Money

By Anna Bahney, CNN Washington, DC (CNN) — Mortgage rates ticked up this week for the second week in a row, but remain more than a full percentage point lower than their high last year. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.66% in the week ending January 11, up from 6.62% the previous week, according to data

By Jeanne Sahadi, CNN New York (CNN) — It’s official. The Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday gave the green light to the listing and trading of 11 bitcoin Exchange-Traded Funds, or ETFs. And they will be coming online quickly, with several starting to trade Thursday. That means if you have have been curious about

By Brian Fung, CNN Washington (CNN) — Google is starting the year off with sweeping layoffs across divisions. The layoffs include hundreds of employees who work on some of the company’s most recognizable products, including Google Assistant, the voice-activated software that helps users check the weather, set timers and quickly look up facts. The Google

By Mostafa Salem and Adam Pourahmadi, CNN Abu Dhabi (CNN) — Iran has seized an oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman and is transferring it to an Iranian port in retaliation for the United States confiscating the same vessel and its oil last year, Tasnim News Agency reported Thursday. The media outlet, which is

By Alicia Wallace, CNN New York (CNN) — US consumer prices rose 3.4% annually to close out 2023, capping a year of substantial progress on efforts to rein in painfully high inflation. The Consumer Price Index, which measures the average price changes for commonly purchased goods and services, rose 0.3% in December from the month

By Jordan Valinsky, CNN New York (CNN) — Sears’ last-remaining store in the New York metro area is closing, bringing the number of Sears locations still in existence down to about a dozen. A Facebook post for the Jersey City location, just across the river from Manhattan, recently announced a “store closing” sale, ending its

By Samantha Murphy Kelly, CNN (CNN) — Tech companies showed quirky gadgets and new innovations at the Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas this week, from AI-powered pillows that can reduce snoring and mirrors that can detect your mood to transparent televisions and car mirrors that track your eyes. Although the event, which is the

By Clare Duffy, CNN New York (CNN) — Snapchat will now give parents the option to block their teens from interacting with the app’s “My AI” chatbot following some questions about the tool’s safety for young people. The change will mean that if parents opt to turn off the tool, teens can message My AI

By Curt Devine, CNN (CNN) — In the aftermath of last week’s Alaska Airlines in-flight emergency, some aviation experts are questioning the structural design of the section of the Boeing 737 Max 9 that blew off the plane. On that January 5 flight, a “door plug” – a portion of the plane’s fuselage the manufacturer can put in place instead of an

By Michelle Toh and Hassan Tayir, CNN Hong Kong (CNN) — Fan Yifei, a disgraced former Chinese central banker, has admitted making a “huge mistake” in comments aired as part of a documentary by state broadcaster CCTV that alleges he accepted massive bribes from the beginning of his tenure. Fan, who was one of the

By Liam Reilly, CNN (CNN) — A group of media executives urged lawmakers on Wednesday to enact new legislation that would force artificial intelligence developers to pay publishers for use of their content to train their computer models. The hearing before the US Senate comes after a blitz of new AI chatbots, most notably OpenAI’s ChatGPT, set off a wave of existential panic among media organizations, threatening to further upend the

By Samantha Delouya, CNN (CNN) — It’s the end of an era for Fruit Stripe, the decades-old gum brand that was known for its fruit-inspired flavors and zebra-print product: The brand’s owner is discontinuing the striped treat. “The decision to sunset this product was not taken lightly,” a representative for Ferrara, Fruit Stripe’s owner, told

By Ramishah Maruf, CNN New York (CNN) — Netflix’s ad-supported tier has hit more than 23 million monthly active users, Amy Reinhard, the streaming service’s president of advertising, said Wednesday. That’s about an 8 million increase in roughly two months; the streaming giant announced it had 15 million global monthly active users in November 2023. “We’re

CNN By Clare Duffy, CNN New York (CNN) — Meta advertisers, including dating app company Match Group and Walmart, have raised concerns to the tech giant about their ads appearing alongside disturbing sexual content, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez alleged in an updated complaint in his lawsuit against the tech giant. The updated complaint,

By Ramishah Maruf, CNN New York (CNN) — Hybrid? Full-time? Flexible schedule? Fully remote? Remote optional? Shortened work weeks? The return-to-office debate isn’t going away — but one aspect may be coming to a close, and workers won. CEOs are letting up on the battle to get employees to return to the office full-time, five

By Clare Duffy, CNN New York (CNN) — Meta advertisers, including dating app company Match Group and Walmart, have raised concerns to the tech giant about their ads appearing alongside disturbing sexual content, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez alleged in an updated complaint in his lawsuit against the tech giant. The updated complaint, filed

By Matt Egan, CNN (CNN) — The powerful House Ways and Means Committee is threatening to reconsider the tax-exempt status of Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University amid allegations the elite schools have failed to fight antisemitism on campus. Rep. Jason Smith, the Republican chair of the

By Ramishah Maruf, CNN New York (CNN) — Taylor Swift practically owned 2023. But an end-of-year report from Luminate, an entertainment data firm, puts into numbers just how much the singer dominated the US music industry. One in every 78 US audio streams was a Taylor Swift song in 2023, according to Luminate. The data

By Jeanne Sahadi, CNN New York (CNN) — After a false start Tuesday, the Securities and Exchange Commission gave its approval Wednesday for some investment companies to offer “spot bitcoin” exchange-traded funds. The regulator’s highly anticipated move is expected to make bitcoin investing more accessible to Main Street investors, without requiring them to own the

By Parija Kavilanz, CNN New York (CNN) — Starbucks is being sued by a consumer advocacy group alleging that the global coffee chain falsely and deceptively advertises the “committed to 100% ethical sourcing” claim on its coffee and tea products. The lawsuit, filed by the National Consumers League in a Washington, DC court on Wednesday,