DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

Wall Street is still on edgeAfter JPMorgan Chase secured a deal to buy the embattled First Republic, the banking giant’s chief, Jamie Dimon, asserted that the market turmoil set off by Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse was at an end. “This part of the crisis is over,” he told analysts on Monday. But Wall Street isn’t convinced yet, as investors worry that potential new regulations and constrained lending could endanger the fragile economy. They account for about 80 percent of commercial real estate mortgages and 45 percent of consumer lending, according to Goldman Sachs. That leaves them exposed to further drops in office property values and consumer spending — which could lead to a wider credit crunch.

☆ Heat Pump Maker’s $13.3 Billion Sale Raises Questions in Germany
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Melissa Eddy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The critical importance of heat pumps to the German economy was underscored this week when the sale of a family-owned maker of the heating machines to a U.S. company prompted a review by the government in Berlin. Carrier Global Corp. said Tuesday that it had agreed to pay 12 billion euros, or about $13.3 billion, to acquire a unit of Viessmann Group, based north of Frankfurt, that produces heat pumps. The cash-and-stock deal would allow Carrier to expand in Europe and capitalize on the green energy transition underway on the continent, the company said. It also comes days after Berlin announced a ban on new furnaces fired by fossil fuels, starting next year. “Climate change, sustainability requirements and geopolitical factors are driving an unprecedented energy transition in Europe,” David Gitlin, chief executive of Carrier, said in announcing the deal.

☆ Engagement ring sales slide due to pandemic lockdowns
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( Parija Kavilanz | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

According to Signet Jewelers, the largest jewelry company in the United States, the pandemic dented sales of engagement rings as relationships faltered or never even blossomed in the first place due to the lockdowns. This created, it said, an “engagement gap.”“We’re still seeing it today,” Jamie Singleton, Signet Jewelers’ president and chief consumer officer, said during the company’s investor day last week. And it’s vital for Signet’s business, because 50% of the company’s merchandise sales come from the bridal segment. Meanwhile, the pandemic also walloped sales of wedding dresses as social gatherings of all kinds came to a standstill, and couples postponed their weddings. As dates were re-booked coming out of the pandemic, brides-to-be have had to contend with inflation and economic uncertainty bearing down on expenses.

☆ Google's 80-acre San Jose mega-campus is on hold as company reckons with economic slowdown
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( Jennifer Elias | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +9 min

The city of San Jose may now be paying the price. CNBC has learned that, as part of Google's downsizing that went into effect early this year, the company has gutted its development team for the San Jose campus. By then, the company had already completed much of its multi-year land grab of downtown San Jose for the future campus. Google spent several years planning for the San Jose complex and invested significant resources in winning over the local community. "We all originally knew that it's going to be a long-term plan," San Jose councilmember Omar Torres, who represents the downtown area, told San Jose Spotlight in February.

Paris CNN —Air France and Airbus have been found not guilty of involuntary homicide in a criminal trial over the 2009 crash of a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris that killed 228 passengers and crew. The acquittal was confirmed in an abstract of the court’s ruling provided by the Paris prosecutor’s office. The court did find Airbus and Air France both liable for civil damages for certain failings, though they lacked a “tie of certain causality” with the accident. The 2009 crashMystery initially surrounded the crash of Air France flight 447, in part because it occurred while the plane was flying over the Atlantic Ocean. Problems with pitot tubes had affected Airbus aircraft in the past, but the company had not corrected the problem.

☆ David's Bridal files for bankruptcy
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-17 | by ( Nathaniel Meyersohn | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

But it hasn’t been enough for David’s Bridal, the largest bridal retailer in the United States. David’s Bridal has been hurt by a range of factors, including inflation and competition from online retailers and secondhand retailers. “An increasing number of brides are opting for less traditional wedding attire, including thrift wedding dresses,” David’s Bridal said in a bankruptcy filing. David’s Bridal has also been hurt by changes in how women shop for wedding dresses. But if David’s Bridal is not able to find a buyer, it could have to close all stores and liquidate.

