steps to protect its prices in the face of these tariffs, flying in bulk shipments of product before they took effect and planning to move production for the US market from China to India. A new Reuters report found that a staggering 97% of iPhones imported from the latter country, March through May, were bound for the US. This latter move drew the anger of Trump again, threatening the company with a 25% tariff if they didn't move production to the US, an idea CEO Tim Cook has repeatedly shot down in the past. This came after Trump gave a tariff exemption to electronic devices including smartphones, so the future of that move seems in doubt now. Duracell AA batteries A lot of the tech products in your home might boast a rechargeable energy source but individual batteries are still an everyday essential and I can tell you from experience that as soon as you forget about them, you'll be needing to restock. The Duracell AAs we're tracking are some of the bestselling batteries on Amazon. Samsung DU7200 TV Alongside smartphones, televisions are some of the most popular tech products out there, even if they're an infrequent purchase. This particular product is a popular entry-level 4K TV and was CNET's pick for best overall budget TV for 2025. Unlike a lot of tech products that have key supply lines in China, Samsung is a South Korean company, so it might have some measure of tariff resistance. After spending most of 2025 hovering around $400, this item has now seen some notable upticks on Amazon, most recently sitting around $450. This could potentially be in reaction to Trump's announcement of 25% tariffs against South Korea this week. Xbox Series X Video game software and hardware are a market segment expected to be hit hard by the Trump tariffs. Microsoft's Xbox is the first console brand to see price hikes -- the company cited "market conditions" along with the rising cost of development. Most notably, this included an increase in the price of the flagship Xbox Series X, up from $500 to $600. Numerous Xbox accessories also were affected and the company also said that "certain" games will eventually see a price hike from $70 to $80. Initially, we were tracking the price of the much more popular Nintendo Switch as a representative of the gaming market. Nintendo has not yet hiked the price of its handheld-console hybrid and stressed that the $450 price tag of the upcoming Switch 2 has not yet been inflated because of tariffs. Sony, meanwhile, has so far only increased prices on its PlayStation hardware in markets outside the US. AirPods Pro 2 The latest iteration of Apple's wildly popular true-wireless earbuds are here to represent the headphone market. Much to the chagrin of the audiophiles out there, a quick look at sales charts on Amazon shows you just how much the brand dominates all headphone sales. While Prime Day might be in the rearview mirror at this point, you can grab a pair of these earbuds for $169, a $30 discount from where they've been most of the year. HP 962 CMY printer ink This HP printer ink includes cyan, magenta and yellow all in one product and recently saw its price jump from around $72 -- where it stayed for most of 2025 -- to $80, which is around its highest price over the last five years. We will be keeping tabs to see if this is a long-term change or a brief uptick. For now, if you're looking for a cheaper restock, this product is currently $10 off on Amazon. This product replaced Overture PLA Filament for 3D printers in this piece, but we're still tracking that item. Anker 10,000-mAh, 30-watt power bank Anker's accessories are perennially popular in the tech space and the company has already announced that some of its products will get more expensive as a direct result of tariffs. This specific product has also been featured in some of CNET's lists of the best portable chargers. Bose TV speaker Soundbars have become important purchases, given the often iffy quality of the speakers built into TVs. While not the biggest or the best offering in the space, the Bose TV Speaker is one of the more affordable soundbar options out there, especially hailing from a brand as popular as Bose. Oral-B Pro 1000 electric toothbrush They might be a lot more expensive than their traditional counterparts but electric toothbrushes remain a popular choice for consumers because of how well they get the job done. I know my dentist won't let up on how much I need one. This particular Oral-B offering was CNET's overall choice for the best electric toothbrush for 2025. This product hasn't seen its price budge one way or another most of the year, but while Prime Day might have come and gone, there's still a $10 coupon listed on Amazon right now, letting you save a little bit of money for the time being. Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook Lenovo is notable among the big laptop manufacturers for being a Chinese company making its products especially susceptible to Trump's tariffs. For now, its price has been largely unchanged in the last few months. You can, however, grab it on Amazon right now at a $20 discount, but we'll have to see how long that actually lasts. Starbucks Ground Coffee (28-ounce bag) Coffee is included in this tracker because of its ubiquity -- I'm certainly drinking too much of it these days -- and because it's uniquely susceptible to Trump's tariff agenda. Famously, coffee beans can only be grown within a certain distance from Earth's equator, a tropical span largely outside the US and known as the "Coffee Belt." Hawaii is the only part of the US that can produce coffee beans, with data from USAFacts showing that 11.5 million pounds were harvested there in the 2022-23 season -- little more than a drop in the mug, as the US consumed 282 times that amount of coffee during that period. Making matters worse, Hawaiian coffee production has declined in the past few years. All that to say: Americans get almost all of their coffee from overseas, making it one of the most likely products to see price hikes from tariffs. While this particular bag of beans from Starbucks hasn't seen its price budge for most of the year, in recent days it ticked up by less than a dollar on Amazon, which could be a sign of further increases to come. Other products As mentioned, we occasionally swap out products with different ones that undergo notable price shifts. Here are some things no longer featured above, but that we're still keeping an eye on: Nintendo Switch: The baseline handheld-console hybrid has held steady around $299 most places -- including Amazon release of the Switch 2 remains to be seen. This product was replaced above with the Xbox Series X. release of the Switch 2 remains to be seen. This product was replaced above with the Xbox Series X. Overture PLA 3D printer filament: This is a popular choice on Amazon Here are some products we also wanted to single out that haven't been featured with a graph yet: Razer Blade 18 (2025), 5070 Ti edition: The latest revision of Razer's largest gaming laptop saw a $300 price bump recently, with the base model featured an RTX 5070 Ti graphics card now priced at $3,500 ahead of launch, compared to the $3,200 price announced in February. While Razer has stayed mum about the reasoning, it did previously suspend direct sales to the US as Trump's tariff plans were ramping up in April. Asus ROG Ally X: The premium version of Asus's Steam Deck competitor handheld gaming PC recently saw a price hike from $799 to $899, coinciding with the announcement of the company's upcoming Xbox-branded Ally handhelds.
IOL News
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- IOL News
The Silent Twins Movie Explained: True story, mental health, and racial injustice
The Silent Twins tells the true story of June and Jennifer Gibbons, twin sisters born to Caribbean parents and raised in the rigid whiteness of 1970s Wales. The Silent Twins tells the true story of June and Jennifer Gibbons, twin sisters born to Caribbean parents and raised in the rigid whiteness of 1970s Wales. Refused recognition by the society around them, the twins responded with silence. They turned away from spoken language and created a parallel existence saturated with writing, imagination, and intensity. Directed by Agnieszka Smoczyńska and based on Marjorie Wallace's investigative work, this is not a conventional biopic. It slips between the harshness of external life and the densely layered terrain of the twins' interiority. Speech is stripped back. The centre of their expression becomes gesture, written word, and shared gaze. Their mutism does not erase meaning. It sharpens it. The most striking feature of this story is the use of animation to express the creative life of the twins. The stop-motion sequences do not soothe or entertain. They unsettle. Figures emerge and dissolve with a waxen sheen, their faces distorted, their limbs unnatural. These characters shimmer and slump, as if caught between forming and vanishing. Their skin is white, their eyes blank or too wide, their expressions disturbing. They echo the racialised world the girls navigate and the psychological residue that seeps into their creativity. These invented figures do not offer relief.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
How one woman found new life as a farmer, born of hope and grit
Jacie Fasselin was on a mountain at dusk, looking for cows. She and Woodrow — a tall black horse — traversed the ledges looking for the wanderers. Fasselin did not know what to expect, especially as the darkness enveloped them later that day, and she knew they had to navigate the ledges to get off the mountain. 'He is in his young mind, but we were not going to give up.' She built a trail of sorts to help them get off the mountain. Armed with just a spotlight and an untested horse, they began to make their way down. 'I kept expecting him to make mistakes on the switchback,' she said. 'I knew if he remained calm we would be all right. If he panics, we would not be all right — not at all." It was perilous, but the moment was about faith and putting your trust in something higher than you. Fasselin said Woodrow turned to look at her and headed off to the left. 'He was just saying: I think we need to turn left here. He was like an old pro. He made the leap like I asked him to. I love his brain. He was a saint.' On this day in June, Fasselin is fighting another battle. The hay baler is not cooperating. 'It thinks it is going to win. It thinks I cannot figure it out. But I will.' And she did. Learning young Even when Fasselin was a young girl, she had to make hard decisions. It was not about what school to go to or who to take to the dance. Which horse will load in the trailer first? That is a hard decision. You get the best one, the rest follow. This woman of the 21st century grew up without running water. She lived in a single-wide trailer in Nine Mile Canyon, in east-central Utah, to wrangle cattle. 