Author: News Room

To the people who know it, the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego is not a page of history — it’s a chapter. Opened in 1888 by Elisha Babcock and Hampton Story, it was then the largest hotel in the world. The owners set out to create a resort that would “be the talk of the Western world” — a 750-room Victorian right on the edge of the Pacific.Charlie Chaplin, Judy Garland, Babe Ruth, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford — they all came to the Del, as it is known. “Some Like It Hot,” was shot at the hotel. Just up…

French prosecutors said on Monday that the police had arrested seven people over the weekend in connection with the kidnapping of the father of a cryptocurrency entrepreneur, adding that the captive had been freed.In a statement, the Paris prosecutor’s office said it had been informed on Thursday that a man had been kidnapped in Paris and held with “a ransom demand.” The office did not name the kidnapped man.The captive, who had been held in a home in Essonne, an area to the south of Paris, was freed by the police on Saturday evening, the statement said. It added, without…

It was time for Beau Hanson to lay down his bets.Like other farmers in western Iowa, in early April Mr. Hanson was preparing for spring planting. The decisions he made then could determine whether he would be in the red or the black come fall harvest.In farming, there are always uncertainties, and all around Monona County, where Mr. Hanson lives, farmers are weighing them. It has been a tough few years. A wet spring in 2024 meant some farmers had to replant three times. This year, it’s too dry. The price of soybeans has been going down, while the cost…

Less than a year ago, the Federal Reserve took decisive action to bolster the U.S. economy. With inflation easing and the labor market starting to soften, the central bank opted to go big, lowering interest rates by half a percentage point and signaling further cuts to come.Rather than a panicky response to a crisis situation, the decision amounted to the Fed taking out some insurance to protect the labor market from weakening too much.In a barrage of attacks on the central bank recently, President Trump called on Jerome H. Powell, the chair, to lower borrowing costs in a similar fashion…

Warren Buffett, the chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, said he would step down from that position by the end of the year.Mr. Buffett, 94, transformed Berkshire Hathaway, once a textile company, into a powerful business investor, making billions along the way.Here’s a look back at some of the defining moments in his life.Aug. 30, 1930The ‘Oracle of Omaha’In August 1930, Mr. Buffett was born in Omaha to Leila and Howard Buffett, an investment banker and future Republican congressman.At 9 years old, he started studying the stock market.“I used to chart all kinds of stock, the more numbers the better,” he…

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…