Author: News Room

Stocks in Asia gained on Monday after weekend talks signaled that progress had been made in easing trade tensions between the United States and China.Benchmark indexes in Japan and South Korea edged higher in early trading on Monday morning. Futures pointed to the S&P 500 gaining more than 1 percent when trading begins in New York.Meetings in Geneva between U.S. and Chinese officials concluded on Sunday with Scott Bessent, the U.S. Treasury secretary, saying that “substantial progress” had been made. China’s vice premier, He Lifeng, called the talks “candid, in-depth and constructive.” Details are expected to be released on Monday,…

Policy changes often take years to show results. Even then, you may have to squint to see them.And then there is congestion pricing in New York.Almost immediately after the tolls went into effect Jan. 5 — charging most vehicles $9 to enter Manhattan from 60th Street south to the Battery — they began to alter traffic patterns, commuter behavior, transit service, even the sound of gridlock and the on-time arrival of school buses. Peak commute times Faster stillLocal buses Faster, less delayedTraffic outside the zone Not worseNew Jersey commutes FasterTransit ridership Up, up, upCiti Bike trips Up in and out…

Tens of thousands of Americans will soon be forced by their heath insurance to switch from one popular obesity drug to another that produces less weight loss.It is the latest example of the consequences of secret deals between drugmakers and middlemen, known as pharmacy benefit managers, that are hired by employers to oversee prescription coverage for Americans. Employers pay lower drug prices but their workers are blocked from getting competing treatments, a type of insurance denial that has grown much more common in the past decade.One of the largest benefit managers, CVS Health’s Caremark, made the decision to exclude Zepbound…

About 130,000 Igloo coolers were recalled on Thursday after consumers reported 78 fingertip injuries from the cooler’s tow handle, 26 of which led to fingertip amputations, bone fractures or cuts, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.This warning expands an initial recall issued in February of more than one million 90-quart Igloo Flip & Tow Rolling Coolers because the tow handle was crushing and seriously injuring people’s fingertips.“The tow handle can pinch consumers’ fingertips against the cooler, posing fingertip amputation and crushing hazard,” the recall said.In the February recall, the safety commission said that Igloo had received 12 reports…

Walking into the crowded hotel conference room, Andrew Batey looked like any other tech guy attending ETHDenver, an annual cryptocurrency conference. A venture capital investor based in Florida, Mr. Batey wore a black sweatshirt emblazoned with the logos of more than a dozen crypto companies, with names like LunarCrush and bitSmiley. He had arrived in town with some expensive footwear — a pair of Off-White Air Jordans, the type of sneaker, he said, that people usually don’t take out of the box.Mr. Batey, however, was at the conference not to network with fellow crypto enthusiasts but to fight one of…

Amid a steady stream of new trade policies in President Trump’s first three months in office, there is one that Andy Musliner, who owns a small toy business in Maryland, can get behind.That’s the ending of a duty-free loophole for cheap goods from China.Mr. Trump this month scrapped a provision that had allowed packages imported into the United States from mainland China or Hong Kong to avoid tariffs and other customs requirements if they were valued under $800. The loophole previously faced bipartisan scrutiny from lawmakers and pushback from the Biden administration, in part over concern that it was enabling…

Hendrik Dierendonck, a second-generation butcher who has become, as he describes it, “world famous in Belgium” for his curated local beef, thinks Europe’s way of raising cattle results in varied and delicious cuts that European consumers prize.“They want hormone-free, grass-fed,” Mr. Dierendonck explained recently as he cut steaks at a bloody chopping block in his Michelin-starred restaurant, which backs onto the butchery his father started in the 1970s. “They want to know where it came from.”Strict European Union food regulations, including a ban on hormones, govern Mr. Dierendonck’s work. And those rules could turn into a trade-war sticking point. The…

Top economic officials from the United States and China will meet on Sunday in Geneva for their second day of high-stakes negotiations, discussions that are aimed at easing tensions stemming from President Trump’s trade war.The talks have major implications for the global economy, which has been rocked by the tariffs that the United States and China have imposed on each other in recent months. Mr. Trump has imposed a minimum tariff of 145 percent on all Chinese imports, while China has hit American products with a 125 percent import tax.Such punitive levies are already disrupting the world’s supply chains. American…

Elizabeth Holmes is in prison for defrauding investors through her blood-testing company, Theranos. In the meantime, her partner is starting one of his own.Billy Evans, who has two children with Ms. Holmes, is trying to raise money for a company that describes itself as “the future of diagnostics” and “a radically new approach to health testing,” according to marketing materials reviewed by The New York Times.If that sounds familiar, it’s because Theranos similarly aimed to revolutionize diagnostic testing. The Silicon Valley start-up captured the world’s attention by claiming, falsely as it turned out, to have developed a blood-testing device that…

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