Author: News Room

Cash App, the smartphone payments tool that allows instant money transfers and is popular with young people, has made billions in profits for Block, the technology conglomerate run by the billionaire Jack Dorsey.One way it was able to do that, according to settlements the company reached with federal and state regulators this week, was by making it virtually impossible for users to reclaim money lost in fraudulent transactions.The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said the company delayed refunds and misled its 50 million users about whose responsibility it was to pay back their claims. When users reported fraud transactions to Cash…

The average rate on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages surpassed 7 percent for the first time since May, Freddie Mac reported on Thursday, extending a weekslong climb that could push more buyers and sellers to the sidelines.The rate on the 30-year mortgage, the most popular home loan in the United States, jumped to 7.04 percent this week, up from 6.93 percent the previous week. Mortgage rates tend to track the yield on 10-year Treasury bonds, which has risen in recent months in response to a string of strong economic data, persistent inflation and a potential rise in debt and deficits stemming from…

President-elect Donald J. Trump is considering an executive order to allow TikTok to continue operating despite a pending legal ban until new owners are found, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.The possible executive order, reported earlier by The Washington Post, is under discussion as TikTok faces a deadline on Sunday to be banned in the United States unless it finds a new owner. The popular video-sharing app is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese company. Republicans have said for years that they see the app, which has been downloaded to millions of smartphones, as a national security risk.…

Nintendo on Thursday announced a successor to its popular Switch console in a short video that showcased the new hardware. The Switch 2 will arrive sometime this year with a larger hand-held display, magnetic controllers and backward compatibility that allows people to play original Switch games.Although the reveal was short on details, the video showed a few seconds from what appeared to be a new game in the Mario Kart franchise. Citizens of the Mushroom Kingdom raced on a new track with 24 drivers on a dusty desert course. Nintendo declined to respond to questions about the new game.Nintendo’s video…

After Donald J. Trump entered the White House in 2017, The Washington Post adopted a slogan that underscored the newspaper’s traditional role as a government watchdog: “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”This week, as Mr. Trump prepares to re-enter the White House, the newspaper debuted a mission statement that evokes a more expansive view of The Post’s journalism, without death or darkness: “Riveting Storytelling for All of America.”The statement is meant to be an internal rallying point for employees, according to two people with knowledge of the decision. Executives are not planning to replace its more strident public slogan. Suzi Watford, The…

Business is booming for Per Se’s drinks.Its nonalcoholic hibiscus margarita can be found on restaurant menus in the Minneapolis and St. Paul area. Eight distribution partners are putting its canned mock negronis and whiskey sours on the shelves of grocery stores and liquor retailers across the Midwest. Its drinks even popped up at the Minnesota State Fair.It’s not just thanks to Dry January. Consumers have been slowing their intake of chardonnay and pale ale for a while, and the tiny nonalcoholic beverage industry has been on a tear. After the surgeon general’s warning this month about the link between alcohol…

A test for Trump’s cabinet pickFor businesses and markets, perhaps the most important of the hearings for the incoming Trump administration’s Cabinet picks starts on Thursday at 10:30 a.m. Eastern.Scott Bessent, President-elect Donald Trump’s choice for Treasury secretary, will likely be confirmed by the Senate. But the billionaire hedge fund manager is still expected to face tough questions about his boss’s economic agenda, which has the potential to drastically disrupt global economies and trade.“We can usher in a new, more balanced era of prosperity and rebuild communities and families across the country,” Bessent is expected to say in prepared remarks…

Scott Bessent, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick for Treasury secretary, will face questions from lawmakers on Thursday about how he would manage a department at the center of the Trump administration’s tax, trade and sanctions policies, along with handling the nation’s debt load.Mr. Bessent, a billionaire hedge fund manager with deep experience in financial markets, has been meeting with Senate Republicans and Democrats in recent weeks and is expected to have a relatively smooth confirmation process. A former top investor for the liberal philanthropist George Soros, Mr. Bessent has given large sums to Democrats and Republicans over the years.“I firmly…

Over the last week, the videos started appearing on TikTok from users across the United States.They all made fun of the same thing: how the app’s ties to China made it a national security threat. Many implied that their TikTok accounts had each been assigned an agent of the Chinese government to spy on them through the app — and that the users would miss their personal spies.“May we meet again in another life,” one user wrote in a video goodbye set to Whitney Houston’s cover of Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You.” The video included an A.I.-generated image…

Before Marie Kondo captured the world’s attention with her exhortations to rid ourselves of items that did not “spark joy,” there was another Japanese guru of decluttering.Her name is Hideko Yamashita. And while Ms. Yamashita, 70, has never reached Ms. Kondo’s level of Netflix-induced fame, she is widely credited in Japan with spearheading the modern movement of decluttering our homes — or, as it has come to be called overseas, “kondo-ing.”The two women, born three decades apart in Tokyo, both preach the idea that households amass too much stuff. Letting go of unnecessary items and creating minimalist, tidier spaces, they…