Stock markets surge Monday on signs of a trade truce between US and China
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McDonald's plans summertime hiring binge
McDonald's Corp. and its franchisees plan to recruit as many as 375,000 workers across the United States this summer in what the burger chain says is its biggest hiring spree in years. The Big Mac seller is gearing up to serve more customers as the weather warms up and the company expands, according to an announcement Monday. McDonald's said in 2023 that it would open 900 US locations over the following four years. The positions aren't intended to be seasonal or temporary. Roughly 800,000 people work at McDonald's restaurants. About 95 percent of the chain's more than 13,500 US locations are franchised, meaning they're run independently by operators who hire their own staff and set wages. The hiring announcement follows a disappointing first quarter for McDonald's, with executives pointing to consumer economic distress. Third-party data suggest that US trends have improved in April, thanks in part to the launch of a limited-time Minecraft meal. McDonald's estimates that about one in eight Americans have worked for the chain. — BLOOMBERG NEWS
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AIR TRAVEL
Flying through Newark? Keep waiting
Most flights destined for Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey were being delayed at their origin airports by more than an hour and 40 minutes Monday because of a shortfall in air traffic control staffing. The Federal Aviation Administration said in an advisory that it was delaying the incoming flights from all US airports and some in Canada. The agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Limited staffing, software and hardware problems, and runway construction have caused sometimes lengthy delays at Newark in recent weeks. While incoming flights were being held, few flights to or from Newark had been canceled, according to FlightAware, a flight tracking firm. Delays can have cascading effects on flights around the world. Monday's delay is the latest in a string of setbacks for Newark, one of the nation's busiest airports and a large hub for United Airlines. On Friday, an air traffic control facility that guides planes at the airport had a brief radar outage. A similar outage earlier in the month had left controllers unable to communicate with pilots for about 90 seconds. The Trump administration has also promised to install new fiber-optic cables connecting the airport and the facility, which was recently moved from Long Island in New York to Philadelphia. — NEW YORK TIMES
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FUND-RAISING
US clean-tech firms are eyeing the exits, expert says
Clean-tech companies that were eligible for support under former president Joe Biden are now considering leaving the United States as the Trump administration pulls the plug on financing, according to the former head of the program that vetted the firms. As director of the Loans Programs Office at the US Department of Energy when Biden was president, Jigar Shah helped select roughly 400 companies with development plans to receive grants and loans upwards of $100 million each. Shah, who last year was included in Time magazine's list of the most influential people for his contribution to advancing the clean-energy transition, said that since the inauguration of Donald Trump in January, many of the companies that benefited from Biden-era programs are now looking to shift all or part of their business outside the United States. Against that backdrop, Shah said in an interview that he's been talking to officials in Brussels about re-domiciling companies in Europe. About two-thirds of the businesses are currently headquartered in the United States, he said. Among clean-tech industries represented are nuclear power generation, suppliers for heat pumps and batteries, carbon capture and storage, and hydrogen. — BLOOMBERG NEWS
ECONOMY
N.Y. wind farm developer gets no help from White House visit, may kill project
Equinor ASA got no new signals that the Trump administration would reconsider the halt imposed on the Empire Wind project when its CEO met with a top White House official last week. Now the company must decide whether it will kill the project. 'If no progress is made within days, Equinor will be forced to terminate the project,' Molly Morris, president of Equinor Renewables Americas, said Monday. 'We are still fighting every day to find a resolution.' That came after there was no indication of a change in stance from US officials when the Norwegian oil and gas company's chief executive Anders Opedal and other top officials met with US National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett on May 6, spokesperson Magnus Eidsvold said Monday. A termination would cause the company to lose much of its $2.7 billion investment on the project. 'It would be a direct impact to Equinor and our balance sheet,' Morris said. The $5 billion project was halted in April when Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said the Biden administration had rushed its approvals. Empire 1 was fully-permitted and slated to start commercial operation in 2027. Its 54 turbines were designed to power 500,000 homes. The halt on Empire is bigger than Equinor or even offshore wind, Morris said. 'It's about honoring contracts and financial investments made in the US,' she said. 'They are setting a dangerous precedent by stopping a project in mid-execution.' — BLOOMBERG NEWS
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TECHNOLOGY
Trump, Apple CEO Cook speak as phonemaker weighs first major price hike since 2017.
