Thursday, March 28
Auto Insurance Spike Hampers the Inflation Fight
World

Auto Insurance Spike Hampers the Inflation Fight

Related media - Linked media Job growth, wage growth and business growth are all lively, and inflation has steeply fallen from its 2022 highs. But consumer sentiment, while improving, is still sour. One reason may be sticker shock from some highly visible prices — even as overall inflation has calmed. The cost of car insurance is a key example. Motor vehicle insurance rose 1.4 percent on a monthly basis in January alone and has risen 20.6 percent over the past year, the largest jump since 1976. It has been a huge hit for those driving the roughly 272 million private and commercial vehicles registered in the country. And it has played a part in dampening the “mission accomplished” mood on inflation that was bubbling up in markets at the beginning of the year. According to a recent pr...
China Has Thousands of Navalnys, Hidden From the Public
World

China Has Thousands of Navalnys, Hidden From the Public

Related media - Associated media After watching “Navalny,” the documentary about the Russian opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny, a Chinese businesswoman messaged me, “Ren Zhiqiang is China’s Navalny.” She was talking about the retired real estate tycoon who was sentenced to 18 years in prison for criticizing China’s leader, Xi Jinping. After Mr. Navalny’s tragic death this month, a young dissident living in Berlin posted on X, “Teacher Li is closest to the Chinese version of Navalny.” He was referring to the rebel influencer known as Teacher Li, who used social media to share information about protests in China and who now fears for his life. There are others: Liu Xiaobo, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who died in government custody in 2017, and Xu Zhiyong, the legal scholar who is s...
Boeing Faces Justice Dept. Review Over Max 9 Incident
World

Boeing Faces Justice Dept. Review Over Max 9 Incident

Related media - Linked media The Justice Department review was reported earlier by Bloomberg. The episode in January reignited the intense scrutiny and criticism that Boeing faced after crashes in Indonesia in late 2018 and Ethiopia in early 2019 killed a combined 346 people. The Max 8 and Max 9 were banned from flying globally days after the second crash. Since the jetliners started flying again in late 2020, they have carried out several million flights worldwide. The weight of the crisis appeared to be lifting before the January incident. A preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board suggested that the plane in that episode may have left Boeing’s factory without bolts needed to secure the panel. The Federal Aviation Administration immediately grounded nearly 2...
FAA Gives Boeing 90 Days to Develop Plan to Address Quality-Control Issues
World

FAA Gives Boeing 90 Days to Develop Plan to Address Quality-Control Issues

Connected media - Related media The meeting on Tuesday, which took place at the F.A.A.’s headquarters in Washington, came two weeks after Mr. Whitaker toured Boeing’s 737 plant in Renton, Wash. During his visit, Mr. Whitaker spoke with Boeing engineers and mechanics to try to get a better sense of the safety culture at the factory. The F.A.A. said after his visit that Mr. Whitaker planned to discuss what he saw during his visit when he met with Boeing executives in Washington. On Monday, the F.A.A. released a report by a panel of experts that found that Boeing’s safety culture remained flawed, despite improvements made after fatal 737 Max 8 crashes in 2018 and 2019. The report, which was mandated by Congress, had been in the works before the harrowing episode in January involving the...
Some Things Are More Important Than History
World

Some Things Are More Important Than History

Linked media - Linked media He didn’t care that it was a no-hitter. He just wanted the Yankees to win. More than five hours after we arrived at Yankee Stadium, my 9-year-old son, Wes, had waited in line for an hour in a rainstorm, collected his coveted (replica) 1998 Yankees World Series ring, talked me into buying him a T-shirt, visited the Gluten Free Grill twice, mourned the season-ending injury to Jasson Domínguez, cheered Aaron Judge so loudly that his voice was getting hoarse and brushed off every single mention I made that Corbin Burnes, the starter for the Milwaukee Brewers, was throwing an incredible game. While the rain delayed Sunday’s game between Milwaukee and the Yankees only 15 minutes, the soggy conditions persisted through the early innings and Burnes, the winner of ...
USWNT’s loss to Mexico was a jarring reminder that the team’s mystique is gone
World