☆ Opinion: Texas judge’s stunning ruling caps extraordinary week
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-09 | by ( ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +17 min

We’re looking back at the strongest, smartest opinion takes of the week from CNN and other outlets. Tennessee legislators targeted three members of the state House for joining a gun control protest in the chamber, expelling two young Black men while failing to oust a 60-year-old White woman. (He gave the Biden administration a week to appeal the ruling before it goes into effect. Thus, the week that began with Trump facing a judge in Manhattan ended with a Trump-appointed judge overturning more than two decades of medical practice. “They go far too fast to be safe on the sidewalk” and aren’t right for bike lanes or roads either.

☆ Truckers Expect an Inventory-Driven Rebound Later This Year
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-01 | by ( Liz Young | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +4 min

Trucking companies are pinning hopes for a rebound in freight demand on the second half of this year, saying their retailer customers expect to resume restocking after winding down inventories over recent months. Carrier executives say they are hearing from their shipping customers that they expect to return to a more normal ordering cycle this year and start moving bigger volumes closer to the fall shopping season following volatile retail spending and distribution in 2022 that left them overstocked. Inbound volumes at U.S. ports are also down, suggesting fewer goods from overseas are flowing into domestic freight networks. “Trucking is definitely down right now,” said Tom Nightingale, CEO of AFS Logistics, a Shreveport, La.-based logistics operator. She said on a Jan. 18 earnings conference call that the company “has good signals” from shipping customers that they plan to pick up their ordering in the second quarter.

☆ How Microsoft could use ChatGPT to supercharge its products
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( Samantha Murphy Kelly | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

For Microsoft, integrating the chatbot tool could make its core software products more powerful. All of the above suggestions were generated by asking ChatGPT various forms of the question, “How could Microsoft integrate ChatGPT into its products?” Microsoft, for is part, has said little on possible integrations beyond recently announcing plans to add ChatGPT features to its cloud computing service. “Microsoft will deploy OpenAI’s models across our consumer and enterprise products and introduce new categories of digital experiences built on OpenAI’s technology,” Microsoft said in a press release this week, announcing the expanded partnership. For Microsoft, that could make integrating the tool into specific products problematic. Integrating ChatGPT too quickly into Microsoft’s products could run the risk of schools rethinking their use of that software.

☆ Microsoft could bring back Clippy, but make him smart
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( Allison Morrow | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

New York CNN —This week, Microsoft confirmed it’s planning to invest billions in OpenAI, the company behind the viral new chatbot tool ChatGPT. The prospect of Microsoft, maker of software that people mostly hate, getting involved with ChatGPT, a product people generally like, is raising a lot of eyebrows. Almost immediately, people began joking on social media that ChatGPT could be used to revive the broadly maligned, big-eyed goon known as Clippy. “There is a kernel of truth to the Clippy comparison,” David Lobina, an artificial intelligence analyst at ABI Research, told Sam. All of the above suggestions were generated by asking ChatGPT various forms of the question, “How could Microsoft integrate ChatGPT into its products?”Argh, Samantha, you scamp!

☆ Thomson Reuters Corp and London Stock Exchange Group expand partnership
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-17 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/3] A Thomson Reuters logo is pictured on a building during the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland January 25, 2018. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File PhotoJan 17 (Reuters) - The London Stock Exchange Group(LSEG.L) and Thomson Reuters Corp(TRI.TO) will expand a long-term partnership that will include investments in the newsroom and an agreement to launch consumer subscription products, the companies said on Tuesday. The agreement resolves a dispute over plans by Reuters News in 2021 to launch a subscription paywall for the Reuters.com website. The agreement will include an investment in 100 editorial roles in the Reuters newsroom focused on financial and markets coverage. Reporting by Kenneth Li in New York; Editing by Howard GollerOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ The feds say they're in for the long haul on Jan. 6 investigation
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-06 | by ( Ryan J. Reilly | Ryan J. Reilly Is A Justice Reporter For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +16 min

But the federal investigation has been strained, spread thin and strapped for resources as a sometimes less-than-agile federal bureaucracy adapts to the overwhelming scope of the caseload. While the FBI arrested more than 700 defendants in the first year of the investigation, it arrested about 200 in the second. Online sleuths have done their best to bust those myths, too. “That was it.”The Sedition Hunters website features images of people online sleuths say took part in the Jan. 6 attack, including many (in blue) who have been identified. Some charging documents in Jan. 6 cases make the role that online sleuths played clear.

