Author: News Room

Ski patrollers at Park City Mountain in Utah triumphantly returned to the slopes on Thursday, after ending a nearly two-week strike over union wages and benefits. The strike hobbled the largest U.S. ski resort during a busy holiday period and sparked online fury about deepening economic inequality in rural mountain areas.Late Wednesday, the Park City Professional Ski Patrollers Association ratified a contract with Vail Resorts, which owns Park City and more than 40 other ski areas, that raises the starting pay of ski patrollers and other mountain safety workers $2 an hour, to $23. The most experienced patrollers will receive…

First came the news that Enron was back.Yes, Enron — the energy company whose profits were built on long-term fraud and which ended up filing what was, in 2001, the largest bankruptcy in history.Last month, people began noticing a website for a seemingly reborn Enron, using the same logo and branding, and announcing an ambitious mission: “solving the global energy crisis.”Then, on Monday, the new Enron emerged with a glitzy marketing video announcing its new product, the Enron Egg, which the company proclaimed to be “the world’s first micro nuclear reactor for residential suburban use.”What? Was Enron, a company that…

For more than a year, U.S. Steel pursued an ambitious solution to its mounting challenges. Once a symbol of American industrial might, it had agreed to a takeover by Nippon Steel, a Japanese rival, in a bid to ward off obsolescence.Citing the need to finance a costly modernization of its mills, U.S. Steel warned that if the deal was foiled, it would need to shut down plants and lay off workers.Now, with the $14 billion acquisition blocked by President Biden on national security grounds — and President-elect Donald J. Trump outspoken in opposing it — the company has few easy…

There was a moment in late September when mortgage rates, after a monthslong decline, appeared poised to drop low enough to bring would-be buyers and sellers off the sidelines.But that window has closed, at least for now.The average rate on the 30-year mortgage, the most popular home loan in the United States, rose to 6.93 percent this week, Freddie Mac reported on Thursday, the highest since early July.Mortgage rates tend to track the yield on 10-year Treasury bonds, which has jumped in response to a string of strong economic data, persistent inflation and a potential rise in debt and deficits…

For a time, not too long ago, it was the central question animating economic forecasts and bets laid by investors in financial markets: Will the U.S. economy avoid a recession?Now, for many in the business world, that question feels almost passé, part of an earlier, more fretful era of narratives.After a superlative run of hovering below 4 percent for more than two years, the unemployment rate — at 4.2 percent — has ticked up since last spring. But only by a bit so far; the December reading will come on Friday. While hiring has slowed, layoffs remain low by long-term…

Banks are on a winning streak, one that’s poised to intensify as President-elect Donald J. Trump takes office.Biden-appointed regulators at the Federal Reserve and other agencies presided over a relatively fruitless era of bank oversight. They tried to enact stricter rules for the nation’s biggest banks, hoping to create a stronger safety net for the financial system even if it cut into bank profits.But the rules were considered so onerous — including by some top Fed officials — that they died of their own ambitions.As proposals stalled, the foundation for existing bank oversight became increasingly shaky thanks to bank-friendly courts.…

When art works fetch spectacular auction prices, like the record $450.3 million for Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi” in 2017, the world’s focus turns for a moment to the arcane goings-on of the international art trade. But with the market in a downturn for the last two years, there have been few attention-grabbing sales at the world’s two biggest and oldest auction houses, Sotheby’s and Christie’s.An exception came at November’s marquee auctions of modern and contemporary art in New York, when the world’s media — and social media in particular — were momentarily enthralled by the seeming absurdity of a…

A devastating tollMore of the Los Angeles area is ablaze on Thursday, after a new wildfire in the Hollywood Hills broke out as firefighters sought to contain others, including the 17,200-acre Palisades fire. Critical fire conditions are expected to continue for at least another day.The blazes are already the most destructive in Los Angeles history. At least five people have died, and predictions of the economic devastation — in terms of damages to homes and landmarks, the film and TV industry and more — are steadily climbing into the scores of billions. And the California insurance market, already battered by…

The impending disappearance of TikTok, one of the most popular social media apps in the United States, has sent marketers, agencies and creators racing to embrace alternatives — even if they’re not entirely convinced that TikTok will in fact exit the United States this month.Marketers are shifting dollars to Instagram and amending their contracts with social media stars so they aren’t stuck paying for sponsored TikTok posts in the app’s absence. Creators are pleading with fans to follow them elsewhere while collecting their email addresses to connect on other platforms. And talent agents are telling TikTok stars to hit pause…

When the Supreme Court hears arguments on Friday over whether protecting national security requires TikTok to be sold or closed, the justices will be working in the shadow of three First Amendment precedents, all influenced by the climate of their times and by how much the justices trusted the government.During the Cold War and in the Vietnam era, the court refused to credit the government’s assertions that national security required limiting what newspapers could publish and what Americans could read. More recently, though, the court deferred to Congress’s judgment that combating terrorism justified making some kinds of speech a crime.The…