Author: News Room

Mustafa has life in him after all.“Mufasa: The Lion King,” a photorealistic “Lion King” prequel, arrived on cat paws at the Christmas box office, collecting a weak $35 million in its first weekend in theaters, or 30 percent less than Disney had expected.The company had been hoping that “Mufasa” would add to investor confidence about a turnaround at Walt Disney Studios. Instead, it prompted a new worry: Perhaps the money-gushing “Lion King” franchise (movie and TV spinoffs, a smash stage musical, theme park attractions, the sale of countless stuffed Simbas) was starting to slow. The franchise is 30 years old,…

President Biden warned in his farewell address to the nation last week that an oligarchy is taking shape in America. In Washington, the oligarchs are already here, buying big houses.Counting President-elect Donald J. Trump himself, there are at least a dozen billionaires among his cabinet picks and those headed for senior roles in the new administration. Elon Musk tops the list with a $429 billion net worth, according to Forbes, making him the world’s richest man. Mr. Trump weighs in with an estimated $6.8 billion.It is an extraordinary concentration of wealth in a city where power has always been more…

Privacy can be hard to come by in India. Life is a communal swirl of relatives, neighbors and friends. Cities are crowded, and prying eyes are everywhere.Enter Oyo, a popular hotel-booking platform. The company, backed by big names in venture capital, built a hip reputation as a gateway to “love hotels” for unmarried couples. Inside its budget rooms, young lovers who might otherwise be left to steal furtive kisses in the nooks and crannies of public parks or shopping malls could exert their passions behind closed doors.Now, Oyo is stepping back from its image as a refuge for hookups. This…

Mr. Thiel prides himself on his elaborate parties, and his inauguration event, held in his seven-bedroom home, included a hired juggler who rather than juggling, instead posed trivia questions to guests about U.S. presidents. Snack cakes and other appetizers were passed around, and larger bites were served at stations. (The Mar-a-Lago station had shrimp, steak and salad with Thousand Island dressing; there was also a food delivery from McDonald’s.) Gift bags were filed with small bottles of Moët champagne. There were, of course, red MAGA hats.Prominent tech industry guests, among a heavily male list, included Sam Altman, the chief executive…

Hours before a new federal law banning TikTok from the United States was set to take effect, the social media app showed users a pop-up message that said it would be “temporarily unavailable” starting on Sunday.“We regret that a U.S. law banning TikTok will take effect on January 19,” the message said. “We’re working to restore our service in the U.S. as soon as possible.”TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance and has been under scrutiny for national security concerns, appeared to be readying its users for how it might go offline. At midnight, it was unclear if…

Wishing you could buy a home? It can be challenging to save enough for a down payment, given how much houses now cost.But many people don’t realize there are myriad programs that offer grants or loans to help home buyers come up with the necessary funds. “There are tons of programs to assist them,” said Deatra Kemp, an advocate for first-time home buyers in Milwaukee.The programs can ease some of the daunting numbers behind buying a house. The median price of a home has risen to more than $400,000, meaning the once-traditional 20 percent down payment — an amount paid…

Thousands of customers have reported problems getting their banking done with Capital One because of a disruption accessing online services that began on Wednesday and persisted into the weekend.On at least two different occasions on Friday afternoon, nearly 4,000 customers each time reported issues completing transactions with Capital One, a credit card and banking company based in McLean, Va., according to Down Detector, a website that monitors internet and application outages.In a statement shared by Capital One’s customer service account on social media, the company said on Thursday that a “technical issue with a third-party vendor” was “temporarily impacting some…

And Mr. Trump, too, will be unavoidable in Davos, even if he is not there in person. (He is expected to give a speech in a virtual appearance on Thursday.)Yet the implications for a second Trump administration on the climate are more straightforward.Mr. Trump has called for a rapid expansion of fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal. He has pledged to roll back investments in clean energy that the Biden administration has prioritized. And he has said he will pull out of the Paris climate accord, an international pledge to try and limit global warming.“It is certainly not helpful…

TikTok’s immediate future may rest in the hands of a tech company that has largely avoided the spotlight: Oracle. The company is one of the app’s leading server providers, managing the data centers where billions of 40-second videos are stored.“It could become a digital roadblock that prevents people from getting access to the content, if they make the decision to shut it down, which is uncertain,” said Bob O’Donnell, founder of TECHnalysis Research, a market research firm.An Oracle spokesman didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment. The company, which has close ties to the incoming Trump administration, has said in…

Davos is coming just in time for the inauguration of Donald J. Trump 2.0, and Europe is anxious. Mr. Trump is like an asteroid heading for Earth, argues Hubert Védrine, a former French foreign minister, and debates about the impact will dominate the cozy, internationalist bubble that gathers each year in the pricey snow of the Swiss Alps.Mr. Trump talks variously about huge new tariffs, about seizing Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal, about tying American involvement in European defense not only to Europeans increasing their military spending but also decreasing their trade surplus with the United States.Mr. Védrine and…