Author: News Room

There’s a tale told about a miner who found copper cans in his garbage dump in the early days of mining. Wastewater from copper mining had flowed through his land, he said, and turned steel cans into copper.The story might be apocryphal, but the process is real, and it’s called cementation. Montana Resources, the mining company that took over from the Anaconda Copper Company, still uses this alchemical trick in a process at its Continental Pit mine in Butte, Mont.Next to the mine is the Berkeley Pit, which is filled with 50 billion gallons of a highly acidic, toxic brew.…

Two Chinas inhabit the American imagination: One is a technology and manufacturing superpower poised to lead the world. The other is an economy that’s on the verge of collapse.Each reflect a real aspect of China.One China — let’s call it hopeful China — is defined by companies like the A.I. start-up DeepSeek, the electric vehicle giant BYD and the tech powerhouse Huawei. All are innovation leaders.Jensen Huang, the chief executive of the Silicon Valley chip giant Nvidia, said China was “not behind” the United States in artificial intelligence development. Quite a few pundits have declared that China would dominate the…

President Trump has defended his decision to introduce tariffs on goods from other countries by arguing that it will lead companies to shift production to the United States, bringing back jobs.For German companies, which have been producing their goods in the United States since the late 1800s, such arguments ring hollow. Thousands of German companies already have factories in the United States, accounting for 12 percent of the country’s foreign investments.Automakers like BMW and Mercedes-Benz have long had plants in the United States. In 2023, the candy maker Haribo opened its first U.S. plant in Wisconsin, after decades of importing…

Fox Corp. revealed new details about its streaming service on Monday, including that it would debut this fall and would be called Fox One.The announcement came ahead of the company’s upfront, an annual pitch to entice advertisers with a slate of upcoming shows. Lachlan Murdoch, the company’s chief executive and son of the Fox Corp. founder, Rupert Murdoch, previewed the service on a quarterly earnings call. The name Fox One, he said, was a reference to the combined heft of the company’s TV shows, cable channels and broadcast network, including National Football League games.“Whether it’s the Super Bowl, the election…

Chandelier bidding. Quiet phone banks. Executives wiping their brows.One of the most anticipated auctions of the season proved to be anticlimactic on Monday evening at Christie’s in New York, where many objects were presold to guaranteed bids and there was little evidence of the enthusiastic buyers who defined the market’s peak in 2022. Experts said the sale was marred by the economic uncertainty surrounding President Trump’s tariffs and how they might hurt the global art market.Louise Riggio consigned nearly 40 works from the collection she built with her husband, the Barnes & Noble founder Leonard Riggio, who died last year.…

Several Hollywood industry and labor organizations wrote to President Trump on Monday asking for tax breaks that they said would help bring more film and television production back to the United States.Their letter was sent in response to Mr. Trump’s declaration on Truth Social this month that he would put a 100 percent tariff on films made outside the United States. It was signed by the Motion Picture Association, which represents the major Hollywood studios; the main writers’ and actors’ guilds; and the actors Jon Voight and Sylvester Stallone, two of Mr. Trump’s chosen Hollywood advisers.“Returning more production to the…

For weeks, Jay Foreman, a toy company executive, froze all shipments from China, leaving Care Bears and Tonka trucks piled up at Chinese factories, to avoid paying President Trump’s crippling 145 percent tariff.But as soon as his phone lit up at 4 a.m. on Monday alerting him that Mr. Trump was lowering tariffs on Chinese imports for 90 days, Mr. Foreman, the chief executive of Basic Fun, which is based in Florida, jumped out of bed and called his suppliers, instructing them to start shipping merchandise immediately.“We’re starting to move everything,” Mr. Foreman said. “We have to call trucking companies…

The Federal Railroad Administration, the nation’s railroad agency, has brought in the Boring Company, the tunneling firm founded by Elon Musk, to help with a multibillion-dollar Amtrak project, according to three people familiar with the discussions.Federal Railroad Administration officials have talked with employees at the Boring Company about assessing the costs and progress of the Frederick Douglass Tunnel program, a new tunnel along a busy Amtrak stretch connecting Baltimore to Washington and Virginia. Amtrak initially expected the development to cost $6 billion, but now estimates it could cost as much as $8.5 billion.As part of the talks, officials with the…

House Republicans on Monday outlined their plans for an expansive tax bill that would temporarily enact President Trump’s campaign pledges not to tax tips or overtime pay, roll back subsidies for clean energy and create a new type of tax-advantaged investment account for children.The bill, which the Ways and Means Committee will formally take up on Tuesday, amounts to the first full attempt at detailing Republicans’ plans for cutting taxes this year. But it quickly faced criticism from some House Republicans, nearly all of whom will need to support the legislation in order for it to pass over what is…

President Trump’s decision to impose, and then walk back, triple-digit tariffs on Chinese products over the past month demonstrated the power and global reach of U.S. trade policy. But it was also another illustration of the limitations of Mr. Trump’s aggressive approach.The tariffs on Chinese goods, which the United States ratcheted up to a minimum of 145 percent in early April, brought much trade between the countries to a standstill. They caused companies to reroute business globally, importing less from China and more from other countries like Vietnam and Mexico. They forced Chinese factories to shutter, and brought some American…