Benzinga's Talk Of The Town: Top Social Trending Stories You Need To Know

What's trending on social media today:

Jobless Claims: In the week ending Feb. 11, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 194,000. That's a decrease of 1,000 from the previous week's revised level, the Department of Labor announced. Claims, a precursor to layoffs, being down underscores a resilient economy despite tough monetary policies.

BP Inks A Deal: Oil giant BP plc BP agreed to buy truck stop company TravelCenters of America Inc. TA for $86.00 per share in cash, or $1.3 billion. The sale price represents an 84% premium to the average trading price of the 30 days ended Feb. 15 of $46.68. The deal comes as M&A activity remains somewhat quiet — at least since the start of the year.

A New Direction For GOP Sans Trump?: Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley told Today that she “didn’t ask” for a blessing when she spoke to former President Donald Trump ahead of announcing her 2024 White House bid. “I told him that I thought that we needed to go in a new direction,” she said. It remains to be seen whether Trump will troll Haley with a nickname as he has done for other fellow Republicans (i.e., 'Meatball' Ron DeSantis).

Super Bowl In Hindsight: While Kansas City basks in the glory of a Super Bowl win, the franchise's name scores an "L." Now, the team points out that it was named after former Kansas City mayor H. Roe Bartle, who was nicknamed “Chief.” Bartle was apparently partly responsible for bringing the Dallas Texans to Kansas City in 1963; a name change followed. But what about that habitual "tomahawk chop" fans seem to enjoy?

Now that the #SuperBowl is in the rearview mirror, can we ditch the "@Chiefs" name? It structures permission for dehumanization. Where was the @NFL when fans did the tomahawk chop *at the Super Bowl*? As Colbert points out here, the NFL's "End Racism" slogan is a mere punchline pic.twitter.com/iLhs7Cy3xU

— Jules Boykoff (@JulesBoykoff) February 15, 2023

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