Major chemical producers have agreed to pay billions of dollars to settle claims from U.S. water providers over toxic "forever chemicals" pollution.
Why it matters: The settlements are a significant step forward in the effort to reduce potentially dangerous chemicals in water systems across the country.
International terminals at the Port of Oakland, one of the West Coast's busiest marine ports, were closed Friday amid labor shortages, authorities said.
Driving the news: The terminals were closed for the day shift Friday, spokesperson Marilyn Sandifur said, and officials expected "significantly reduced or no operations for the second shift."
Shares of major telecoms reacted after a Bloomberg report suggested Amazon is talking to the wireless carriers about entering the mobile market as a reseller to boost Prime membership perks.
What they're saying: "We are always exploring adding even more benefits for Prime members, but don’t have plans to add wireless at this time," Bradley Mattinger, an Amazon spokesperson, tells Axios in a statement.
There is a quiet,defining feature of the hot labor market of the 2020s: a booming share of prime-age workers — those between 25 and 54 — who either have a job or are looking for one.
Why it matters: That continued last month. The labor force participation rate among this cohort is at the highest level since January 2007, according to this morning’s jobs report.
The Chairs of the House Committee on Agriculture and the Committee on Financial Services have written a discussion draft of legislation that would create regulatory pathways for digital assets to be issued and to trade in the U.S.
Why it matters: There's more than a trillion dollars in digital assets now, in a world of regulatory uncertainty (or even hostility). Clear rules could bring that much higher.
Is the American labor market white-hot or losing steam? The answer from the May jobs report released on Friday: yes.
Why it matters: The labor market is roaring, with employers once again adding way more payrolls than forecasters anticipated. Still, there are signs of softening trends that could suggest we're at a turning point.
BJC HealthCare of St. Louis and Saint Luke's Health System of Kansas City said that they are exploring a merger that could create a 28-hospital academic health system valued at around $10 billion.
Why it matters: The combined company wouldn't have geographic overlap, which seems to be key for U.S. hospital operators that want to expand (and cut costs) without attracting antitrust attention.
One of the ways that blockchain networks promise to work differently than technology as we know it is by offering composability. But what is it?
Why it matters: Composability is one of those things that opens up surprising new applications. What kind of applications? Well it's hard to say because they're... surprising.
Staking ether in order to secure the second largest blockchain (and earn yield) had its best month ever in May.
Why it matters: This result makes it clear that the world wanted to invest more in ether, but the fact that investors couldn't withdraw those investments at will was holding them back.
The self-employment boom we saw during the pandemic recovery seems to have fizzled out.
Why it matters: We're not in a YOLO economy anymore. The days of quitting your job to follow your dreams peaked in mid-2021.
Some of those efforts worked out — the number of people who formed an actual business employing themselves continues to rise. But in other cases, the self-employed effectively quit on themselves in order to take a job with an employer.
In May, the number of unincorporated self-employed Americans fell by 369,000. Many of them will have been among the 339,000 workers added to formal payrolls last month.
The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled unanimously in favor of Slack, in its appeal of a shareholder lawsuit over the enterprise chat company's 2019 direct listing.
Why it matters: This raises major questions about the future viability of direct listings, which some companies believe are a more efficient alternative to IPOs.
Gov. Ron DeSantis’ rage against CNN and MSNBC — along with former President Trump’s polling lead and distrust of Fox News — has created a deadlock over who will host the rest of the 2024 GOP presidential debates, and uncertainty over whether they'll happen at all.
Why it matters: Debates can make or break a presidential candidacy. And who hosts those debates can have a significant impact on which contenders chose to participate, and how they perform.
Twitter head of trust and safety Ella Irwin resigned Thursday evening, per multiple sources, after owner Elon Musk publicly rebuked his own staff over a content moderation decision.
Catch up quick: Twitter staff had decided that a video titled "What is a Woman?" by the Daily Wire's Matt Walsh, a far-right personality who often attacks transgender people, violated the platform's hate-speech rules.
My 80-year-old dad, John VandeHei, pulled me aside during a recent pilgrimage to my homeland — Oshkosh, Wisconsin — with an idea for the perfect Finish Line column. He was right.
Reflecting on the stuff that sticks eight decades into life, he handed me a note from his granddaughter (my oldest niece), Ally, and said: "It's the little things." They are the Big Things.
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