Money

By Laura He, CNN Hong Kong (CNN) — Ant Group has announced a share buyback that values it at $78.5 billion, which is about $230 billion or 75% less than the valuation it fetched nearly three years ago, before its IPO was yanked by Chinese regulators. The company was co-founded by Jack Ma, as was

By Frederik Pleitgen and Anna Cooban, CNN Berlin/London (CNN) — Rheinmetall will open an armored vehicle plant in Ukraine within the next 12 weeks, shrugging off concerns other Western defense companies reportedly have about building a presence in the country while it is at war with Russia. Germany’s biggest arms maker will also train Ukrainians

By Samantha Delouya, CNN (CNN) — When MosaicML, a generative AI platform company, decided to upgrade its office space, its CEO and co-founder, Naveen Rao, was set on San Francisco, even though he lives in Southern California. “Everyone is talking about doom and gloom, this and that, but it’s still literally the best place in

By Hanna Ziady, CNN London (CNN) — Investors in Thames Water have agreed to put an extra £750 million ($962 million) of equity funding into the troubled utility to hold off a temporary takeover by the government. The amount is less than the company was hoping to raise. Britain’s biggest water company said Monday that

By Tara Subramaniam and Manveena Suri, CNN (CNN) — Heavy rains brought deadly floods to northern India on the weekend as the country’s capital marked its wettest July day in more than 40 years, according to authorities and local reports. The rains triggered flash floods and landslides, resulting in the deaths of at least 22

By Jessie Yeung, Yoonjung Seo and Paula Hancocks, CNN Seoul (CNN) — In many supermarkets across South Korea, one item has conspicuously vanished from shelves: salt. For the past month, the country has struggled with severe sea salt shortages as shoppers snap it up in bulk, reflecting heightened public anxiety ahead of the planned release

By Jennifer Korn (CNN) — When Elon Musk took over Twitter in October and began upending the platform, there weren’t many viable alternatives for frustrated users. Now, there may be too many. A growing number of services have launched or gained traction in recent months by appealing to users who are uncomfortable with Musk’s decisions

By Samantha Murphy Kelly, CNN (CNN) — When Mark Zuckerberg shared a photo on Instagram of his family on July 4, two things stuck out: the billionaire CEO wore a striped souvenir cowboy hat, and the faces of his children were replaced with happy face emojis. Zuckerberg’s post was promptly criticized by some who saw

By Jennifer Hansler, Nectar Gan and Juliana Liu, CNN Beijing/Hong Kong (CNN) — The world is big enough for both the United States and China to thrive, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Sunday as she wrapped up a visit to Beijing aimed at stabilizing the relationship between the world’s two largest economies. Yellen said

By Ramishah Maruf, CNN New York (CNN) — Mercedes-Benz announced its electric vehicle drivers will be able to use Tesla (TSLA) superchargers starting next year and that it will fully adopt the company’s charging standard in 2025. It joins a growing list of automakers who have made similar deals with Tesla. The Mercedes-Benz arrangement moves

By Lucy Kafanov, CNN New York (CNN) — Republican attorneys general from seven states signed a letter Wednesday to Target (TGT), warning clothes and merchandise sold as part of the retail giant’s Pride month campaigns could violate their state’s child protection laws. GOP attorneys general from Indiana, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri and South Carolina

By Nathaniel Meyersohn, CNN New York (CNN) — More major cities in the United States are letting public transit riders hop on board for free. Kansas City; Raleigh; Richmond; Olympia; Tucson; Alexandria, Virginia; and other cities are testing dropping fares on their transit systems. Denver is dropping fares across its system this summer. Boston is

By Jordan Valinsky, CNN Business New York (CNN) — Subway is the largest restaurant chain in the US and one of the most recognizable fast food brands in the world. But in recent years, it has struggled. Thousands of Subway stores have closed since 2016. The company has had to coax back eaters who switched

By Jennifer Hansler and Juliana Liu, CNN Beijing/Hong Kong (CNN) — US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen urged China on Saturday to combat the “existential threat” of climate change by supporting international funds intended to help developing countries confront the crisis. On the second full day of her visit to Beijing, Yellen said the United States

By Hanna Ziady, CNN London (CNN) — Financial trouble at the company that supplies more than a fifth of the UK population with water has raised alarm about the dire state of an industry that delivers a resource people can’t live without. The problems are most acute at Thames Water, London’s utility, but the wider

By Deepak Rao and Chris Lau, CNN (CNN) — Indian authorities have arrested three railway officials as part of an investigation into one of the deadliest train crashes in the country’s history. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said in a statement that they had arrested three Department of Railways officials on Friday. The move

By Antonio Jarne and Krystina Shveda, CNN (CNN) — Inflation in the United States may have subsided in recent months – it peaked above 9% last summer and declined to 4% this May, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ widely used Consumer Price Index. But even at its worst, price increases were a drop in

By Samantha Delouya, CNN (CNN) — A judge has blocked New York City’s minimum wage law for food delivery workers from going into effect on July 12 until there is a hearing for a lawsuit filed by DoorDash and Grubhub against the city. The law, announced last month, would increase pay for app delivery workers

By Bryan Mena, CNN Washington, DC (CNN) — An interest rate hike later this month was already in the cards for the Federal Reserve. But after the June jobs report, the timing of a second hike remains unclear. Job gains remain robust, wage growth is still going strong, and unemployment continues to hover near historic

