CNN – Business/Consumer

By Jordan Valinsky, CNN New York (CNN) — Jack Daniel would probably pour himself a stiff one after seeing his parent company’s earnings. Brown-Forman, the maker of several spirits, said sales of its Jack Daniel’s whiskey fell 1% in the first half of its current fiscal year — a sharp contrast when compared to the

By Brian Fung and Catherine Thorbecke, CNN (CNN) — Google on Wednesday launched its most ambitious effort yet to compete in the rapidly growing field of generative artificial intelligence, launching an AI model known as Gemini that’s designed to compete with the likes of OpenAI’s GPT models and supercharge everything from Google’s consumer apps to

By Danielle Wiener-Bronner, CNN New York (CNN) — McDonald’s has a burger strategy to spark growth in the next few years. That strategy can be boiled down to one word: More. “In the US, in a number of markets, around the world, having a larger burger is an opportunity,” CEO Chris Kempczinski told CNN in

By Chris Isidore, CNN New York (CNN) — Elon Musk is seeking to raise $1 billion for his artificial intelligence company xAI. The filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission said that it has already raised $135 million of that $1 billion target, and it has a “binding and enforceable agreement” for the purchase of

By Peter Valdes-Dapena, CNN (CNN) — Americans purchased one million fully electric vehicles in 2023, the first time that many EVs have ever been sold in this country in a single year. More than 960,000 purely electric vehicles had been sold through October, according to a report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance. With expected sales

By Jordan Valinsky, CNN New York (CNN) — Taylor Swift is ending her year with another accolade: The pop superstar was named Time magazine’s 2023 “Person of the Year,” beating out Barbie and King Charles III. “While her popularity has grown across the decades, this is the year that Swift, 33, achieved a kind of nuclear fusion: shooting

By Anna Cooban, CNN London (CNN) — Germany’s benchmark stock index opened at an all-time high Wednesday as investors’ growing confidence that interest rates will soon be cut outweighs worries that the country may be suffering a recession. The previous day, the DAX closed at a record high of 16,533 points — only for that peak to be beaten Wednesday when

By Jordan Valinsky, CNN New York (CNN) — If it seemed like everyone was buying tickets to see Taylor Swift or Lionel Messi this year, that probably wasn’t far off. StubHub released its 2023 “Year in Live Experiences” report that revealed some of the top-selling events sold on the ticketing website. Swift’s tour and Messi’s

By Matt Egan and Donald Judd, CNN New York (CNN) — The presidents of Harvard, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania faced intense scrutiny on Wednesday from business leaders, donors and politicians following their testimony at a House hearing on antisemitism on campus and calls for genocide in Israel. The criticism focused on the university leaders’ answers

By Oliver Darcy, CNN (CNN) — The bundle is staging a comeback. After spending billions of dollars to launch their own direct-to-consumer streaming platforms, the world’s biggest entertainment companies are slowly getting back together, giving consumers a break on soaring prices by pushing them to their more lucrative ad-supported tiers with the hope that the

By Jordan Valinsky, CNN New York (CNN) — Tamarind might sound — and taste — unfamiliar to many, but one influential company known for its spices and seasonings predicts it’s going to have a breakthrough year. McCormick & Company, the top-selling maker of seasonings and spices, has named tamarind as its 2024 “Flavor of the

By Sergio Padilla, CNN New York (CNN) — Delivery drivers work hard during the holiday season. Especially in an age where virtually any item can be dropped off at your doorstep via apps like DoorDash, Uber Eats and Amazon. But if you find yourself staying in for dinner, and opt for a meal from Pizza

By Elisabeth Buchwald, CNN New York (CNN) — Add Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser to the growing list of bank CEOs who are warning about tough times ahead. While Fraser doesn’t “see a drastic downturn on the horizon,” the head of the third-largest bank in the United States does see a recession coming, she said in

By Hanna Ziady, CNN London (CNN) — Tui, one of the world’s largest tour operators, is weighing whether to leave the London Stock Exchange in what would be another blow to the city’s standing as a global financial center. The German company, which is dual-listed in London and Frankfurt, said in a statement Wednesday that

By Ramishah Maruf and Elizabeth Wagmeister, CNN New York (CNN) — Members of SAG-AFTRA, the Hollywood actors union, have ratified a new contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents major studios and streamers, the union said on Tuesday. SAG-AFTRA members voted to ratify the contract with about 78% in favor.

By Danielle Wiener-Bronner, CNN New York (CNN) — Panera is being sued again after another customer is said to have died after consuming the chain’s caffeinated lemonade. Dennis Brown was a 46-year-old man with a chromosomal deficiency disorder, ADHD and high blood pressure who avoided energy drinks, according to a wrongful death complaint filed this

By Sergio Padilla, CNN New York (CNN) — Wikipedia’s top 25 most viewed pages in 2023, released Tuesday, reflect the world’s interest in innovation in artificial intelligence, people who died this year and the growing power of Indian users to influence trends on the website. Run by the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation, Wikipedia has received more

By Jordan Valinsky, CNN New York (CNN) — Tucker Carlson’s top producer, who left Fox News along with the far-right host to work on his X show, is accused of sexually assaulting a former colleague in an alleged incident that occurred more than a decade ago. Andrew Delancey, a former Fox News employee, filed a lawsuit against Justin Wells, the former executive producer of “Tucker Carlson

CNN By Nathaniel Meyersohn, CNN New York (CNN) — Big investors, celebrity chefs and chains rushed to open ghost kitchens during the pandemic, and they were expected to make up more than 20% of the restaurant industry by 2025. But ghost kitchens are now crashing. Last week, Kitchen United, which raised $175 million in funding

By Sean Lyngaas, CNN (CNN) — A hacker or hackers have accessed nearly seven million profiles of 23andMe customers, a spokesperson for the genetic testing firm told CNN on Tuesday, including in some cases users’ ancestry reports, zip codes and birth years. A Friday filing from 23andMe to the Securities and Exchange Commission said that about 0.1%