Money

By Matt Egan, CNN (CNN) — Ariel Barnes plunged into a credit card debt spiral in college, and a decade later she’s yet to escape. Barnes has maxed out seven credit cards and is struggling to make minimum payments on $30,000 of credit card debt. “The interest is so high that it’s hard to get

By Kathleen Magramo, CNN Hong Kong (CNN) — A British multinational design and engineering company behind world-famous buildings such as the Sydney Opera House has confirmed that it was the target of a deepfake scam that led to one of its Hong Kong employees paying out $25 million to fraudsters. A spokesperson for London-based Arup

By Danielle Wiener-Bronner, CNN New York (CNN) — The chief medical examiner’s office in Massachusetts has determined that a teenager who ate a tortilla chip containing a high concentration of a chemical compound found in chili peppers, died of a heart attack last September. Harris Wolobah, who had a congenital heart defect, was attempting Paqui’s

By Ramishah Maruf, CNN New York (CNN) — A high-stakes union election is underway at a Mercedes-Benz plant near Tuscaloosa, Alabama, the only plant for the luxury automaker in North America. The fallout will be significant whether the workers at Mercedes-Benz vote to join the United Auto Workers union or not. The UAW is hoping

By Anna Cooban, CNN London (CNN) — Royal Mail dates back to the Tudors. It has been operating a postal service in England since the reign of Henry VIII. Now this most British of institutions is on the brink of being sold to a Czech billionaire, Daniel Křetínský, raising fears about the fate of thousands

By Nicole Goodkind, CNN New York (CNN) — The Dow Jones Industrial Average broke past the 40,000 threshold Thursday for the first time ever, fueled by an encouraging inflation report. The blue-chip index briefly crossed the key threshold in morning trading before falling back below the line in the afternoon to close at 39,869, down

By Nathaniel Meyersohn, CNN New York (CNN) — Businesses from McDonald’s to Home Depot are struggling to attract financially strapped shoppers. But Walmart is growing as consumers search for inexpensive groceries, essentials and other merchandise. Walmart said Thursday that sales at stores open at least a year increased 3.8% during its latest quarter from the

By Diksha Madhok, CNN (CNN) — Microsoft has asked at least 100 of its employees in China to consider moving to other countries, according to Chinese state media reports. The reports come as relations between Beijing and Washington deteriorate over technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and clean energy. Microsoft employees, mostly involved with cloud computing,

By Hanna Ziady, CNN London (CNN) — The European Union is worried that Meta is failing to protect children on its platforms, Facebook and Instagram, and has launched a formal investigation that could result in a hefty fine. The probe is the latest evidence that regulators are increasingly focussing on the harmful impact of Meta’s

By Sean Lyngaas, CNN Washington (CNN) — A pair of recent ransomware attacks crippled computer systems at two major American health care firms, disrupting patient care and exposing fundamental weaknesses in the US health care system’s defenses against hackers. In both cases, federal officials and private cyber experts scrambled to try to limit the damage

By Laura He, CNN Hong Kong (CNN) — Chinese stocks surged on Thursday after officials in a major city announced plans to buy unsold homes in what some analysts believe could be a trial run for a much bigger solution to the country’s property crisis. Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng Index closed up 1.6%, hitting

By Hanna Ziady, CNN London (CNN) — The chorus of voices warning about the dangers of record US government debt is growing louder. In the past 24 hours, JPMorgan (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon and Ray Dalio, founder of the world’s biggest hedge fund, have weighed in with concerns about America’s debt pile. In an interview

By Matt Egan and Kayla Tausche, CNN New York (CNN) — US Trade Representative Katherine Tai raised eyebrows this week by dismissing concerns that President Joe Biden’s new tariffs on China would increase prices for US customers like the Trump-era tariffs on China did. “First of all, I think that that link, in terms of

By Reuters Tokyo (Reuters) — Japan’s economy contracted in the first quarter, squeezed by weaker consumption and external demand and throwing a fresh challenge to policymakers as the central bank looks to lift interest rates away from near-zero levels. Preliminary gross domestic product (GDP) data from the Cabinet Office on Thursday showed Japan’s economy shrank 2.0% annualized in the January

By Hadas Gold, CNN (CNN) — The Caitlin Clark era in the WNBA kicked off in a big way Tuesday night. The season opener between the Indiana Fever and Connecticut Sun drew an average of 2.1 million viewers on ESPN2, ESPN+ and Disney+, making it the most watched WNBA game in more than two decades.

By Shawn Nottingham, CNN (CNN) — The president of Florida A&M University admits “misteps were made” in the handling of a purported $237 million stock gift to the school from a Texas businessman following concerns over the actual value of the donation. Dr. Larry Robinson told the university’s board of trustees at a special meeting,

By Rosa de Acosta and Simone McCarthy, CNN Hong Kong (CNN) — As countries around the world ramped up sanctions on Russia in the wake of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, it became clear that the Russian president still had a powerful friend in Xi Jinping. The Chinese leader, who declared a

By Nicole Goodkind, CNN New York (CNN) — Retirement is expensive, and more Americans see spending their later years abroad as a good option to stretch their savings and improve their quality of life. The number of Social Security recipients living outside the US increased from 307,000 in 2008 to more than 450,000 in 2022.