The last time Donald Trump sounded off about Harley-Davidson, he backed a boycott of its products and threatened new taxes on the iconic motorcycle manufacturer. Today, he saw news of Harley’s weak first quarter—revenue down 10% and profit down 27%—and, somewhat unexpectedly, rode to the company’s rescue.
There’s a scandal in the 446 pages of the special counsel’s report on interference in the 2016 US presidential elections—and it has nothing to do with Russia. Instead, it’s of the typographical kind: There’s a double space following every period.
You are unlikely to ever find out what it feels like to amass $126 billion.
The French government has a daunting task ahead. The fire at Notre Dame de Paris destroyed its roof and spire and damaged a 62-foot stained glass window along with one of the world’s largest pipe organs. Priceless stonework was likely weakened by the extreme heat. Repairs will be arduous and expensive.
Paris is burning, and burning, and burning. As the roof of Notre Dame de Paris caught alight, the world was watching. Its steeple went next, eventually toppling into a cloud of billowing sunset-orange flames. It happened first in Paris, but it happened next across millions of screens the world over, in palms and on laps, at bars and in living rooms, replayed over and over again, even after the flames had subsided.
African swine fever is an incredibly contagious disease affecting pigs and wild boars. It almost always kills, and quickly: Mortality rates are about 100%, with most pigs dead within 10 days. (It doesn’t affect humans.) Since August, more than 100 outbreaks have been confirmed, in dozens of provinces across China, Mongolia, Vietnam, and Cambodia, ultimately resulting in the culling of a million pigs. For now, the virus shows no sign of stopping.
In a conference call this morning for investors in Wells Fargo, the scandal-plagued bank, there was a question on the line for Allen Parker, the bank’s temporary CEO: “What type of person,” an analyst asked, “is Wells Fargo looking for as a permanent CEO?”
Silicon Valley billionaires, world-famous entrepreneurs, Uber veterans: These are the largest investors in ride-hail company Uber, which today filed paperwork to go public.
It was enough to warrant a story all of its own: the courageous investment banker who actually took his paternity leave.
The People’s Daily bills itself as “among the most influential and authoritative newspapers in China.” As the official mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party, and the country’s most widely read newspaper, it’s a justifiable claim. Lately, the newspaper has taken its influence beyond disseminating information: It’s helping the Chinese government to curtail it.
Burmese pythons are not native to the swamps of the Florida Everglades. As transplants, however, they’re worryingly comfortable: they slither through marshy waterways, luxuriate in the balmy temperatures, and fill up on a steady supply of raccoons, opossums, and bobcats. Tens of thousands of these enormous snakes now thrive in the area, descended from former pets and escapees from a breeding facility destroyed by a hurricane in 1992.
The brains of mice and of humans may not be identical, but they have a few important things in common. Other than general gray wrinkliness, and a similar structure, each experiences a key window of development during adolescence, which begins in puberty and ends at adulthood. During this period, mice (and people) exhibit an intense desire for social interaction, in which the brain craves oxytocin, sometimes referred to as the love or cuddle hormone. Social interaction is more desirable and more rewarding, because the brain is more sensitive to environmental stimulation. But when the period ends, individuals become less interested in social interaction. The rewards that they derive from it are permanently diminished.
When the American revolutionary war hero Casimir Pulaski was baptized in Warsaw, Poland, in 1745, his parents opted for a ceremony at home, due to an unspecific “debility.” For centuries, historians assumed that this was ordinary post-natal weakness, not uncommon among newborns in 18th-century Poland. Now, however, following new DNA analysis on Pulaski’s skeleton by forensic anthropologists working out of Georgia, US, there’s a new explanation: Pulaski may have been born with indeterminate genitalia, and his parents keen to keep them under wraps.
Asbestos kills. This well-accepted fact, along with the similarly lethal effects of asbestos litigation on manufacturers’ bank accounts, has seen the carcinogenic substance all but vanish from US building sites over the past decades. These days, where the biggest bucks are to be made in taking the stuff out, rather than supplying or putting it in, it’s hard to imagine a return to the wild ways of yesteryear, when asbestos was a common feature of drywalling, fireproofing, and a wide variety of other kinds of construction.
Within the vast Permian Basin, in West Texas, at the Waha gas pipeline junction some 120 miles south of Midland, buyers and sellers come together to sell huge volumes of natural gas, destined to heat homes, generate electricity, and make chemicals.
Netflix’s The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina bills itself as a show about the occult, in which a half-witch, half-mortal teenager must navigate her life in two different worlds. In its forthcoming second season (to be released on April 5), however, the preoccupation is not so much with what it means to belong to both, but what it means to be female in either.
Aramco, the national oil company of Saudi Arabia, is the world’s most profitable company. The behemoth, which made $111 billion in net profit last year, yesterday filed a prospectus (pdf) for an international bond offering, giving the first public view of its finances and strategy.
UK politicians went back to the parliament floor tonight (April 1) to again place “indicative votes” on four possible strategies for leaving the European Union. Though not legally binding, this vote was designed to move the country out of political gridlock before the clock runs down and the latest leave date, April 12, arrives.
Charlie Burton is a UK-based foreign exchange trader, but he’s keeping the British pound at arm’s length.
Tim Sloan has left the building, and markets are relieved.
In a meeting with Conservative members of Parliament this afternoon (March 27), UK prime minister Theresa May appeared to bow to the increasing pressure to resign. She promised to step down as leader and let someone else take over—if Parliament finally okayed her much-maligned Brexit deal.
For almost a decade, at five locations across the US, a hungry customer could get a Panera sandwich for free, no strings attached.
By virtually every measure, 2018 was a superlative year for the securities industry in New York City, with profits up 11% on 2017’s already robust returns. For securities industry employees, however, end-of-year bonuses may have seemed decidedly lean, down almost 17% from the year before according to a New York State Comptroller estimate.
Economic commentator Stephen Moore is US president Donald Trump’s most recent nominee to the Federal Reserve’s board of governors—and economists are furious.
