CNN – Business/Consumer

By Jordan Valinsky, CNN New York (CNN) — This year was brutal for a number of well-known companies and their bottom lines. As inflation continued to rear its ugly head, consumers slashed their discretionary spending, tilting some companies to file for bankruptcy. Other brands fell victim to changing trends or even more malicious ailments, like

By Auzinea Bacon, CNN (CNN) — Last-minute holiday shoppers may want to give their digital carts a hard look. With colder temperatures potentially delaying shipping, carriers being overwhelmed with orders and some items simply out of stock, there are plenty of risks for procrastinating shoppers. More than half of Americans are worried about deliveries being

By Billy Stockwell, CNN (CNN) — Campaigners have accused Facebook parent Meta of inflicting “potentially lifelong trauma” on hundreds of content moderators in Kenya, after more than 140 were diagnosed with PTSD and other mental health conditions. The diagnoses were made by Dr. Ian Kanyanya, the head of mental health services at Kenyatta National hospital

By Anna Cooban and Zachary Cohen, CNN London/Washington, DC (CNN) — President-elect Donald Trump is set to overturn a ban on some US exports of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, in a boon for US energy producers. But the move is unlikely to help address the climate crisis and may even make it worse. As

By Auzinea Bacon and Jordan Valinsky, CNN (CNN) — Party City filed for bankruptcy Saturday for the second time in less than two years. The filing comes after the retailer told employees Friday it would begin “winding down” operations. The nation’s largest party supply chain said in a statement that filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy

By Chris Isidore and Vanessa Yurkevich, CNN New York (CNN) — The Teamsters union announced late Friday that warehouse workers at a massive Amazon sorting and distribution center in Staten Island, New York, have joined the thousands of union members who began a strike this week against the online retail giant. But Amazon continues to

By Jeanne Sahadi, CNN (CNN) — The US Senate passed a bipartisan bill early Saturday to increase Social Security benefits for close to 3 million federal, state and local public sector workers, which includes firemen, policemen and teachers. In the roll call vote, 76 senators voted in favor of the bill, and 20 senators voted

By Danielle Wiener-Bronner, CNN New York (CNN) — In the hours after her daughter was born, Andrea Ippolito already felt like she was falling short as a mother. “Here I was, just like many women, trying to recover after this insane medical procedure of giving birth, and I just felt like a failure,” she told

By Bryan Mena, CNN Washington (CNN) — Chiugo Akujuobi has survived on food pantries and donations from friends since fleeing their family home in Houston earlier this year. They said they grew tired of frequent transphobic comments from relatives. The 26-year-old now sleeps on a friend’s couch in North Texas. They graduated with a bachelor’s

By Dalia Faheid and Artemis Moshtaghian, CNN (CNN) — This Christmas Eve, one lucky lottery ticket could celebrate with a Mega Millions jackpot nearing $1 billion – the largest prize ever offered in the month of December. With no one winning the jackpot Friday, the grand prize for Tuesday’s drawing ballooned from $862 million to

By Sean Lyngaas, CNN (CNN) — Messaging service WhatsApp claimed a major legal victory over Israeli spyware firm NSO Group on Friday after a federal judge ruled that NSO was liable under federal and California law for a 2019 hacking spree that breached over 1,000 WhatsApp users. It’s a rare legal win for activists who

By Artemis Moshtaghian, CNN (CNN) — While shoppers rush to find the perfect holiday gift, the real treasure might just be hidden in one lucky lottery ticket. That’s because tonight’s Mega Millions drawing could yield a jackpot nearing $1 billion – the largest prize ever offered in the month of December. Friday’s winning numbers were:

By Hadas Gold, CNN New York (CNN) — Elon Musk is wading into more than just American politics, throwing his support behind a far-right German political party. Musk, the billionaire Trump ally who is playing a public role in the incoming administration, posted in support Friday of Alternative for Germany, or AfD, after the German

By Jeanne Sahadi, CNN (CNN) — The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said Friday it filed a complaint against three of the country’s largest banks and the operator of Zelle, the most widely available peer-to-peer payment system, “for allowing fraud to fester” on that network. CFPB alleges that, as a result, hundreds of thousands of customers

By Emmy Abbassi and Jordan Valinsky, CNN New York (CNN) — Party City is closing down all of its stores, ending nearly 40 years in business, CNN has learned. CEO Barry Litwin told corporate employees Friday in a meeting viewed by CNN that Party City is “winding down” operations immediately and that today will be

By Alicia Wallace, CNN (CNN) — The Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge moved slightly higher in November — but not as much as economists were expecting, an indication that price hikes aren’t accelerating in a worrisome fashion. Still, cost of living concerns are growing as 2025 approaches and uncertainty widens about potential inflationary global events

By David Goldman and Matt Egan, CNN (CNN) — President-elect Donald Trump doubled down on his tariff threats Thursday night, pledging to raise tariffs on European Union nations unless they increase their purchases of American oil and gas to narrow the trade gap with the United States. “I told the European Union that they must

By Chris Isidore, Vanessa Yurkevich and Nathaniel Meyersohn, CNN New York (CNN) — Members of Starbucks Workers United staged their first strike in 13 months Friday and plan an escalating strike between now and Christmas Eve in what would become the union’s largest work stoppage since the organizing campaign started at the coffee retailer three

By Jordan Valinsky, CNN New York (CNN) — Big Lots is preparing to close its remaining 963 locations after a sale to save the bankrupt retailer fell through. The company previously announced it was selling “substantially all” of its assets to private equity firm Nexus Capital Management in September, but Big Lots said in a

By Bryan Mena, CNN Washington (CNN) — America’s housing market is finishing a year of high prices, sluggish sales and elevated mortgage rates. But there are factors that could give it a boost next year. The Federal Reserve began to slash interest rates in September, but mortgage rates have actually risen since then. The average