Money

By Matt Egan and Laura Dolan, CNN (CNN) — Early applications at Harvard declined by 17% to four-year lows, according to figures released Thursday. Harvard College accepted 692 students for the Class of 2028 from a pool of 7,921 applicants. The acceptance rate was 8.7%, up from 7.6% last year. Early admission applicants to Harvard spiked above

By Sergio Padilla, CNN New York (CNN) — A bird flu resurgence sent egg prices through the roof this past year – and it could happen again next year. As of December 11th, data from the US Department of Agriculture shows that 426 commercial chicken flocks and 586 backyard flocks have tested positive for HPAI

By Jeanne Sahadi, CNN New York (CNN) — The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Friday ordered Commonwealth Financial Systems, a debt collection agency specializing in medical debt, to shut down as a result of what CFPB determined were illegal collection practices. Specifically, the CFPB said that the company, which is based in Dickson City, Pennsylvania,

By Alex Hardie, CNN (CNN) — The Lufthansa Group plans to resume flights to Tel Aviv beginning January 8, 2024, nearly three months after it suspended flights to Israel’s largest airport due to security concerns. “Lufthansa Group continues to monitor the security situation in Israel closely and is in close contact with the local and international

By Matt Egan, CNN New York (CNN) — President Joe Biden’s top economic adviser sounds increasingly confident that the American economy will avoid the recession that so many had penciled in for 2023. “Recent data certainly give more evidence that the width of the runway for a soft landing has gotten much bigger,” Lael Brainard,

By Jordan Valinsky, CNN New York (CNN) — With millions of people expected to fly in the coming days, Southwest Airlines is vowing there won’t be a repeat of last year’s operational meltdown that ruined Christmas for travelers. Southwest CEO Bob Jordan said this week that “it will never happen again, I promise you that,”

By Anna Cooban, CNN London (CNN) — Global coal demand is likely to have peaked this year, and could drop by about 2% over the next three years as China brings more renewable energy sources online, the International Energy Agency said Friday. It’s the first time the Paris-based agency has predicted a drop in appetite

By Caitlin Danaher and Lauren Said-Moorhouse, CNN London (CNN) — The Duke of Sussex was awarded £140,600 ($179,000) on Friday after the UK High Court ruled he was the subject of “extensive” phone hacking by Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) from 2006 to 2011. Justice Fancourt ruled that 15 stories published about Prince Harry by MGN

By Juliana Liu, CNN Hong Kong (CNN) — This week, Chinese authorities across the board intensified efforts to boost growth, but those attempts may not be enough to fix the ailing economy. On Friday, the country’s central bank pumped a massive amount of liquidity into the banking system as part of broader efforts to support

By Clare Duffy, CNN New York (CNN) — Associates of Elon Musk are planning to launch a new primary and secondary school, and ultimately a university, in Austin, Texas, with the help of a nearly $100 million donation from the billionaire, tax documents show. The move may be a sign that Musk is seeking to

By Samantha Delouya, CNN (CNN) — Fast-fashion retailer Shein has been hit with a lawsuit by rival Temu, alleging the company has used aggressive and unlawful tactics to thwart competition — adding another layer to the hostilities between the two Chinese-owned e-commerce sites as they fight to dominate the bargain shopping market in the US.

By Krystal Hur and Octavio Blanco, CNN New York (CNN) — General Motors will lay off about 1,300 workers from two of its Michigan plants, according to WARN notices the company has filed with state regulators. The job cuts at GM’s Orion Assembly and Lansing Grand River Assembly, which will take place in the new

By Matt Egan, CNN New York (CNN) — Top federal regulators are warning for the first time that the use of artificial intelligence poses a risk to the financial system. The Financial Stability Oversight Council, a team of leading regulators across the US government, formally classified AI on Thursday as an “emerging vulnerability.” Sophisticated AI

By Olivia LaBorde, CNN (CNN) — An Atlanta woman pleaded guilty to stealing more than $4 million from Facebook while she was an executive at the company. Barbara Furlow-Smiles who worked as a lead strategist, global head of employee resource groups and diversity engagement at Facebook, Inc., now known as Meta, from about January 2017 to September 2021 according

By Catherine Thorbecke, CNN (CNN) — General Motors’ beleaguered self-driving car subsidiary Cruise said Thursday that it was laying off roughly a quarter of its workforce, after months of turmoil and years of financial losses. The job cuts will impact approximately 900 of the company’s full-time staffers, and mostly workers in commercial and corporate operations,

By Nathaniel Meyersohn, CNN New York (CNN) — WeightWatchers is accelerating its pivot away from a diet culture brand and into a company catering to people taking Ozempic. WeightWatchers on Thursday launched a new membership plan for members taking GLP-1 prescriptions drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy sometimes used for weight loss. The “WeightWatchers GLP-1 Program”

By Matt Egan and Danny Freeman, CNN New York (CNN) — To punish the University of Pennsylvania for its response to antisemitism, Pennsylvania House Republicans stopped millions of dollars of state funding for the university’s school of veterinary medicine on Wednesday. Legislation that would provide the UPenn School of Veterinary Medicine with more than $31

By Krystal Hur, CNN New York (CNN) — A powerful activist investor is escalating his battle over the future of Disney in a long-simmering feud with CEO Bob Iger and the company’s management, trying to gain two seats on Disney’s board. Trian Fund Management will nominate Nelson Peltz, its founder, and Jay Rasulo, a former

By Anna Bahney, CNN Washington, DC (CNN) — Mortgage rates fell under 7% for the first time since mid-August this week. It is the seventh straight week that rates have dropped, as inflation improves and the Federal Reserve paused its rate increases. With the Fed signaling in its most recent meeting that rate cuts may