Author: News Room

During a 24-hour swing through Copenhagen last month, Eric Slesinger met with engineers making maritime drones, developers of war-planning software and an adviser to NATO. He had recently visited London for a dinner with a senior British intelligence official and would soon head to the Arctic to learn about the technologies that could handle extreme climates.The packed schedule would seem more common for Mr. Slesinger in his former job as an officer at the Central Intelligence Agency. But now the 35-year-old was in high demand as he parlayed his spy agency credentials into a career as a venture capitalist focused…

The Federal Aviation Agency said late Sunday that a sightseeing helicopter company was shutting down its operations immediately after a deadly crash last week on the Hudson River.The helicopter, operated by New York Helicopter Tours, was carrying six people when it crashed into the river on Thursday. None survived.The F.A.A. said in statement on Sunday that it would launch an immediate review of the tour operator’s license and safety record, as well as cooperate with the National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation into the crash.It was not immediately clear if New York Helicopter Tours had shut down voluntarily or under orders…

In a career spanning more than 30 years, John Pettigrew has seen big changes in the electricity industry. He started out in 1991, working to introduce natural gas-fired power plants to the grid, gradually replacing polluting coal plants. .Now, once again, he is managing a tectonic shift to an electrified economy that runs on renewable energy like wind and solar power. But these sources of power generation are far trickier to manage than their coal and gas predecessors.“Effectively, what we’re doing is reconfiguring the whole network,” said Mr. Pettigrew, chief executive of National Grid, which owns and operates the high-voltage…

In a world besieged by turmoil, Jacob Rothman thought he had secured a refuge.Mr. Rothman, 52, grew up in California but has spent more than two decades in China, overseeing factories that make grilling accessories and other kitchen items for Walmart and retailers around the globe. Well before the rest of the business world, he grasped the pressures bearing on the relationship between his native country and the one where he runs his business.President Trump used his first term to impose tariffs on imports from China. President Joseph R. Biden Jr. advanced that policy. The pandemic exposed the pitfalls of…

Markets in Asia moved higher on Monday after a weekend that brought more shifts in strategy from President Trump about tariffs.Stocks in Japan rose a little over 1 percent while benchmarks went up 2 percent in Hong Kong and less than 1 percent in mainland China. S&P 500 stock futures, which let investors bet on how the index might perform when it opens in New York, were about 0.50 percent higher.The modest rally followed another chaotic week on Wall Street, with the S&P 500 starting with losses but ending with its best weekly performance since November 2022. The gains were…

Sarah Palin’s yearslong defamation case against The New York Times, potentially testing the extent of First Amendment protections for journalists, will soon go to trial in federal court in Manhattan.Again.Three years ago, a federal jury and judge each ruled against Ms. Palin, the onetime Republican vice-presidential nominee and Alaska governor. She had claimed that an editorial that The Times published in 2017 had defamed her by wrongly suggesting that an ad from her political action committee had inspired a mass shooting.But Ms. Palin successfully appealed the verdict, and a retrial was ordered. It is scheduled to begin on Monday.Much of…

China has suspended exports of a wide range of critical minerals and magnets, threatening to choke off supplies of components central to automakers, aerospace manufacturers, semiconductor companies and military contractors around the world.Shipments of the magnets, essential for assembling everything from cars and drones to robots and missiles, have been halted at many Chinese ports while the Chinese government drafts a new regulatory system. Once in place, the new system could permanently prevent supplies from reaching certain companies, including American military contractors.The official crackdown is part of China’s retaliation for President Trump’s sharp increase in tariffs that started on April…

Last weekend, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent went on television and said people who wanted to retire right now were not paying attention to the stock market.On the NBC program “Meet the Press,” referring to those who have “put away for years in their savings account,” he said the following: “I think they don’t look at the day-to-day fluctuations of what’s happening.”Is that true? I asked readers of our Your Money newsletter who were on the cusp of retirement whether they were watching the markets and, if so, why?About 400 people replied. More than 90 percent of them said they were…

President Trump’s rapidly escalating trade war with China has resulted in eye-watering tariffs on products exchanged between the countries and scrambled prospects for many global businesses that depend on the trade. And there is no end in sight.The Trump administration has been waiting for the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, to call Mr. Trump personally, but Beijing appears wary of putting Mr. Xi in an unpredictable and potentially embarrassing situation with the U.S. president.With the two governments at an impasse, businesses that rely on sourcing products from China — varying from hardware stores to toymakers — have been thrown into turmoil.…

Investing in choppy markets, especially with an unpredictable president at the helm, can be distressing. It can be even more so if you are relying on these investments to pay for something as important as your child’s college tuition, and you need the money in the foreseeable future.Plenty of busy parents found themselves in this position last week, reminded by the recent market plunge that college enrollment was creeping up on them, and some may not have dialed back their risky stock positions, or at least not enough.But situations like this serve as another reminder: Market uncertainty is a constant,…