'I was not aware of the sacrifices,' she said. Her father got laid off from the coal mine and her mother took three jobs. She remembers cutting trails with a machete, not playing Mario Brothers. 'My dad did this incredible thing,' she said. 'And he started me really young.' She's tough and hardy and seems undeterred by the changes that life throws at her. One of those callings is found in Elmo, a community tucked away in Emery County off the less traveled roads. It is simple. And it is down home like Fasselin and it is here where there is little noise, no crowds, nobody watching over your shoulder. Like a blank artist's canvas that is big and begging to tell a story, Fasselin is filling in the white tableau with her own colors. She's drawing outside the lines, but it feels good to her. Perhaps, as a woman farmer, there is inspiration all around her. On the Utah Farm Bureau's website, 'thisfarmwife' AKA Meredith Bernard, posted this on Instagram: 'Starting is the hardest part. Always. For anything that means anything. The first words to a book, or article or post. The first step to moving from one chapter of life to another,' she wrote. 'To the one reading and watching this who is struggling to start that something on your heart, my heart is begging you to go. Do your thing your way. Will it be hard? Yes. Will you make mistakes? Yes. Will trying ever not be worth it? No.' Fasselin and Bernard don't know each other, but their stories are similar. Being a farmer and rancher is tough. Being a farmer and rancher as a woman, well, it can be tougher in a traditionally male-dominated tradition. Despite the challenges, women across the country are called to farm, to ranch, to carry on the tradition etched in small towns and born out of heritage. Maya Fasselin, Jacie's sister-in-law, said determination is the common theme with this woman who has grown to be an inspiration for her. 'She is extremely determined and when her mind is made up, there's no going back. Jacie is the first to help others, find solutions and get the job done.' In Elmo, where Fasselin lives, the nearest high school is about 20 miles away, but there is a post office in town and the Elmo branch of the Emery County Library is there to serve a population of about 368 people. That suits this single mother just fine, giving her room and space to flourish. At night, she sings to her boys. They have prayer around the dinner table and in the quiet of the night, determination wraps around this woman like a blanket and she is ready for the next day. 'A really good friend told me, 'you are going to have an emotional breakdown and then you will wake up refreshed and have a better solution.'' A life in a place called Elmo, Utah In Elmo, if you want to talk to someone at the city offices, you can catch them between 10 a.m. and noon on Tuesdays and Thursdays to talk municipal business in this agrarian community founded in 1908. For Fasselin, this is the place she realized her dream of owning her own ranch and farm, but she never thought that would come to pass. In the split with her husband, Fasselin thought she would simply end up with pretty horses. He was the rancher and she was the mother, the high school teacher. She had her eyes set on law school. But life turns and spins, changing a person. 'I got the farm. I chose to stay. I would be in a room wishing I was here. At least the stress of the farm is genuine, the stress of raising my children is genuine. I used to stress life that was not necessary.' Now, she is running her own cattle, breaking horses, fixing fences, teaching all the time. 'The fact that I am a natural born teacher, I will sail that ship all day. I am really passionate about agriculture literacy. You do not have to grow up in agriculture to make a difference.' Jacie's heritage She's pretty sure her ancestors are watching with approving smiles. She drives a guest to a monument to those in her bloodline who came before her, who settled in this area that is part of an eastern swath of Utah in the Upper Colorado River Basin. The marker honors, among others, Billy Winder, who was born in 1888 and lived until he was 90, dying in 1978. It is easy to marvel at the changes he must have experienced, how life crept steadily through a host of transformational alterations in society. Others on the monument are Zina Winder, Fasselin's great-grandmother and the daughter of Billy Winder. She died a few years ago. You can see the admiration in Fasselin's eyes as she talks about this woman and her hardiness. Fasselin is simultaneously a learner and a teacher with multiple degrees. She's learning the intricacies of farming and ranching, while at the same time she brings this love of learning to the students she teaches at Carbon High School, where she delivers lessons on agriculture. It is a passion for her, to bring her students along and help them learn about a discipline under threat in an era when land is becoming increasingly urbanized. 