administration down playing the recession call. there s semantics. what is a recession, how do you technically define it. no matter what, there s widespread agreement no matter who you talk to. that is that economic growth is slowing. the treasury secretary, janet yellen acknowledges as much. but then she maintains that that does not mean a recession is inevitable. this is not in an economy that is in recession. but we re in a period of transition in which growth is slowing. and that s necessary and appropriate. we need to be growing at a steady and sustainable pace. yellen says the job market is still strong. she says a recession would have to be a broad-based economic contraction. consumers are still spending. household balance sheets are still in good shape. all of that said, the economy did contract the first quarter. economists think at beast we ll see slow growth when the numbers release thursday. the white house insists even if that number does go negative and some
and gets worse depending where you are. it could get much worse in the northwest part of the country later this week. but for now, it s testing a lot of utilities. of course, texas very familiar with that. right now the latest there in dallas from casey stegall. casey? hi, neil. 107 is the heat index currently. i just looked at my phone. the north american electric reliability corporation or nerc warns that over half of the united states is now at elevated or high risk for these service blackouts. there s no question that extreme weather events are creating greater demand for electricity in this country primarily through air conditioning load. a former energy cooperative executive.