Author: News Room

Over the past week, as eight wildfires destroyed vast portions of its home metropolis, Hollywood found itself violently impacted — and, at the same time, barely impacted at all.With thousands of homes destroyed, many of them in neighborhoods favored by producers, executives, agents and stars, and roughly 300,000 people under evacuation orders or warnings, little work got done at studio headquarters. Some studios closed entirely, and others encouraged employees to work remotely.Consider the impact of the fires on Disney alone. As of Monday, 64 Disney employees had lost their homes and hundreds more had been evacuated, including Robert A. Iger,…

South Korea plans to alter structures near runways at several airports after last month’s Jeju Air crash, when a plane that landed on its belly skidded into a concrete wall before exploding into a fireball.At seven of South Korea’s 14 domestic and international airports, structures that house antennas and other devices that help pilots navigate did not meet safety standards, the transport ministry said on Monday.The safety inspection was conducted after a Jeju Air passenger plane crashed at Muan International Airport on Dec. 29, killing 179 of the 181 people onboard. Officials are still investigating the cause of the accident,…

The Education Department announced on Monday that it had canceled student loans for more than 150,000 borrowers, bringing the tally of Americans whose loans were forgiven under President Biden to over five million.The Biden administration reached the milestone even though many of its more ambitious plans to overhaul the nation’s system for administering student debt faltered over the past two years, forcing the administration to slowly but steadily process applications for relief through established channels created by Congress.The latest cancellations were most likely the administration’s final round of relief. They covered borrowers who have worked in public service for at…

Robinhood was hit with $45 million in fresh fines from the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday, the latest reprimand that the crypto-favorite brokerage has received from regulators.The violations laid out by the S.E.C. stretched from 2019 to 2023 and included a failure to protect sensitive customer data, employee use of encrypted messaging applications and errors of basic bookkeeping. The agency also said Robinhood had fallen short of its obligations to report suspicious client transactions to the authorities.The allegations announced Monday included a November 2021 incident in which a hacker obtained millions of email addresses and names of Robinhood customers,…

A possible new takeover bid for U.S. Steel emerged on Monday, teeing up more turmoil over the once-dominant company’s future after President Biden’s decision to block its acquisition by a Japanese company.Lourenco Goncalves, the chief executive of an American competitor, Cleveland-Cliffs, said his company had “an All-American solution to save the United States Steel Corporation,” stressing that acquiring U.S. Steel was a matter of “when,” not “if.” But he offered no details of the bidding plans.The renewed expression of interest from Cleveland-Cliffs comes less than two weeks after Mr. Biden blocked a $14 billion takeover of U.S. Steel by Nippon…

Matthew Giachelli got the call he anticipated on Thursday morning: The N.F.L. was moving the Rams’ playoff game to Arizona because of the wildfires raging in Los Angeles, and the league needed 200 gallons of paint pronto.The game on Monday between the Rams and the Minnesota Vikings would now be held at State Farm Stadium outside Phoenix, and it had to look and feel as if it were being played in the Rams’ usual home, SoFi Stadium. That included painting the field with the team’s and league’s logos and colors. The hometown Cardinals, though, did not have some of the…

Reporters and editors at national newspapers are increasing their reliance on encrypted communications to help shield themselves and their sources from potential federal leak investigations and subpoenas.Multiple media organizations are evaluating whether they have enough insurance coverage to absorb a potential wave of libel and other litigation from officials who have already shown an inclination to file such suits.And a nonprofit investigative journalism outlet is preparing for the possibility that the government will investigate issues like whether its use of freelancers complies with labor regulations.With President-elect Donald J. Trump returning to the White House, media outlets large and small are…

Harold G. Hamm, the billionaire oil and gas executive who helped bankroll Donald J. Trump’s campaign and stands to profit from his energy policies, is hosting an exclusive fossil fuel industry celebration on Inauguration Day.The daytime party on the roof of the historic Hay-Adams Hotel, a block from the White House, will be a moment of triumph for Mr. Hamm, who poured more than $4.3 million into political action committees supporting Mr. Trump.Mr. Hamm, the founder of Oklahoma-based Continental Resources, has been influential in Mr. Trump’s plans to gut environmental protections and allow unfettered access by energy companies to federal…

The number of people in the United States who develop dementia each year will double over the next 35 years to about one million annually by 2060, a new study estimates, and the number of new cases per year among Black Americans will triple.The increase will primarily be due to the growing aging population, as many Americans are living longer than previous generations. By 2060, some of the youngest baby boomers will be in their 90s and many millennials will be in their 70s. Older age is the biggest risk factor for dementia. The study found that the vast majority…

Oliviero Toscani, an Italian photographer who used images of an AIDS patient and death row inmates to break the boundaries of fashion imagery as the creative mastermind of Benetton’s advertising campaigns, died on Monday. He was 82.His death was announced by his family on Instagram. They did not say where he died or cite a cause of death, but in August Mr. Toscani told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that he had been diagnosed with amyloidosis, a rare and incurable condition in which there is a buildup of protein.His shock-and-awe campaigns in the 1980s and ’90s helped turn Benetton…