USWNT’s loss to Mexico was a jarring reminder that the team’s mystique is gone

Linked media - Connected media For those who weren’t following along during the 2011 World Cup qualifying cycle — in which the U.S. lost to Mexico in the CONCACAF semifinals before Alex Morgan finally sent the U.S. through in a playoff series against Italy — matches against Mexico might have felt like a rivalry in name only. The U.S. women’s national team had not lost to Mexico since that moment in 2010, and hadn’t lost to any CONCACAF opponent at home since 2000. Monday night threw that narrative out the window. The USWNT was outplayed in a 2-0 loss in front of a boisterous crowd in Carson, Ca., and while it didn’t match the low of that 0-0 draw against Portugal in the World Cup group stage last summer, the team’s final group stage match of this Gold Cup was (hopefully) a h...
Divisions Among Finance Ministers Flare Over Seizing Russian Assets
World

Divisions Among Finance Ministers Flare Over Seizing Russian Assets

Associated media - Connected media “While we should act together and in a considered way, I believe there is a strong international law, economic, and moral case for moving forward,” Ms. Yellen said. But Mr. LeMaire, who spoke just a few hours ahead of a private meeting with Ms. Yellen, pushed back on that assertion. “We don’t have the legal basis to seize the Russian assets and we should never act if we don’t obey by the international law and by the rule of law,” Mr. Le Maire said, according to a recording of his remarks. Western officials have been considering several options for how they can use the approximately $300 billion Russian central bank assets, most of which is held in the European Union, to provide economic and military support for Ukraine. That includes the European Co...
Toyota Recalls Over 600,000 Trucks and SUVs Over Safety Concerns
World

Toyota Recalls Over 600,000 Trucks and SUVs Over Safety Concerns

Linked media - Associated media The second recall, announced on Tuesday, affected roughly 381,000 Toyota Tacoma pickup trucks from 2022 and 2023, according to the company. Toyota said in a statement that welding debris left on the ends of the rear-axle assembly could “cause nuts to loosen over time and eventually fall off, potentially causing a part to separate from the axle. “If separation occurs, this can affect vehicle stability and brake performance, increasing the risk of a crash,” Toyota said. Amanda Roark, a spokeswoman for Toyota, said in an email that only the Tacoma model from 2022 and 2023 is “affected by this recall.” “If the vehicle is operated with loosened nuts, the driver may experience a vibration, hear an abnormal noise, and/or observe leaking of differential oil,” ...
Wendy’s Plans to Introduce Dynamic Pricing
World

Wendy’s Plans to Introduce Dynamic Pricing

Associated media - Associated media In adopting the pricing strategy, Wendy’s will join a number of other companies that have introduced dynamic pricing, often to the chagrin of customers. Uber and Lyft, for example, charge more when demand outpaces the availability of cars on the road — during rush hour, for instance, or in bad weather. Concertgoers have also experienced dynamic pricing, with some Bruce Springsteen fans, for instance, finding that seats on Ticketmaster were costing upward of $5,500 when he returned to performing with his band after a yearslong hiatus. Dynamic pricing has also been widely adopted in the commercial theater world, which has helped institutions that experienced losses to recover. But the variable prices could hurt new attendees, as they are likely the o...
Disney and Reliance Industries Announce Media Mega Deal in India
World

Disney and Reliance Industries Announce Media Mega Deal in India

Associated media - Linked media When Reliance was started by Mr. Ambani’s father in 1958, it was a trading shop, mainly of polyester fiber. It grew into petrochemicals and now runs the world’s largest oil refinery at the port in Jamnagar, on a remote bit of India’s western coastline. Along the way, it got into telecommunications and other businesses, and in 2016 started a low-cost mobile network, Jio, which quickly became the world’s third largest. JioCinema, part of a growing family of Jio properties but a relatively small platform when India’s streaming wars began, looks likely to become the new home for Disney’s content in India. At one point another rival looked ready to emerge, as the Japanese media giant Sony was seeking to expand its operations in India by buying Zee Entertain...