'I was born to be a teacher. I am so grateful and thankful I get to teach something I am so passionate about,' she said. Mapping the dream Emery County farms are fed by Joe's Valley Dam and Reservoir, Huntington North Dam and Reservoir, Cottonwood Creek-Huntington Canal, Huntington North Service Canal, and North Canal — all projects engineered by the Emery County Water Conservancy District to capture and deliver water out of the mountains. Both Huntington and Cottonwood creeks are tributaries to the San Rafael River, which is in the upper Colorado River Basin. The annual precipitation for this area is 8.5 inches a year, while statewide it is 11 inches in this semiarid climate that has been weighed down by more than two decades of what some call a megadrought. Emery County has tried to get out in front of water issues, with county commissioners approving a tax increase in the early 1990s to pay for an extensive monitoring system to document both the quantity and quality of the water. More than 50 stations measure water quality and volume at two reservoirs. The district was part of a case study by Campbell Scientific, which developed the monitoring devices and documented their use in the county. Fasselin knows the value of the finite resource, having tried for years to buy both the land and get water rights. She had the benefit of knowledge on her side, having worked for the Natural Resources Conservation Service, which is under the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Via a joint effort with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the WaterSMART initiative utilizes targeted funding from the Environmental Quality Incentives Program to conserve water and increase drought resilience. Under the entire umbrella, it helps farmers and other producers conserve water through local irrigation districts. For fiscal year 2024, Utah was one of 16 states that received nearly $30 million in funding. Even with the money and the help, it's been a struggle for this young woman. 'There have been several times where I have had to face Satan,' she said. 'I felt like I would be in trouble if I did it incorrectly. ... But as long as I have Ghost and my dog Nix, I'll make it. I would not have it any other way.' Ghost is another of Fasselin's horses, tested, tried and true. And Nix, the border collie, is a steadfast companion that like any good dog is simply there for you. Why not walk away and trade work boots for a classroom to learn about the law? 'I ask myself that question all the time. It is as if you have a sickness, and I love it. I love the animals. I love the land and I love the kids.' There are programs out there to help farmers like Fasselin. Justin Elsner, a district conservationist with the NRCS field office in North Logan, said while the infrastructure improvements help water conservancy districts and irrigation companies to save water, farmers and other producers are often left with the exorbitantly high investments of their own to adapt to the new systems in place. 'The agriculture producers, they are kind of stuck with needing to make adjustments now that maybe their open ditch, or their open canal has been put into a pipe and it's pressurized,' he said. 'Now they have to make changes to accommodate that pressurized water, and maybe their old irrigation system can no longer be (workable). With WaterSMART, we can write a proposal to secure funds for what we call the on farm improvements — separate from the Bureau of Reclamation grant.' That means money to move from flood irrigation to a sprinkler system, a wheel line or a pivot — while improving the water efficiency. Emily Fife, NRCS state conservationist for Utah, said since the start of this joint-coordination effort, NRCS has invested $4 million in Cache, Morgan, and Summit counties, assisting 64 producers across more than 4,700 contracted acres to reduce drought stress on crops, protect crop health and conserve water. 'Our work is about identifying science-based solutions to complex problems,' she emphasized. Fasselin, who has a master's degree in natural resources, set about negotiating to get some money to help in her own quest that started years ago. 'The more information you have the more powerful you can be, the more effective you can be,' she said. 'There's amazing people willing to help.' But it was no easy task. The men in charge knew who she was, knew about her roots, but they cast a wary eye at her because of her gender. 'I spent the first 10 minutes talking before I convinced them I was worth listening to. I was young and I was a woman.' Fasselin's determination worked. She now owns Desert Lake Livestock, with 120 cultivatable acres where she grows hay to support the 50 head of beef cattle she raises. They summer in the mountain ranges, then usually return to Elmo for the winter or spend those months in the desert. Fasselin rides her horse like she was born on one, deftly guiding the cattle to the desired location. Moving the cattle consists of long days that start early and end late — a ritual she embraces wholeheartedly. And her approach to farming is saving precious water. In 2023, her operation used 276 acre-feet of water. Last year, growing similar crops and tackling an additional 17 acres of farming small grains, she used only 82-acre feet of water. That counts in the parched Colorado River Basin. Fulfilling a destiny The land was homesteaded by her family from generations ago so for Fasselin, it feels like destiny was right alongside her in her fight to get the land and the water, to basically get her start. Fasselin secured a cost share funding investment for a $450,000 system that includes technology like a pivot with solar-powered wheel line, soil sensors and even a weather station with some NRCS funding. The project was also made possible with money that came from the state's Agricultural Optimization program, which the state Legislature has used to invest more than $276 million in water saving improvements since its creation in 2019. More than 550 projects have been completed through that funding. Even with that, it hasn't been easy. Having a master's degree does not translate into knowing your way around mechanics, but she's been learning. 