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Twitter changed to X. People tried out Bluesky and Mastodon and fretted about AI bots and teen mental health. People also cocooned in private chats and scrolled endlessly as they did in years past. For social media users, 2023 was a year of beginnings and endings, with some soul-searching in between. Here's a look back [...]
WASHINGTON (AP) — There’s been no shortage of tough news for China’s economy as some of the world’s biggest brands consider or take action to shift manufacturing to friendlier shores at a time of unease about security controls, protectionism and wobbly relations between Beijing and Washington. Count Adidas, Apple and Samsung among those looking elsewhere. [...]
The tide turned against inflation. Artificial intelligence went mainstream — for good or ill. Labor unions capitalized on their growing might to win more generous pay and benefits. Elon Musk renamed and rebranded the social media platform Twitter, removed guardrails against phony or obscene posts and ranted profanely when advertisers fled in droves. The American [...]
Standing on a portable stage erected at home plate of the Milwaukee Brewers ballpark, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers recently praised the professional baseball team as an "essential part" of the state's "culture and identity" and "economic success." With fanfare, Evers then signed off on $500 million in public aid for the stadium's renovation, adding to [...]
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — When a toilet is flushed in California, the water can end up in a lot of places: an ice skating rink near Disneyland, ski slopes around Lake Tahoe, farmland in the Central Valley, and — coming soon — kitchen faucets. California regulators last week approved new rules to let water agencies recycle [...]
DETROIT (AP) — America's automakers have staked their futures on the notion that electric vehicles will dominate sales in the coming years, spurred by buyers determined to reduce carbon emissions and save on fuel. So far, however, while EV sales are growing, their pace is falling well short of the industry's ambitious timetable for transitioning [...]
When the coronavirus pandemic took hold, states scrambled for masks and other protective gear. Three years later, as the grips of the pandemic have loosened, many states are now trying to deal with an excess of protective gear, ditching their supplies in droves. With expiration dates passing and few requests to tap into its stockpile, [...]
NEW YORK (AP) — As many shoppers are waiting for packages to arrive during the busiest shipping period of the year, some of America’s biggest retailers are working to increase their shipping speeds to please shoppers expecting faster and faster deliveries. Walmart, Target and Amazon are all-in on the shipping wars, a move retail analysts [...]
NEW YORK (AP) — The promise of self-checkout was alluring: Customers could avoid long lines by scanning and bagging their own items, workers could be freed of doing those monotonous tasks themselves and retailers could save on labor costs. All that has happened since the rollout of self-checkout but so has this: Customers griping about [...]
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration has initiated a formal evaluation of risks posed by vinyl chloride, the cancer-causing chemical that burned in a towering plume of toxic black smoke following a fiery train derailment earlier this year in East Palestine. The Environmental Protection Agency said it will review risks posed by a handful of [...]