Author: News Room
Responding to record cruise demand, major cruise lines will continue to launch new mega-ships this year, with countless over-the-top features and amenities that will appeal to families.“With every big, splashy new ship launch, we’re seeing even more investment in the family market,” said Colleen McDaniel, editor in chief of the cruise news site Cruise Critic. “No longer are cabins for five the definition of the ultimate in family-friendliness, but now we’re seeing actual ‘neighborhoods,’ dedicated to families.”MSC’s largest ship, the World America, will begin sailing out of Miami in April with a family-oriented district packed with water slides, a ropes…
Is Trump bluffing? President Trump’s tariff threats have perplexed and rankled foreign leaders and C.E.O.s for some time now as they fear the unleashing of a tit-for-tat trade war.Investors apparently feel relieved that he has held off so far, with S&P 500 futures gaining this morning. But a growing number of analysts and business leaders fear tariffs are inevitable (more on that below). There’s one theory gaining traction: Trump sees levies not just as a negotiating tactic, but also as a way to make money.A recap of Trump’s latest threats: Canada and Mexico could face 25 percent tariffs as soon…
A recent Booking.com global survey of 31,000 travelers found that 71 percent of respondents “want to leave the places they visit better than when they arrived.” Eighty-three percent said that sustainable travel is important to them. Now, as travelers wake up to the social effects of tourism, travel businesses are responding in kind, helping visitors maximize the positive — and minimize the negative — impacts of their trips.The Kind Traveler platform, for example, has started a program in which every guest stay helps fund a local charity. StayAltered offers a “community-powered” accommodation booking platform that connects travelers with independent hosts…
When House Republicans gathered behind closed doors on Capitol Hill last week to hash out their plans for cutting taxes, Representative David Schweikert, an Arizona Republican, sounded a note of caution.The United States’ fiscal problems were at risk of spiraling out of control, Mr. Schweikert told his colleagues. He warned that investors on Wall Street were starting to think twice about lending to the United States, a potential loss of confidence in Washington’s tax and spending plans that could ripple across the economy.“This ain’t a game,” Mr. Schweikert, a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, said in an…
The former president of the company that operates the South Korean airport where a Jeju Air jet crash-landed last month has been found dead in his home, the police said on Wednesday.Son Chang-wan, who was the president of Korea Airports Corporation from 2018 to 2022, was found in his residence in Gunpo, a city about 14 miles south of Seoul, on Tuesday evening. The police said there was no evidence of murder or intrusion into his home and called his death an apparent suicide.Mr. Son was in office when a renovation of the Muan International Airport, the site of the…
Decades of trade integration across North America are on the precipice of major disruption by tariffs that President Trump says he wants to impose on Canada and Mexico, the United States’ top trading partners.And while tariffs are predicted to inflict pain on all three nations, they would cause more damage to Canada and Mexico, smaller economies that are deeply dependent on the United States.Officials in both countries breathed a brief sigh of relief on Monday, when Mr. Trump stopped short of making tariffs part of his blizzard of executive orders on his first day in office. But the relief was…
TikTok is not the only app owned by the Chinese internet giant ByteDance that is flickering back to life.CapCut, a popular video-editing app, came back online in the United States on Tuesday after going dark over the weekend.Users who opened the app or visited its website were greeted with a pop-up message on Tuesday that began: “Thanks for your patience and support. CapCut is back in the U.S.!”CapCut became unavailable in the country just before a federal law banning TikTok and other ByteDance apps took effect on Sunday. TikTok returned for U.S. users midday on Sunday after President-elect Trump said…
When two longtime business partners established a subsidiary 50 years ago to make zinc out of an industrial complex set up by South Korea’s government, they settled on an unusual division of power.The new venture, Korea Zinc, would be managed by the Choi family. The existing parent company, Young Poong, would be run by the other founder’s household, the Chang family. Both clans agreed to respect each other’s management. The arrangement came to be known as “two families under one roof.”Korea Zinc went on to become the world’s largest producer of zinc and an essential cog of South Korea’s economy.But…
The Trump administration intends to push to renegotiate the U.S. trade deal with Canada and Mexico ahead of a required 2026 review of it, seeking to shore up U.S. auto jobs and counter Chinese firms that are making inroads into the Mexican auto sector, people familiar with the deliberations said.The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which Mr. Trump signed in 2020, required the three countries to hold a “joint review” of the deal after six years, on July 1, 2026. But Mr. Trump intends to begin those negotiations sooner, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss plans…
President Trump on Tuesday announced a joint venture between OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle to create at least $100 billion in computing infrastructure to power artificial intelligence.The venture, called Stargate, adds to tech companies’ significant investments in U.S. data centers, huge buildings full of servers that provide computing power. Stargate could eventually invest as much as $500 billion over four years. The three companies plan to contribute funds to the venture, which will be open to other investors and start with 10 data centers already under construction in Texas.The announcement of the joint venture was an early trophy for Mr. Trump,…