Author: News Room

In the past few months, some of the largest banks and asset managers in the United States have quit net zero networks, the climate groups that encourage their members to set ambitious carbon reduction targets and collaborate internationally on sustainability efforts.But the week after Donald J. Trump won re-election in November, NYCERS, a pension fund for New York City employees, went in the opposite direction. It joined a United Nations-affiliated climate action group for long-term investors, the Net Zero Asset Owner Alliance.The timing wasn’t intentional, said Brad Lander, the comptroller who oversees the city’s finances, including the pension fund, and…

For months, French businesses have been bracing for the fallout of trade wars and tariff threats from the United States as the effects of President Trump’s “America First” policies ripple out. But this past week, the French corporate world was roiled by another type of Trump missive.In a terse three-paragraph letter sent by the American Embassy in France to French companies, executives were told that President Trump’s moves to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion policies would apply to any firm doing business with the U.S. government. It said it was giving them five days to sign a form indicating that…

When Christina Cassotis, the chief executive of Pittsburgh International Airport, heard about the power outage that forced London’s Heathrow Airport to suspend operations last week, she thought of the workers who were frantically trying to manage the chaos.But when an outage hits closer to home, she has a more restrained response: Keep calm and carry on.For almost four years, her airport has been powered by a mix of on-site natural gas generators and solar panels. The airport estimates that the stand-alone system, known as a microgrid, has saved it about $1 million a year on its energy costs and allowed…

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s election campaign had brought him to the bridge between Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit, over which $300 million worth of auto parts cross daily.He unveiled a series of promises of programs for workers and auto-related industries that would be rolled out if President Trump imposed tariffs on products from the Canadian auto industry. Among them was a proposed fund of 2 billion Canadian dollars to reshape the industry for a future without the U.S. market.The stakes are high. Cars and auto parts are the country’s second-biggest export by value and an employer, directly and indirectly,…

It is a cornerstone of American democracy, enshrined in the First Amendment of the Constitution: People have the right to challenge the actions of their leaders. Countless citizens, companies and others have exercised that right by filing lawsuits against the U.S. government.This has been happening for more than 200 years. But the barrage of at least 150 lawsuits against the second Trump administration, challenging many of its policies and personnel decisions, is perhaps unmatched in U.S. history. And in dozens of cases, judges have ordered the administration to pause or reverse actions at the heart of President Trump’s agenda.Mr. Trump…

Are there still options to lower my 2024 taxable income?If you qualify, you can make tax-deductible contributions to an individual retirement account or a health savings account by the April 15 tax deadline and have them apply to tax year 2024, said Eva Simpson, vice president of member value, tax and advisory services with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.You can contribute up to $7,000 to a traditional I.R.A. for 2024 and an extra $1,000 if you’re 50 or older, the I.R.S. says. The size of your deduction depends on several factors, such as your filing status and whether…

The Skadden Arps deal suggests negotiating may be getting more costly. Paul Weiss said it would provide $40 million in pro bono work, while the Skadden Arps agreement more than doubled that amount. The deals have also been met with scathing criticism by those in the legal community who see them as unnecessary capitulation in cases where the firms have the law on their side.On Thursday, after news broke that Skadden was seeking to strike a deal with the Trump administration, a group of alumni — all part of the law firm’s prestigious public interest fellowship program — began to…

Two tractor-trailers picked up some 80,000 pounds of beef from a slaughterhouse in northeastern Tennessee, and then vanished, the authorities said this week.They can’t figure out where the beef is, but a fake trucking company made off with enough meat to make about 320,000 quarter-pounders, the Grainger County Sheriff’s Office said.The meat was taken from Southeastern Provision, a processing plant in Bean Station, Tenn., a town nearly 50 miles northeast of Knoxville. It was not clear when exactly the beef was stolen, but the investigation began on Tuesday.At least two of the customers of the meat processing plant reported that…

A federal judge on Friday temporarily halted the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle Voice of America, the government-funded international broadcaster whose prospective demise has alarmed advocates for press freedoms.The judge, J. Paul Oetken of the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, ruled after a hearing on a lawsuit filed by Voice of America journalists and their unions. The suit argues that the administration’s actions, like placing hundreds of journalists at the organization on paid leave, violated the journalists’ First Amendment rights.Andrew G. Celli Jr., a lawyer for the journalists who brought the suit, said the judge had made clear during the…

The private equity giant Blackstone is weighing taking a small stake in TikTok ahead of an April 5 deadline set by President Trump for the Chinese-owned app to change its ownership or face a U.S. ban under federal law, two people familiar with the situation said.Investing in TikTok would give Blackstone the chance to take a bite of one of the most popular social media applications in the world, which has over 170 million American users. It is unclear if any investment — which would likely be a fraction of the size of Blackstone’s typical deals — will move forward,…