Companies can no longer offer severance agreements that prevent employees from making disparaging remarks about their former employer, the National Labor Relations Board ruled Tuesday.
The big picture: The federal agency said these agreements require employees to waive their rights under the National Labor Relations Act, and that such policies are a violation of the act.
Shorter workweeks are creeping into recruiting strategies, particularly for smaller businesses looking to compete against giant corporates.
Driving the news: Results out today from the world's largest four-day workweek trial show how roughly 3,000 workers across 61 companies in the U.K. benefitted in areas of stress, burnout and work-life balance.
The market for NFTs has gotten smaller. But it hasn't died.
Why it matters: Despite the societal and media urge to eulogize the fall of any once-big thing, more than $480 million worth of NFTs exchanged hands in the past 30 days. Perhaps more importantly, the market is changing in a fundamental way.
Day by day, financial markets worldwide are adjusting to the reality that rates are going to go higher.
That's the takeaway from the upward march in bond yields that has taken place throughout February and continued today.
Why it matters: In December and January, it looked like inflationary pressure was cooling, and that central banks worldwide were on track to be able to declare victory on inflation and even cut rates later this year.
Now, a series of economic indicators point to robust growth and continued inflation pressure, and that outlook is shifting — and not just in the United States.
Markets are now betting that major central banks will push rates higher, and that they will keep those high rates in place longer in their efforts to quash price pressures.
By the numbers: Ten-year U.S. Treasury yields are up another 0.08 percentage points, to 3.91% as of mid-morning. That rate was under 3.4% on Feb. 1.
German bond yields are up 0.45 percentage points from their recent lows Feb. 2. The British 10-year rate is up 0.6 percentage points in the same span.
Between the lines: Steeper borrowing costs are also translating into lower prices for stocks and other risky investments. The S&P 500 is down 1.4% as of mid-morning.
The bottom line: For much of last year, financial markets were adjusting to the prospect of tighter monetary policy as stock and bond prices moved together. December and January offered a break from this pattern, but it returned with a vengeance in February.
State and local governments are facing very different circumstances than they did during the yearslong slog that followed the Great Recession: They are swimming in cash.
Why it matters: State lawmakers have begun to hash out budget plans for this fiscal year. There are exceptions — California being one — but for the most part, state coffers are fat and generally finances are in good shape. That enables state-level spending to help keep growth humming.
Paxos Trust, the white-label stablecoin issuer behind Binance's namesake stablecoin binance usd (BUSD), severed its relationship with the crypto exchange, according to an internal company email viewed by Axios.
Faced with a deluge of short stories produced by ChatGPT, a respected science fiction magazine has closed the door on new submissions.
Why it matters: As the generative AI bandwagon gathers momentum, enabling easy mass production of text and images, every inbox is going to need new defenses.
Two batches of Enfamil ProSobee Simply Plant-Based Infant Formula are being recalled "due to a possibility of cross-contamination with Cronobacter sakazakii," parent company Reckitt announced in a recall notice.
Candle Media, the media roll-up company backed by Blackstone and led by former Disney executives Kevin Mayer and Tom Staggs, has hired former ABC News president James Goldston to lead a new, in-house production studio focused on nonfiction projects and documentaries.
Why it matters: To date, Candle has focused mostly on acquiring production studios — this is the first entity it's looking to build entirely on its own.
Americans searching for ways to fill new chunks of leisure time are leaning heavily toward pickleball, data out today from Yelp shows.
Zoom in: Interest in the game shot up by 275% from 2019 to 2022, according to changes in consumer actions such as viewing relevant business pages, sharing photos or posting reviews on Yelp.
The intrigue: Pickleball even made its way onto the agenda for the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting earlier this year in D.C.
Mayors in attendance at a pickleball breakout session discussed ways in which the sport can drive community engagement and real estate development.
One surprising takeaway from their conversation: people are having too much fun playing it.
"Some guys in Utah were doing surveys on the noise complaints from neighbors, and the number one complaint was that people were having too much fun and they were being loud — not the sound of the ball," said Tim Klitch, a franchise co-Owner of Major League Pickleball from Austin.
A better quality of life on the internet is becoming increasingly pricey.
Driving the news: The world’s biggest social platforms are experimenting with charging people for everything from improved account security and support, to the promise of wider public exposure.