President Trump said he spoke with Apple Inc. chief executive Tim Cook on Monday, just as the iPhone maker was reported to be considering price increases later this year. Apple is weighing whether to raise prices for an iPhone lineup coming in the fall, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter whom it didn't identify. The company is exploring whether to 'couple' price increases with new features and designs, while trying to avoid the perception that any hikes are tied to US tariffs, the Journal reported. Apple didn't respond to Bloomberg's request for comment. A few hours after the Journal report, Trump said he had spoken to Cook. He didn't address the potential price increases, instead focusing on how he thinks the company will end up raising its US spending plan beyond the $500 billion that it had pledged in February. 'He's going to be building a lot of plants in the US for Apple,' Trump said. Consumers and analysts have been bracing for Apple price increases for more than a month. Apple hasn't changed the starting price of its flagship iPhone model since it debuted the iPhone X in 2017 — keeping it at $999. — BLOOMBERG NEWS
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Bloomberg
16 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
South Korea's Lee to Visit US for First Meeting With Trump
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung will visit the US this month for his first meeting with President Donald Trump since taking office in June, a high-stakes trip set to spotlight a recently inked trade deal between the allies as well as security issues they share. Lee will travel to Washington for a summit with Trump on Aug. 25 that will also include a lunch between the leaders, South Korea's presidential office said on Tuesday. The leaders will discuss ways to develop their alliance in a 'future-oriented, comprehensive' manner, Lee's spokesperson Kang Yu-jung said.
Boston Globe
an hour ago
- Boston Globe
FDA regulator's reinstatement sends biotech shares tumbling
Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up AUTOMOTIVE Advertisement Ford rejigs EV plans after suffering billions in losses Just four years ago, Ford Motor seemed poised to give Tesla a real run for its money in electric vehicles. In 2021, the company introduced a stylish electric sport utility vehicle, the Mustang Mach-E, and quickly followed it a year later with a battery-powered version of its bestselling pickup, the F-150, and an electric van. The three new models gave Ford a jump on other established automakers like General Motors. But then the growth of electric car sales slowed and Tesla started slashing car prices. At the same time, higher material costs made it harder for established carmakers to make money on electric vehicles. Over the last 2½ years, Ford's electric vehicle division has lost $12 billion, including $2.2 billion in the first half of this year. This year, sales of its electric models have stalled, falling 12 percent in the first six months. Now, Ford has come up with a new plan. On Monday, the automaker said that it has developed new, lower-cost electric vehicle components that will allow it to sell more affordable cars. The first will be a medium-sized, four-door pickup truck that can seat five, have a front trunk in addition to its bed and have a starting price of $30,000, Ford said. That truck is expected to arrive in showrooms in 2027, while a new large electric pickup will be delayed by a year to 2028. The company also said it has developed a new manufacturing process that should also lower costs while improving quality. — NEW YORK TIMES Advertisement LABOR Mothers are leaving the workforce, erasing pandemic gains Working mothers, who helped drive much of the job market's post-pandemic comeback, are leaving the workforce in large numbers this year. The share of working mothers age 25 to 44 with young children has fallen nearly every month this year, dropping by nearly 3 percentage points between January and June, to the lowest level in more than three years, according to an analysis of federal data by Misty Heggeness, a professor at the University of Kansas and former principal economist at the Census Bureau. The drop has been enough to wipe out many of the gains made by working mothers after the pandemic, when remote work arrangements and flexible schedules lured many back to the labor force. But the reversal of many of those policies — with major corporations and government agencies now requiring employees to be back in the office five days a week — has had the opposite effect, Heggeness said. Sweeping federal layoffs have also been a setback for women and other caregivers, who have long relied on the government for stable and flexible employment. — WASHINGTON POST Advertisement CURRENCY Trump crypto firm announces $1.5 billion digital coin deal World Liberty Financial, the cryptocurrency startup founded last year by the Trump family, announced Monday that a publicly traded technology firm would begin buying large quantifies of its signature digital coin. The firm, a little-known tech company called ALT5 Sigma, is planning to sell $1.5 billion worth of shares, using the proceeds to buy $WLFI, a cryptocurrency created by World Liberty, the announcement said. Similar initiatives have become wildly popular in the crypto world this year, after the success of Strategy, a public tech company formerly known as MicroStrategy that has built a bitcoin stockpile worth billions of dollars. Strategy's stock price has soared in sync with the price of bitcoin, which has set a series of record highs in recent months. As part of the deal, World Liberty will receive shares in ALT5, according to securities filings, in return for $750 million worth of $WLFI coins. Eric Trump, the president's middle son, will join ALT5's board, and Zach Witkoff, a World Liberty founder and the son of President Trump's Middle East adviser, will serve as chair of the board. The deal marks the latest expansion of the Trumps' sprawling crypto empire, which has buoyed the family's finances and created