☆ Ex-academic forges a new career denying Trump's 2020 election loss
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-21 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +27 min

“The war is just getting started,” Clements told his 100,000 Telegram followers on Nov. 16. His rise in the movement began in January 2021, when a dispute with his employer, New Mexico State University, over the U.S. Capitol riot went public. ‘I will not take the jab’Clements’ swift rise in election-denier circles caused a stir at New Mexico State, where he continued to teach. Flynn co-founded the America Project, a well-capitalized right-wing group that has financed lawsuits and campaigns challenging the 2020 election results and the integrity of U.S. voting systems. One of their roles is to certify election results, which until the Trump era was typically a rubber-stamp formality.

☆ The Year in Pictures 2022
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( The New York Times | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +57 min

Every year, starting in early fall, photo editors at The New York Times begin sifting through the year’s work in an effort to pick out the most startling, most moving, most memorable pictures. But 2022 undoubtedly belongs to the war in Ukraine, a conflict now settling into a worryingly predictable rhythm. Erin Schaff/The New York Times “When you’re standing on the ground, you can’t visualize the scope of the destruction. Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times Kyiv, Ukraine, Feb. 25. We see the same images over and over, and it’s really hard to make anything different.” Kyiv, Ukraine, Feb 26.

☆ As more men leave the workforce, women are stepping in to fill those jobs
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-15 | by ( Vanessa Yurkevich | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

And that is reflective of new trends developing both for men and women in the labor force. In recent months, more men aged 30-44 have been dropping out of the workforce, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Although more men are stepping out of the workforce to take care of children post-pandemic, it’s still only in the single digits, according to economist Richard V. Reeves. The data showed that the total number was skewed more towards women than men, since so many women assumed caretaker roles at home when daycare centers and schools closed during lockdowns. Since then, men and women have gained back all the jobs lost.

☆ Paul Pelosi attack: David DePape Pelosi planned to target Hunter Biden, Gavin Newsom and Tom Hanks, police officials says
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Stella Chan | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

Gavin Newsom and actor Tom Hanks, a San Francisco Police Department official testified Wednesday. “DePape held to answer on all counts and allegations,” the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office said in a statement. Following the attack, Paul Pelosi had surgery “to repair a skull fracture and serious injuries to his right arm and hands,” Drew Hammill, a spokesman for Nancy Pelosi, said at the time. Where’s Nancy?” He then threatened to tie up Paul Pelosi and prevented him from escaping via elevator, according to the documents. Nancy Pelosi announced last month that she would step down from her leadership post after leading House Democrats for two decades.

☆ Did That Hit Arrive in 2022 or 1987? This Year, It Was Hard to Tell.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Jon Caramanica | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +12 min

Turns out it’s the same sample, a sleight of ear designed to trigger warm nostalgia, and also maybe a little confusion. Even its video is optimized for recognition, with Santana doing the same stomp Beyoncé does in hers, in an almost identical outfit. Throughout 2022, that gambit has been deployed again and again — by pop singers and rappers, established stars and newbies. Here, old songs — hip-hop classics, pop novelties and more — are scrunched and stretched sometimes to the point of absurdity. These songs are concessions that say the quiet part out loud — everyone has always been borrowing voraciously, from everyone else, constantly.

☆ 'Pinocchio' review: A reimagined story is beautiful but comes with too many strings attached
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-09 | by ( Brian Lowry | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

CNN —The mere title “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” announces that this stop-motion animated movie reflects the keen eye and visual style of the directing auteur, with a healthy dose of revisionism and reimagining baked into that. Yet despite its beauty, several of those narrative touches don’t fully work, leaving behind a movie that’s aesthetically lovely but narratively uneven. Perhaps foremost, del Toro makes the ill-advised decision to incorporate songs into the story, although he keeps interrupting them, which might speak to a certain lack of conviction about that particular aspect. It’s around that point where del Toro (who shares directing credit with animator Mark Gustafson) appears determined to connect this “Pinocchio” to larger and more ambitious themes. “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” premieres December 9 on Netflix.

