By Jeanne Sahadi, CNN In its last policymaking meeting of the year, the Federal Reserve on Wednesday raised its benchmark interest rate for the seventh time in a row, to a range of 4.25% to 4.5%. That is the highest it’s been in 15 years. In a continued bid to tame decades-high inflation, the central
Continue Reading By Anna Bahney, CNN Business New home sales were up in November from the month before, even as prices remained elevated and buyers faced some of the highest mortgage rates of the year. Sales of newly constructed homes rose 5.8% in November from October, but were down 15.3% from a year ago, according to a
Continue Reading By Allison Morrow, CNN Sam Bankman-Fried’s multibillion-dollar crypto empire was run primarily by “grossly inexperienced and unsophisticated individuals” who failed to institute basic corporate controls and even relied on QuickBooks to do their accounting, according to investigators. But standing by Bankman-Fried as his companies FTX and Alameda grew (and subsequently collapsed) were two respected Ivy-League
Continue Reading By Eliza Mackintosh, CNN The son of an Ethiopian chemistry professor who was killed during unrest in the country last year has filed a lawsuit against Meta, Facebook’s parent company, alleging that the social media platform is fueling viral hate and violence, harming people across eastern and southern Africa. Abrham Meareg Amare claims in the
Continue Reading By Jennifer Korn With the implosion of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX dominating the headlines, celebrities who hawked cryptocurrency are now finding themselves under fresh legal scrutiny. Tom Brady, Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow and baseball Hall-of-Famer David Ortiz are just some of the big names facing lawsuits from investors as the crypto world crumbles in the wake of
Continue Reading By Jennifer Korn With the implosion of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX dominating the headlines, celebrities who hawked cryptocurrency are now finding themselves under fresh legal scrutiny. Tom Brady, Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow and baseball Hall-of-Famer David Ortiz are just some of the big names facing lawsuits from investors as the crypto world crumbles in the wake of
Continue Reading By Oliver Darcy, CNN The Washington Post will conduct layoffs in the coming year as it reorients itself for the future and reinvests in other areas, publisher Fred Ryan told startled staffers in a contentious town hall Wednesday, according to people familiar with the matter. Ryan indicated to staffers that the cuts will make up
Continue Reading By Julia Horowitz, CNN An electric scooter service just became the only company to pull off an initial public offering in Russia this year. Whoosh, which made its debut on Wednesday, said that it had raised 2.1 billion rubles ($32.6 million) through the listing, giving it a valuation of 20.6 billion rubles ($320 million). “In
Continue Reading By Donie O’Sullivan, CNN Twitter on Wednesday permanently suspended an account that tracked the location of Elon Musk’s private jet, despite the social media company’s owner vowing last month he would leave the account up as part of his “commitment to free speech.” The @ElonJet account, which had amassed more than 500,000 followers, was removed
Continue Reading By Parija Kavilanz, CNN It happens every year — the mad dash to ship holiday gifts to get them to loved ones on time. And it bears repeating, especially for procrastinators, that the sooner you get the packages in the mail the better because of the annual surge in delivery volume in November and December.
Continue Reading By Brian Fung, CNN The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged seven Twitter users and a podcaster in an alleged $100 million stock manipulation scheme run through social media, the agency said Wednesday. According to the SEC, the seven Twitter users also used the messaging app Discord to promote certain stocks to “hundreds of thousands
Continue Reading By Hanna Ziady, CNN Bernard Arnault, the chairman of French luxury goods giant LVMH, has just become the first European to top Bloomberg’s list of the world’s richest people, relegating Elon Musk to second place. Now worth $171 billion, Arnault’s wealth eclipsed the Tesla CEO’s $164 billion fortune on Tuesday, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires
Continue Reading By Nicole Goodkind, CNN It’s been a harrowing year for markets and investors are tired. Months of sky-rocketing inflation and interest rates, the peaks and troughs of unpredictable economic data, churning geopolitical chaos and warning sirens of imminent recession were enough to make even the most hardened trader weary. But a number of signals this
Continue Reading By Brian Fung, CNN Two years after TikTok avoided a national ban in the United States, the popular short-form video app is now facing growing pushback at the state level. In the past two weeks, at least seven states have said they will bar public employees from using the app on government devices, including Alabama,
Continue Reading By Matt Egan, CNN As federal prosecutors seek to imprison former crypto darling Sam Bankman-Fried, Sen. Elizabeth Warren is attempting to push through Congress a bipartisan crackdown on money laundering in the crypto industry. The Massachusetts Democrat is teaming up with Republican Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas to introduce new legislation on Wednesday that would
Continue Reading By Laura He and Jennie Chen, CNN An unprecedented wave of Covid cases in China has sparked panic buying of fever medicines, pain killers, and even home remedies such as canned peaches, leading to shortages online and in stores. Authorities said Wednesday they had detected 2,249 symptomatic Covid-19 cases nationally through nucleic acid testing, 20%
Continue Reading By Laura He, CNN Beijing has vowed to go all out next year to save its Covid-hit economy by boosting consumption and loosening control over private industry, including the struggling tech and property sectors. The new pledge marks a big shift from leader Xi Jinping’s years-long effort to rein in private businesses, which were perceived
Continue Reading By Nicole Goodkind, CNN The Federal Reserve approved a half-point interest rate hike on Wednesday, a smaller increase than in recent months and an acknowledgment that inflation is finally easing. The increase marks a shift for the central bank after an unprecedented year that includes seven-straight rate hikes as part of an aggressive campaign to
Continue Reading By Michelle Toh, CNN “World of Warcraft” fans in China will have to back up their playing history as the distributor of the hit game winds down its agreement with Blizzard Entertainment. In a letter to users on Tuesday, John Hight, general manager of Blizzard’s Warcraft franchise, said the team was “working hard to develop
Continue Reading By Michelle Toh, CNN Investors withdrew as much as $3 billion from Binance on Tuesday, according to blockchain analytics firm Nansen, as a deluge of negative headlines about the cryptocurrency industry rattled users of the world’s largest exchange. Andrew Thurman, content lead for Nansen, told CNN that at its peak, Binance saw “as high as
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