sweeping conflicts of interest. Not long after starting World Liberty, Donald Trump began selling a so-called memecoin, known as $TRUMP, generating hundreds of millions of dollars for his family. His sons Eric and Donald Jr. are also involved in a separate bitcoin mining venture, American Bitcoin. At the same time that his family has invested in crypto, the president has implemented policies designed to boost the industry. — NEW YORK TIMES Advertisement LABOR Israel's biggest union declines to join general strike An attempt by Israeli hostage families to organize a nationwide strike against plans for a military takeover of Gaza was dealt a blow on Monday, when the country's main labor union declined to join in. The leader of Histadrut said he was concerned the union's involvement would divert the public discourse on the return of hostages into a political debate. The group represents 850,000 members, according to its website. 'If I knew that a strike, for even longer than one day, could stop the war and bring them home I'd have gone all in at full force,' Arnon Bar-David said after a meeting with representatives from the families. 'Unfortunately, and although my heart is bursting with anger, it's futile,' he added. Several of Israel's technology and venture capital companies have publicly voiced their support for the labor action, scheduled for Sunday, including Qumra Capital, Pitango Ltd, Ltd, and Fiverr International Ltd. Representatives of the Israel Business Forum, a group of 200 of the country's top business leaders, was present at the meeting on Monday. They stopped short of saying whether they will support the strike. — BLOOMBERG NEWS MEDIA Paramount strikes seven-year deal to stream UFC fights David Ellison has been the chair of Paramount for all of five days, but he already has something to show for it. Paramount announced Monday morning that it had struck a seven-year, $7.7 billion deal to claim exclusive streaming and broadcast rights in the United States for the Ultimate Fighting Championship. The deal will go into effect next year. The agreement will give Paramount access to the full slate of UFC's 30 fight nights, along with 13 of the sport's biggest events. All of the fights will be available on the Paramount+ streaming app, and some marquee matches will also broadcast on CBS, which Paramount owns. Last week, Skydance Media, of which Ellison is founder and CEO, finally took over Paramount — the parent company of CBS, Comedy Central, and the fabled Hollywood movie studio — after more than a year spent wrangling to buy it. Sports rights have become increasingly valuable to media organizations, as they attempt to sell more subscriptions to their streaming services and to increase the amount of time people spend there. 'We think it is going to be incredibly material in terms of increasing our engagement on Paramount+, driving subscriber acquisitions and also meaningfully growing revenue across the business,' Ellison said. The new deal will replace a yearslong arrangement between UFC and ESPN, and effectively doubles the total fee the sport will take in. ESPN currently pays roughly $550 million a year for UFC coverage. — NEW YORK TIMES Advertisement
NBC News
an hour ago
- NBC News
Trump's tax law will mostly benefit the rich, while leaving poorer Americans with less, CBO says
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump 's tax and spending law will result in less income for the poorest Americans while sending money to the richest, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported Monday. The CBO estimates that the 10% of poorest Americans will lose roughly $1,200 a year as they experience restrictions on government programs like Medicaid and food assistance, while the richest 10% of Americans will see their income increase by $13,600 from tax cuts. Overall, American households will see more income from the tax cuts in the legislation, including middle income households, but the largest benefit will go to the top 10% of earners. The CBO's report comes as lawmakers are away from Washington, many taking their messages about the bill to voters. Republicans muscled the legislation — deemed 'the big, beautiful bill' by Trump — through Congress in July. Democrats all vehemently opposed the legislation, warning that its tax cuts and spending priorities would come at the expense of vital government aid programs and a ballooning national debt. 'This really is a big, beautiful bill for billionaires, but for the poor and the working class in this country, you are actually poorer,' said Rep. Brendan Boyle, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, in an MSNBC interview on Monday. Changes to eligibility for government food assistance under the law will impact millions of Americans, the CBO found. Roughly 2.4 million people won't be eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program under new work requirements for many recipients. Low-income Americans could also see their income reduced through further restrictions on food aid and other types of assistance included in the law. Already, more than 10 million Americans are expected to be without health insurance by 2034 due to changes to Medicaid under the law. Following release of the report, Rep. Jason Smith, the Republican chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, said he took issue with CBO's methodology, repeating criticism he has made in the past. 'CBO has a troubled track record of getting its estimates incorrect and, like Democrats, is biased in favor of more federal spending and higher taxes,' Smith said on social media. 'Don't buy it.' Republicans have been eager to sell the upsides of the legislation — arguing that the tax cuts will spur economic growth — while they are on a monthlong summer break from Washington. But those who have held townhalls in their home districts have often been greeted by an earful from voters and activists. 'Tax the rich,' the crowd in Lincoln, Neb. chanted last week as Republican Rep. Michael Flood attempted to defend the bill. Still, Trump has been undeterred.
