We’re hoping to shelve the word ‘unprecedented’ for a while as 2021 gets underway — but first, one final look at a 2020. The Dow and the S&P 500 ended the year at record highs and the Nasdaq Composite logged its best performance since 2009 with a whopping 43.6% jump. Overall, the indexes registered gains
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Legendary talk show host and former CNN interviewer Larry King has Covid-19, according to a source close to the family. King, 87, has been hospitalized at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles for more than a week, the source said. Due to protocols at the hospital, King’s three sons have been unable to visit
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Tesla hit its goal of building a half-million cars in 2020, a first for the company, it reported Saturday. The completed deliveries to customers, which is slightly different from the production figure, fell just short of that same goal as it delivered 499,550 cars. That sales total rounds up to the 500,000 target, though. The
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Bitcoin has been flirting with the $30,000 mark for weeks, and finally passed that record-setting level Saturday. The virtual currency is now valued at above $33,000, an all-time high. Bitcoin has tripled in value during 2020, growing steadily even as the stock market plunged in the early days of the pandemic. Investors have been drawn
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The Dow and the S&P 500 started and ended this unprecedented year at all-time highs — with a lot of volatility along the way. All three major indexes ended Thursday, the final trading day of the year, higher. The Dow closed 0.7%, or 197 points, higher, and the broader S&P 500 rose 0.6%. The Nasdaq
Continue Reading Microsoft said Thursday that the suspected Russian hackers behind a massive US government security breach also viewed some of the company’s source code. The unauthorized access does not appear to have compromised any Microsoft services or customer data, the company said in a blog post. But an investigation showed that the attackers took advantage of
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The stock market’s wild 2020 ride is finally coming to an end. Stocks are at record highs once again, just like they were at the start of this unprecedented year. Stocks were mixed in the afternoon of the final trading day of the year. The Dow rose 0.3%, or 89 points, and the broader S&P
Continue Reading A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. You can sign up for free right here. The year 2021 is about to start with a bang. We have compiled a list of fourteen media world stories to watch in the months ahead. But up first, a review of 2020: The stress
Continue Reading Alden Global Capital, the largest shareholder of Tribune Publishing, said Thursday it offered to take full control of the newspaper chain in a deal that values the company at $520.6 million. Tribune Publishing owns the Chicago Tribune, the New York Daily News and the Baltimore Sun, among other local newspapers. The hedge fund made a
Continue Reading Target is recalling some infant and toddler clothes because of snaps that could be a choking hazard. The snaps on the Cloud Island infant rompers and Cat & Jack Infant-Toddler One-Piece Rashguard Swimsuits can break or detach, which poses a risk of choking or lacerations, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission announced on Wednesday. Target
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New York City tourism and real estate officials are hoping Thursday night’s New Year’s Eve celebration will mark a turning point for Times Square, the Manhattan neighborhood that has become a symbol of sorts for the economic ills of the Covid-19 economy. Commerce among the more than 1,500 businesses in the tourist destination and business
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This is normally the time of the year that gas prices fall to their low point. Not this year. Gas prices are now close to their highest point since the pandemic prompted stay-at-home orders in March. The average price of a gallon of regular gas stood at $2.25 on Thursday, according to AAA, off only
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Another 787,000 Americans filed first-time claims for jobless benefits during the Christmas week, factoring in seasonal adjustments, the Labor Department reported Thursday. It marked a decrease from the prior week and was slightly better than economists had predicted. Even so, claims were still three-and-a-half times higher than in the same period last year. Overall, unemployment
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Come Friday, many low-wage workers across the US are getting a pay bump. Twenty states are raising their minimum wage rates — some by pennies, others by a dollar or more — as part of previously-scheduled efforts to adjust for cost-of-living gains or to ratchet up toward goals like $15-an-hour minimum pay. In New Mexico,
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Britain’s largest supermarket chain Tesco underpaid almost 80,000 of its workers, the UK government has revealed, as it “named and shamed” dozens of companies for not paying the minimum wage. A total of 139 companies failed to pay £6.7 million ($9.1 million) to thousands of workers, the government said Thursday. The cases were investigated between
Continue Reading Talk of a possible Apple car is back. Apple hasn’t commented publicly on its plans for the project, nicknamed Titan, so it’s not clear exactly what will come of the effort. Some who follow the company think it could release a whole Apple-branded, electric, self-driving car. Others think it’s more likely Apple will partner with
Continue Reading Boston Dynamics’ robots are back to let you know they can really shake ’em down. In a stunning dance video that’s part celebration of an incredible engineering achievement and part advertisement for the robotics company, Boston Dynamics showed four of its robots performing fully choreographed dance moves to The Contours’ hit “Do you love me.”
Continue Reading Ticketmaster entered into a plea agreement with federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, New York and will pay $10 million in fines to resolve charges that it accessed the computer systems of a competitor without authorization. “Ticketmaster employees repeatedly — and illegally — accessed a competitor’s computers without authorization using stolen passwords to unlawfully collect business intelligence,”
Continue Reading Jill Soltau was hired to save JCPenney. Two years later, her company was sold out of bankruptcy and she’s been shown the exit. This isn’t the ending JCPenney had in mind for Soltau when she was brought on in October 2018 — at least not quite this soon. Few expected JCPenney to avoid bankruptcy entirely
Continue Reading Longstanding speculation that Apple will release its own electric, self-driving car was reignited last week when Reuters, citing unnamed sources, reported that Apple plans to produce a passenger vehicle by 2024. Talk of the iPhone maker’s ambitions to break into the auto industry has been swirling for about five years. Expectations for the effort, named
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