Author: News Room

The stock market has fallen fast over the past month. Business and consumer sentiment is souring, and investors are afraid that economic data will soon start to show deeper cracks.The question on Wednesday: Will the Federal Reserve also express concern about the path ahead?So far, Fed officials have largely avoided commenting on an uncertain outlook while current economic data remain solid. A healthy labor market has allowed the central bank to continue to point to economic resilience as it holds interest rates high in response to stubborn inflation.But in addition to announcing its decision on interest rates at its monthly…

The Federal Reserve is set to extend its pause on interest rate cuts on Wednesday as President Trump’s aggressive approach to tariffs and other economic policies fuel extreme uncertainty about the outlook for inflation, growth and unemployment.A decision to stand pat would keep interest rates at 4.25 percent to 4.5 percent, a level that was reached in December after a series of cuts in the second half of 2024.Officials at the Fed are in wait-and-see mode, closely tracking the incoming data for signs that progress on inflation is picking back up after a period of stalling out, or that an…

President Trump fired the two Democratic members of the Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday, a rejection of the corporate regulator’s traditional independence that will clear the way for the administration’s agenda and could draw a legal challenge.The White House told the Democrats, Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya, that the president was terminating their roles. Congress created the F.T.C. to enforce consumer protection and antitrust laws. It typically has five members, with the president’s party holding three seats and the opposing party two.“Today the president illegally fired me from my position as a federal trade commissioner, violating the plain language…

As questions continue to swirl around Washington about the future of TikTok, the name of one potential suitor for the popular video app keeps coming up: Oracle.On Tuesday, Oracle met with top aides on Capitol Hill to talk about how the U.S. tech giant, which processes and serves TikTok user data, plans to work with the Chinese-owned video app in the United States in the coming weeks, according to two people with knowledge of the meeting who weren’t authorized to speak publicly.The questions came as TikTok stares down an April 5 deadline from a federal law that prohibits its distribution…

California regulators granted Tesla a permit on Tuesday to operate a ride service in the state, an early step toward the electric car maker’s ambitions of having its own robot taxi fleet.The permit, issued by the California Public Utilities Commission, allows Elon Musk’s company to “transport Tesla employees on a prearranged basis and in Tesla-owned vehicles,” the agency said in a statement. The approval is the first of many that Tesla will need to test self-driving vehicles on California roads.While Waymo, the robot taxi company owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet, is the only company that offers autonomous-vehicle rides to…

“Is it ever sad when fast fashion bites the dust?” Kim France, the founding editor of the seminal Condé Nast shopper Lucky and producer of the popular newsletter “Girls of a Certain Age” said on Tuesday, reacting to news that Forever 21 had filed for bankruptcy. The answer depends on how passionate a consumer is about both bricks and mortar and the hunt.Anyone who ever formed a search party to stalk low-rise jeans, fringed crop tops, mesh flats or whatever else happened to be trending that very instant is familiar with the chain, which tracked fashion minutely and churned out…

The Justice Department on Tuesday charged Carl Erik Rinsch, whom Netflix hired to make a science-fiction series that was never completed, with an $11 million scheme to defraud the company.According to the indictment, which was announced by prosecutors for the Southern District of New York and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s New York Field Office, Mr. Rinsch secured funding from the streaming company from 2018 to early 2020. But he put the money in a personal brokerage account and ultimately used it to trade securities, instead of putting it toward the series, the indictment says.Federal prosecutors charged Mr. Rinsch, who…

The agriculture industry has plenty of complaints about trade.The National Pork Producers Council says the European Union puts the U.S. pork industry at a disadvantage. The council is none too happy with trade practices of Ecuador and Brazil, either.The USA Poultry and Egg Export Council, for its part, has a gripe with India. Citing that country’s 100 percent tariffs, it notes that India has imported only $255,000 worth of U.S. chicken parts since 2018.But neither organization is a fan of unilateral tariffs that, as the pork council said in a statement to the Office of the United States Trade Representative,…

The newly appointed head of one of the nation’s top housing regulators tightened his grip on the agency with a major board shake-up on Monday at two government-controlled mortgage finance firms.William Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, ousted 14 board members at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and named himself chairman of both companies’ boards.The last two F.H.F.A directors did not sit on the boards of Fannie and Freddie, the two firms that help drive the nation’s $12 trillion mortgage market. The F.H.F.A. is the primary regulator for Fannie and Freddie, which have been under federal government…

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s top health official, has an unorthodox idea for tackling the bird flu bedeviling U.S. poultry farms. Let the virus rip.Instead of culling birds when the infection is discovered, farmers “should consider maybe the possibility of letting it run through the flock so that we can identify the birds, and preserve the birds, that are immune to it,” Mr. Kennedy said recently on Fox News.He has repeated the idea in other interviews on the channel.Mr. Kennedy does not have jurisdiction over farms. But Brooke Rollins, the agriculture secretary, also has voiced support for the notion.“There…