Washington CNN —The Biden administration believes the Russian government will continue to engage on detainee issues, including freeing American Paul Whelan, following the release of WNBA star Brittney Griner because “they have things they want in this world,” a senior administration official told CNN. Moscow knows that ultimately the two sides will reach “a mutually acceptable arrangement if they keep talking to us,” the official continued. “It’s clear that the US government has no concessions that the Russian government will take for Paul Whelan. The official didn’t count out the US offering a Russian spy in US custody as a potential offer to Russia. “There is a willingness to pay even a very big price on the part of this President,” the official said.

Biden had been hopeful that Russian President Vladimir Putin would be more apt to free Griner once America’s midterm elections were done, a calculation that proved correct. Still detained in Russia is Paul Whelan, a businessman whom the White House has also been working to free without success. In a 2012 interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” when he was vice president, Biden came out in favor of same-sex marriage, and he is expected to sign the measure into law. White House officials acknowledged the headwinds and worried that the midterm elections would be a repudiation of Biden’s record. “When I look at what the Biden White House has done, I think experience and patience really paid off,” said Jennifer Palmieri, who served as White House communications director during the Obama administration.

☆ Biden's climate plan strains trade ties with Europe
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Anna Cooban | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

The European Union and United States — together responsible for one third of global trade — have been at loggerheads in recent weeks over US President Joe Biden’s landmark $370 billion climate plan. While a trade war is unlikely, the plan is testing the transatlantic alliance and pushing Europe to consider mobilizing its own package of subsidies. The IRA is now law, and there is little appetite to bring it back to Congress to make substantive changes, he told CNN Business. The European Union has a couple of options at its disposal, analysts told CNN Business. On Monday, Italian Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti said that the bloc should create its own “European IRA plan,” according to a Reuters report.

As Republicans across the country saw their predictions of commanding victories up and down the ballot fall short on election night, Democrats in Pennsylvania were celebrating signs of a blue wave. Spencer Platt / Getty Images fileMany state Republicans said it’s no surprise that the strategy worked. “I think Republicans are going to be very demoralized here,” one Republican who worked on a Pennsylvania campaign, said in an interview. But while Oz struggled to overcome questions about his residency, Democrats and Republicans both said the election was driven by the Shapiro-Mastriano dynamic. “To have a wave, you not only have to have the initial motion, but you have to have the driver.

☆ Lab-grown meat is OK for human consumption, FDA says
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-17 | by ( Katie Hunt | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

CNN —The US Food and Drug Administration has given a safety clearance to lab-grown meat for the first time. Upside Foods, a California-based company that makes meat from cultured chicken cells, will be able to begin selling its products once its facilities have been inspected by the US Department of Agriculture. Advocates hope that cultured meat will reduce the need to slaughter animals for food and help with the climate crisis. “At scale, cultivated meat is projected to use substantially less water and land than conventionally-produced meat.”Although not technically an approval, the FDA said that a thorough pre-market consultation process had been completed. The clearance only applies to food made from cultured chicken cells by Upside, but the statement said the FDA “is ready to work with additional firms developing cultured animal cell food.”

☆ Fact Check-WiFi access inside a polling place is not proof of election fraud
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-16 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Access to WiFi inside a polling place is not automatic proof of voter fraud, despite claims made online, experts told Reuters. The post led to claims that a new WiFi network suddenly appearing from inside a polling station can lead to voter fraud. WIFI PRESENCE NOT EVIDENCE OF FRAUDBut the presence of a WiFi network inside a polling place is not automatic proof of nefarious activity, experts in election security told Reuters. The presence of a WiFi network inside a polling place is not automatically proof of fraud, experts told Reuters. WiFi-connected electronic polling books that check in voters are commonplace at polling stations across the country.

☆ The UK economy is sliding into recession and Europe is set to follow
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-11 | by ( Hanna Ziady | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

London CNN Business —The UK economy shrank in the third quarter, signaling the start of a recession that is likely to hit Europe next. UK GDP fell 0.2% between July and September, ending five consecutive quarters of growth, the Office for National Statistics said on Friday. Recession stalks EuropeThe Bank of England warned last week that the UK economy could experience its longest recession since the 1940s. The European Commission warned Friday that high inflation and rising interest rates are likely to tip the euro zone into recession in the fourth quarter. Still, the Commission expects GDP growth in the euro area to remain positive next year and in 2024.

Search resuls for: "” David"

25 mentions found