Volcano Express opens on Shallowford Road
In their third restaurant restoration in East Brainerd in as many years, Chinese emigrants Quan Ren and Xiu Feng Lin have converted an abandoned Wendy's restaurant into a new Volcano Express eatery with both drive-through and indoor seating.
The new restaurant at 7019 Shallowford Road had what it called a "soft opening" on Monday as it rolls out its menu of Hibachi chicken, salmon, steak, shrimp and scallops along with a variety of salads and Asian dinners. The new restaurant will be open daily from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Last fall, Volcano Korean BBQ opened in a shuttered Chop House restaurant on Gunbarrel Road with a unique all-you-eat menu where a variety of steak, pork, chick, shrimp and squid options are cooked right at customers' tables.
The opening came less than two years after the couple opened its first Chattanooga restaurant, Volcano Crab, in a former Applebee's restaurant on Shallowford Village Drive just down the street from the new Volcano's Express.
Yellen says FDIC not raising its limit
U.S. Bill Hagerty, the Tennessee Republican who is the ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government, received a commitment Wednesday from U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen that the Biden Administration is not considering an expansion of Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) coverage to guarantee all uninsured deposits.
Hagerty said he was "deeply concerned" about reports that the Biden administration might use the Exchange Stabilization Fund (ESF), which was created to support the value of the U.S. dollar in international markets, to help guarantee bank deposits above $250,000 with FDIC insurance.
"Such a program would not only or constitute a misuse of the ESF, but it would circumvent Congress's role in approving such an action," Hagerty said during a Congressional hearing Thursday.
Yellen, in response to Hagerty's questions, said the Treasury Department is not universally guaranteeing bank deposits above $250,000 in each account.
"This is not something that we have looked at," Yellen told Hagerty. "It's not something that we are considering."
Credit card debt up to record high
As the Federal Reserve raises interest rates again, credit card debt is already at a record high, and more people are carrying debt month to month.
The Fed's interest rate increases are meant to fight inflation, but they've also led to higher annual percentage rates for people with credit card debt, which means they pay more in interest.
The Fed announced Wednesday that it would increase rates another quarter of a point, to a range of 4.75% to 5%. And with inflation still high, people are leaning on their credit cards more for everyday purchases.
Bankrate says the average credit card interest rate, or annual percentage rate, has reached 20.4% -- the highest since their tracking began in the mid-1980s.
Nevada to build gas power plants
Utility regulators in Nevada gave the state's largest power provider clearance to start work on a $333 million project to build a natural gas plant in the state for the first time in nearly 15 years, signaling yet another consequence of the extreme drought conditions in the southwestern U.S.
The two gas-fired turbines to be erected north of Las Vegas by NV Energy are expected to come online by July 2024 amid hotter summers and longer wildfire seasons in a state that aims to have a carbon-free power grid by 2050.
Nevada's Public Utilities Commission approved the plans last week. It said the turbines are needed to address peak electricity demand in the summer months, as ever-drying conditions in the West continue to stress the region's power grids and slash hydroelectric output, including the behemoth power producers on the Colorado River -- the Hoover Dam and Glen Canyon Dam.
But environmental advocates have argued that the turbines mark a major step backwards for Nevada's climate goals.
— Compiled by Dave Flessner