CNN – Business/Consumer

By Anna Bahney, CNN Washington, DC (CNN) — Mortgage rates ticked up ever so slightly this week, kicking off 2024 by taking a breather from the previous nine weeks of consecutive declines. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.62% in the week ending January 4, up from 6.61% the previous week, according to data from Freddie Mac

By Bryan Mena, CNN Washington, DC (CNN) — Latino economist Alberto Musalem has been named as the next president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the bank announced Thursday. Musalem, 55, replaces James Bullard, who left the bank on August 14 to become the inaugural dean of Purdue University’s Mitchell E.

By Peter Valdes-Dapena, CNN (CNN) — Certain Hyundai and Kia models saw a 10-fold increase in thefts in just the past three years, a wildly dramatic increase in the wake of a series of social media posts showing people how to steal the vehicles. Theft insurance claims for vulnerable Hyundais and Kias increased more than

By Alicia Wallace, CNN New York (CNN) — When the final jobs report for 2023 is released this Friday at 8:30 am ET, economists are projecting that the US economy added 160,000 positions in December, marking an average of 232,000 jobs per month through November, and around 2.78 million for the year. While that’s far

By Matt Egan, CNN New York (CNN) — MIT President Sally Kornbluth, the only university president who testified before Congress last month and is still in power, said the school is looking for ways to address tensions from the Israel-Hamas war, even as pressure mounts on her to step down. “I’m working to use every

By Jordan Valinsky, CNN New York (CNN) — Flying in the United States was a vastly improved experience last year, as the cancellation rate fell to its lowest level in at least 10 years. The Department of Transportation released statistics for 2023 that show among the 16.3 million flights in the United States, there was

By Jordan Valinsky, CNN New York (CNN) — Some fans of TGI Fridays were likely surprised this week when they found their local restaurant permanently closed because the chain abruptly shut down dozens of locations around the US. The chain said in a release that it closed 36 “underperforming” restaurants as part of its “ongoing

By Michelle Toh and Hassan Tayir, CNN Hong Kong (CNN) — Two of China’s most popular bubble tea brands are preparing to go public. Mixue Group and Guming Holdings — which are known for drawing crowds for their unique beverages, such as passionfruit pulp or grape and cheese-flavored teas — have applied for initial public

By Laura He, CNN Hong Kong (CNN) — Saudi energy giant Aramco, the world’s largest integrated oil and gas company, is planning to up its investment in its Chinese partner, as it expands its footprint in the country. Aramco is in talks with Rongsheng Petrochemical to acquire a maximum 50% stake in the latter’s subsidiary

CNN By Samson Tamijani, Jennifer Maupin Click here for updates on this story     STILLWATER, Oklahoma (KJRH) — Nearly 34 years after its Nintendo debut, a 13-year-old boy from Stillwater became the first person ever to beat the video game Tetris, NBC reported on Jan. 3. Willis Gibson was live-streaming when he scored 999,999 points on

By Matt Egan, CNN (CNN) — Ousted Harvard President Claudine Gay says she faced death threats and was called the N-word during a weeks-long attack on her character designed to end her presidency. In an op-ed published Wednesday evening by The New York Times, Gay described her decision to resign this week, after plagiarism allegations

By Samantha Delouya, Lauren del Valle and Kara Scannell, CNN (CNN) — Hundreds of pages of unsealed documents from a lawsuit connected to accused sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein were publicly released on Wednesday. This is the first set of documents to be unsealed under a December 18 court order, with more expected in the coming weeks.

By Ramishah Maruf, CNN New York (CNN) — They’re colorful, small and fun to squish. But water beads pose major health risks to children, safety experts say, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission has made it a priority in the new year to fully regulate water bead marketing toward young consumers. Water beads are tiny

By Jennifer Korn, CNN (CNN) — A 13-year-old from Oklahoma appears to have finally done the nearly impossible: He beat Tetris. Willis Gibson is believed to be the first human gamer to reach level 157 of the classic video game nearly 40 years after its release. “I’m going to pass out, I can’t feel my

By Matt Egan, CNN New York (CNN) — The past few months have been an absolute nightmare for Harvard University. Lawmakers and regulators are investigating. Donors are revolting. Early applications are down. And the Harvard board’s handpicked leader, Claudine Gay, just ended the shortest presidency in the university’s nearly 400-year history amid a firestorm of

By Bryan Mena, CNN Washington, DC (CNN) — Federal Reserve officials during their December policy meeting broached the subject of reducing interest rates, minutes from that meeting released Wednesday showed. Officials’ latest economic projections released in December showed that they expect to cut rates this year for the first time since kicking off a historic inflation-busting campaign in March 2022.

By Anna Bahney, CNN Washington, DC (CNN) — Prices of Manhattan condos and co-ops rose at the end of 2023 for the first time in over a year, at a time when mortgage rates were at their highest levels in 23 years. But for many buyers, rates didn’t even matter: A record high number of

By Jordan Valinsky, CNN New York (CNN) — Xerox is slashing 15% of its workforce, amounting to roughly 3,000 jobs, in a “reinvention” plan that encompasses a new organizational structure and operating model. The company, best known for manufacturing office equipment like printers and copiers, announced the changes on Wednesday. Xerox has about 20,500 global

By Chris Isidore, CNN New York (CNN) — The strike at General Motors plants in September and October took a bite out of its fourth-quarter sales, but strong demand for the vehicles made at its other plants allowed the company to report a narrow gain in US vehicle sales overall. The strike ran from September