Author: News Room

Liu Miao has sold clothing on Amazon to wholesale buyers in the United States for the past five years. That trade has come to an abrupt stop.Mr. Liu owns a small factory in Guangzhou, long the center of China’s highly competitive garment industry. He and other factory managers, already dealing with tight profit margins, said last week that the combination of tariffs and President Trump’s new tax on cheap imports had cut deeply into their businesses. Costs along the supply chain are also higher.The tariffs have made it impossible for Mr. Liu to continue selling on Amazon, where he previously…

Oil prices resumed their downward slide after the OPEC Plus cartel of oil producers said over the weekend that it would pump more oil, despite concerns that President Trump’s trade war will curb demand.The U.S. benchmark oil price fell to around $56 a barrel, from $58 on Friday. For many companies, the steady decline means it will not be profitable to drill wells in the United States despite Mr. Trump’s calls for increased production.Prices were last around this level in early April, just before Mr. Trump said he would pause reciprocal tariffs on most countries for 90 days. That announcement…

President Trump said he would impose a 100 percent tariff on movies “produced” outside the United States, proclaiming in a social media post on Sunday that the issue posed a national security threat. Mr. Trump said he had authorized Jamieson Greer, the United States Trade Representative, to begin the process of taxing “any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands.” Mr. Trump added, “This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat.”The Motion Picture Association, which represents the biggest Hollywood studios in Washington, declined to comment. The association’s latest…

Warren E. Buffett’s approach to investing is deceptively simple.“Forget what you know about buying fair businesses at wonderful prices; instead, buy wonderful businesses at fair prices,” he once wrote to shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway, his business conglomerate.This method — known as value investing — had existed long before Mr. Buffett, now 94, began his career. But no one did it as well — or for as long — as he did. And in the process, he influenced generations of financiers, including Wall Street hedge fund moguls, and promoted the now-common advice about investing for the long term.Over the 60 years…

Monte Anderson opened a broom closet in his kitchen and pointed to a door handle near a mop and a trash can. Somewhere on the other side lay one small solution to America’s affordable housing crisis.Mr. Anderson is a developer who rehabs commercial and residential buildings in and around Dallas, including the ranch-style house where he lives, for now, with three kind-of-sort-of roommates. The 2,400-square-foot home has been split into four studio apartments. Each has an outdoor entrance, but also connects to another unit through a door like the one in his kitchen closet.The connecting doors are locked and hidden…

Even if it’s already happened. (You say that this is supposed to take place in a matter of weeks, if not sooner.) If this is the case, you must tell your boss that you’ve changed your mind about having her stay over and that she’ll have to make other arrangements.You are allowed to say “no.”And you are allowed to say “no” after the fact.Let me repeat. You are allowed to say “no” after the fact.It’s interesting that you consulted ChatGPT. More and more of my friends are doing the same thing for advice. I put your exact query, word for…

Investors had speculated in recent years that Warren E. Buffett might eventually retire. But the 94-year-old billionaire still surprised many on Saturday, when he announced that he planned to step down as chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway after nearly six decades.Less surprising is who he said he intended to succeed him as the leader of the $1.1 trillion conglomerate he built: Gregory E. Abel, his yearslong heir apparent.Who is Greg Abel?Since 2018, Mr. Abel, 62, has been vice chairman of Berkshire’s non-insurance companies, the 189 operating businesses that include the BNSF railroad, one of the nation’s largest; Berkshire Hathaway Energy,…

For Vietnam’s legion of factory workers, the mathematics of making a living was complicated enough before President Trump announced a whopping tariff on the goods they make.Nguyen Thi Tuyet Hanh worked two factory jobs, six days a week, for nearly a year after her husband lost his job in 2023. She had no other choice to help feed their four children and keep them in school.“It was brutal,” Ms. Hanh, 40, said. Her husband is working full time again at a factory, but Mr. Trump’s plan to put a 46 percent tariff on imports from Vietnam hangs over their family,…

The pay stubs tell the story. Hefty deductions to help cover the cost of Kenya’s new funds for affordable housing and health insurance. More money subtracted for jacked-up contributions to the National Social Security Fund and an increase in the tax rate.In a matter of months, Kenyans with a 45,000-shilling-a-month salary — roughly $350 — saw their take-home pay shrink 9 percent, to $262.Pay stubs for an employee at Shining Hope for Communities, a nonprofit in Kenya:JUNE 2024“People who are salaried are crying,” said Kennedy Odede, the founder of a self-help association in Nairobi’s Kibera slum.The increased payroll taxes are…

Members of a South Texas community that has served as the hub of Elon Musk’s rocket launch company, SpaceX, voted on Saturday to formally establish a new city called Starbase, fulfilling one of Mr. Musk’s long-held dreams.At the time the polls closed at 7 p.m., 173 out of 177 votes were in favor of incorporating the city of Starbase, according to Cameron County, which administered the vote.There are 283 eligible voters, said Remi Garza, the elections administrator for the county. About 40 votes were left to be counted, Mr. Garza said, but the early vote tally was “well past” the…