Business

Linked media - Linked media The Biden administration announced on Thursday that it was proposing new regulations for how airlines must treat passengers in wheelchairs, an effort aimed at improving air travel for people with disabilities. Under the proposed rule, damaging or delaying the return of a wheelchair would be an automatic violation of an existing federal law that bars airlines from discriminating against people with disabilities. The Transportation Department said that change would make it easier for the agency to penalize airlines for mishandling wheelchairs. The proposed regulations would also require more robust training for workers who physically assist disabled passengers or handle their wheelchairs. “There are millions of Americans with disabilities who do not travel b...

Connected media - Related media The Treasury Department has already proposed rules meant to limit China’s ability to supply materials for cars and trucks that qualify for a $7,500 electric vehicle tax credit included in Mr. Biden’s signature climate bill. The Commerce Department investigation announced on Thursday grew from a series of conversations that administration officials had with automakers last fall, after the settlement of a United Automobile Workers strike during which Mr. Biden stood with the union and joined a picket line. The carmakers told administration officials about the restrictions they faced selling in China, including on software. Biden aides began to grow concerned about what might happen if the United States did not impose similar restrictions on Chinese softw...

Associated media - Linked media Cutbacks were just announced at Law360, The Intercept and the youth-oriented video site NowThis, which laid off half its staff. The tech news site Engadget, which comprehensively tracks tech layoffs, laid off its top editors and other staff members. Condé Nast and Time are shedding employees. The continued existence of Vice Media, once valued at $5.7 billion, and Sports Illustrated, in another era the most influential sports publication, is uncertain. The Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post eliminated hundreds of journalists between them. One out of four newspapers that existed in 2005 no longer does. The slow crash of newspapers and magazines would be of limited interest save for one thing: Traditional media had at its core the exalted and diffi...

Related media - Linked media The names of both teams have been criticized, with some fans taking to social media. “Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber might be the worst name for a team in F1 history,” a fan wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “When you try something new, and when you have a team name that is different from other team names, it’s always easy to be critical,” Alunni Bravi said. “Of course, there was criticism from those close to the Sauber name, and maybe they expected something different. “Maybe we went too extreme, but we wanted to do something new and attractive for our fan base. When Drake announced our name, we had 22 million impressions, a number we never achieved with a single post on our social media platforms. It was huge.” For Bayer, landing Visa was as big a coup....

Linked media - Linked media There was “a lot of interior space and very little access to natural light,” said Kelley M. Bender, the firm’s chief operating partner. And retrofitting the old offices for current technology, including that needed for hybrid meetings, would be difficult. The firm also acknowledged that the work force had changed, requiring less space. Lawyers who commit to returning to work three days of week are assigned their own offices; those who don’t still have office space, “but not necessarily one with their name on the door,” Ms. Bender said. Chapman’s decision was in keeping with others in the Chicago market, said Daniel Arends, the chairman of the law firm services group at Colliers, a real estate services firm. He added that in the past nine years, 33 law firm...

Related media - Associated media More than 50 Chinese property developers have defaulted on debts since 2021. They have refused to repay overseas creditors while still making arrangements with Chinese banks for possible eventual repayment. Many of these developers have shares listed on the Hong Kong stock market or have borrowed there, or both. But creditors face formidable obstacles in seeking to recover loans from Chinese real estate developers through petitions to the court system in Hong Kong, said Zerlina Zeng, the head of East Asia corporate credits at CreditSights, a global credit research firm. Most of the assets of Chinese developers are in mainland China, where courts might not recognize liquidation orders from Hong Kong. Even if mainland courts order liquidation sales of d...

Related media - Connected media “The products are being recalled due to lack of sterility assurance at the facility noted during an inspection conducted by the Food and Drug Administration,” the announcement said. It added that, as of Feb. 16, the company had not received any reports of adverse reactions related to these products. The products are intended to be sterile, the administrator said, because drugs applied to the eyes bypass some of the body’s natural defense systems. Other eye products have been recalled in recent months. In October, the F.D.A. advised consumers to stop using more than two dozen over-the-counter eyedrop products sold at stores including Target, CVS and Walmart after inspectors found unsanitary conditions at a manufacturing plant. Bacterial tests came back ...

Associated media - Connected media Workers who have helped lead the organizing said the development had surprised them. “It still feels pretty surreal right now,” said Michelle Eisen, a longtime barista at a Starbucks in Buffalo that was the first company-owned store to unionize during the current campaign. “There has not been a single call I’ve been on today where either I wasn’t crying or everyone else wasn’t crying.” If a framework is agreed to and quickly leads to contracts, experts said, it could be a major development in labor relations in corporate America, where companies like Amazon and Apple have resisted union organizing to varying degrees. “If Starbucks genuinely intends to respect workers’ right to organize, stop its intimidation and harassment of pro-union workers, and ...

Associated media - Connected media “There’s a lot that goes into moving these safely and properly,” said Angeline Beltsos, chief executive physician at Kindbody, which has 35 clinics across the country and provides fertility benefit coverage for employers, including Walmart. Will my health insurance cover the cost to move my embryos if I can no longer get I.V.F. in my home state? Maybe. Some coverage could be broad enough to pay for the transport of embryos. “It is likely that employees working for large employers have some kind of coverage,” said Elizabeth Mitchell, the chief executive officer of Purchaser Business Group on Health, which represents large employers that provide benefits for their workers. Would fertility coverage pick up my treatment elsewhere? Maybe, and it’s more l...

Related media - Linked media Though Apple had not unveiled its car to consumers, the product had for many years been one of Silicon Valley’s worst-kept secrets because it was being tested on public roads. The cancellation is a rare move by Apple, which typically doesn’t shelve such public and high-profile projects. The company has struggled in recent years to find new avenues for growth as its all-important iPhone has saturated the market and people are upgrading their phones less frequently than they used to. Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, has publicly hinted that Apple was interested in entering the car space. The company had also been testing hundreds of vehicles equipped with autonomous driving technology in public for many years. The car, internally code-named Titan and Proj...