By Wayne Chang and Anna Cooban, CNN Taipei/London (CNN) — China’s top financial regulators have fined Ant Group — the fintech firm founded by billionaire Jack Ma — about 7.1 billion yuan ($994 million) for breaking rules related to consumer protection and corporate governance. Ant Group had also broken rules relating to “business activities in

By Alicia Wallace, CNN Minneapolis (CNN) — The US job market cooled back down in June, adding just 209,000 jobs, and fueling optimism that the economy is on course to nail that elusive soft landing of lowering inflation without triggering a recession. The June job gains, released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, were

By Tara Subramaniam and Manveena Suri, CNN (CNN) — Authorities in India’s central Madhya Pradesh state have demolished a man’s home after a video that appeared to show him urinating on a member of a tribal community went viral on social media this week. While the incident captured in the video allegedly occurred a year

By Jennifer Hansler and Juliana Liu, CNN Beijing/Hong Kong (CNN) — Beijing’s newly unveiled export controls on two strategic raw materials critical to the global chipmaking industry are a “concern,” US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on the first day of her trip to China, where she met the country’s premier in an effort to

By Samantha Delouya (CNN) — Taylor Swift signed onto a lucrative touring partnership with FTX before its collapse, but FTX pulled out of the arrangement, according to a person familiar with the discussions. Had the deal materialized, the “Bad Blood” singer might have joined a legion of celebrities who endorsed cryptocurrency products in recent years

By Peter Valdes-Dapena, CNN Business (CNN) — Ten self-driving electric Volkswagen buses will soon cruise the streets of Austin, Texas, testing autonomous driving technology. The automaker said it plans to launch commercial services in Austin by 2026. VW’s announcement comes less than a year after the German automaker and its partner Ford announced they would

By Alicia Wallace, CNN Minneapolis (CNN) — US companies saw a massive, unexpected spike in hiring activity in June, according to private payroll processor ADP’s latest employment report, released Thursday morning. ADP’s National Employment Report, produced in a collaboration with the Stanford Digital Economy Lab, showed that the private sector added 497,000 jobs last month,

By Laura He, CNN Hong Kong (CNN) — Hong Kong stocks on Thursday recorded their worst day in four months, after Goldman Sachs downgraded major Chinese banks on local government debt risks and the US Federal Reserve gave a hawkish outlook. The Hang Seng (HSI) Index ended down 3%, its biggest daily drop since early

By Anna Cooban, CNN London (CNN) — When central banks raise interest rates, mortgage borrowers can expect higher monthly repayments, while savers are supposed to be rewarded with bigger returns on their deposits. Or so the theory goes. A top UK financial regulator met with the bosses of the country’s biggest banks Thursday asking them

By Laura He and Simone McCarthy, CNN Hong Kong (CNN) — US drugmaker Moderna has signed a deal to make mRNA medicines in China as part of its first major investment in the country, despite escalating trade and political tension between Washington and Beijing. The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company signed a memorandum of understanding and a

By Samantha Kelly, CNN (CNN) — Facebook has tried to compete with Twitter in numerous ways over the years, including copying signature Twitter features such as hashtags and trending topics. But now Facebook’s parent company is taking perhaps its biggest swipe at Twitter yet. Meta on Wednesday officially launched a new app called Threads, which

By Chris Isidore and Betsy Klein, CNN (CNN) — The White House is closely monitoring the upcoming labor talks in the US auto industry, negotiations that could put it at odds with the traditional support of a major union. So President Joe Biden is tapping a trusted adviser, Gene Sperling, to serve as the administration’s

By Brian Fung, CNN Washington (CNN) — Mark Zuckerberg has tried for years to take on Twitter. Now he may finally have his best chance to deliver a knockout blow to the social network at a turbulent moment. On Thursday, Meta is expected to launch Threads, which the company describes as a “text-based conversation app”

By Bryan Mena, CNN Washington, DC (CNN) — Fed officials vigorously debated whether to hike rates again or hold them steady, according to minutes from the most recent meeting, released Wednesday. When the dust settled, officials came to a consensus and voted unanimously to pause the central bank’s most aggressive rate-hiking campaign in decades —

By Michael Nam, CNN New York (CNN) — ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith is wondering if he too might soon be out of a job. Smith, host of the network’s sports debate show “First Take,” saw several of his high-profile colleagues — including Jalen Rose, Jeff Van Gundy and Keyshawn Johnson — laid off last week.

By Anna Cooban, CNN London (CNN) — European policymakers will have breathed a sigh of relief Wednesday as a key measure of inflation revealed the first drop in prices since 2020. Prices charged by factories in the 20 countries that share the euro currency fell 1.5% in May compared with the same month last year,

By Chris Isidore and Vanessa Yurkevich, CNN New York (CNN) — A marathon negotiating session between UPS and the Teamsters union ended early Wednesday morning with both sides accusing the other of walking away from the table. There are no signs of a contract settlement in sight. The current contract expires July 31, which means

By Laura He, CNN Hong Kong (CNN) — Tesla’s deliveries from its Shanghai factory more than doubled in the second quarter, accounting for over half of its record global sales, according to a Chinese trade group. Tesla (TSLA) China’s wholesale deliveries reached 247,217 vehicles in the April to June months, up 120% from a year