'There's a massive learning curve,' she said. 'My sister-in-law helps and my brother is mechanically inclined.' Still, last fall, she eyed a four-wheeler sitting idle on the property and said she was going to take a go at it with her tools. Again, it seems like no challenge deters her. She is learning welding, how to assess soil moisture and the list goes on and on. She and Maya have an inside joke about cows. 'Every time we do something hard or every time we're covered in hay laying underneath a baler trying to decipher what is wrong with it, we just say 'we love cows,'' Maya said. 'It's our answer to when anything on the farm gets tough or hard: We love cows.' The intricacies of farming and water Since she's been around farmers her entire life, Fasselin knows the challenges and the many rules, so many of which are unspoken and instinctive. She follows the 'rule of the boot,' which means if your boot sinks more than a quarter of an inch into the ground, your seed bed needs to be firmed up. It has been a struggle. Highs and lows like an addict who still hangs on to the thing that gets them through the day. In this case, it is land. 'I had this massive amount of change and at the same time planted $10,000 worth of seed. I literally felt like I was going to have a heart attack,' she said. 'I went out onto the farm and laid on the ground and cried and I knew it was out of my control. It is easy to get caught up in the moment and then you remember the perspective. If you pray.' Powering through She knows, too, that much like energy, the best water used is the water that isn't, especially given the state's long-term relationship with drought and the arid nature of the region she lives in. Her roots of growing up on farm land with ancestors who did it long before she came along taught her the value of being efficient with the water rights she obtained. Flood irrigation, she said, is tough and not effective — especially when you're talking about acres upon acres of land that need the finite resource. 'Flood irrigation is labor intensive,' she said. 'Your shovel is your best friend.' When she used flood irrigation at her ranch, the water seeped deep into the ground, bringing extremely alkaline soil to the top infused with sodium bicarbonate, or salt, unsuitable for planting. Her system avoids that and allows her to utilize cutting edge technology to track all aspects of her farming and ranching operation when it comes to irrigation. She does that by monitoring a variety of conditions on her phone, even remotely. The systems pay off. According to the NRCS, pivot irrigation uses a lot less water — perhaps as much as 30% less, industry estimates say — than flood irrigation. Pivot sprinklers apply water more evenly across fields than flood irrigation. Also, less water is lost to evaporation and there is less risk of soil erosion, fertilizer and chemical runoff, and nutrient leaching — so aside from helping farmers there are environmental benefits and improvement in public health via cleaner waterways. The hard, good life As a single mom, farmer and rancher, Fasselin has plenty to do. Her boys, Jace, 10, and Jaxten, 7, are learning early about the culture of having land that you work. There's crops to be planted and harvested, cattle and horses to be managed. Jaxten proudly drives the tractor, but his feet dangle from the seat. Perhaps it is a throwback to the way Jacie was raised, when her mother would put her in a basket as she drove the tractor. The ranching life Both boys know their way around horses, relishing the freedom of the ride, the smells and the bond that comes with an animal that outweighs them by factor of nine or 10. They're cautious, but they have learned that the hard way with their own mishaps on the ranch. Fasselin is breaking Boondock, a 2-year-old, for Jaxten. She has another mare, Smoky, who is young and coming up. At the end of the day, Fasselin gathers the boys around the dinner table. They say their prayers. She never stops feeling grateful. These experiences that come from ranching and farming embody a way of life she says she hopes will teach her boys about their roots, their history — so one day they can pass it on. Even with all her daily challenges and learning the rough life of ranching, she never loses sight of being a mother and helping them to learn in the most patient of ways. For anyone else, this could be frustrating and tiring. But she takes the time to sing songs and cuddle with them at night. It is, after all, the most important job she does — being a mother and role model. Even though her days always seem to start early and end late, and she gets tired, it's a good tired and she has no regrets. 'I chose this life 100%.' Solve the daily Crossword
