Ford Motor Co. and its South Korean battery partner are getting a divorce.

SK On said Thursday it's made an agreement with Ford to exit their electric vehicle battery joint venture that had invested $11.4 billion into Kentucky and Tennessee. It's another sign of the dissipation of EV momentum in the United States as it becomes clear consumer ...Read more

OpenAI said Thursday it reached a licensing deal with the Walt Disney Co. to use more than 200 popular Disney characters including Mickey Mouse, characters from “Frozen” and Yoda from “Star Wars” in OpenAI’s text to video tool Sora. Disney has also agreed to invest $1 billion in the San Francisco AI startup.

The deal marks a ...Read more

Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp. are intensifying their India push with a combined $52 billion in fresh investment, underscoring the country’s rising status as a key growth market for artificial intelligence, cloud services and online retail.

E-commerce giant Amazon on Wednesday boosted its India investment pledge to $35 billion through ...Read more

Applications for U.S. unemployment benefits rose last week by the most since the onset of the pandemic, underscoring the volatile nature of claims at this time of year.

Initial claims increased by 44,000 to 236,000 in the week ended Dec. 6, according to Labor Department data released Thursday. That was the biggest jump since March 2020 and ...Read more

Texas is about to deploy a potential solution to the oil industry’s toxic wastewater problem — but it’s a move that carries environmental risks of its own.

State regulators are working to issue permits that would let four companies, including major landowner Texas Pacific Land Corp. and pipeline operator NGL Energy Partners LP, release ...Read more

The grocery delivery service Instacart is using artificial intelligence to experiment with prices and charge some shoppers more than others for the same items, a new study found.

The study from nonprofits Groundwork Collaborative and Consumer Reports followed more than 400 shoppers in four cities and found that Instacart sometimes offered as ...Read more

Video gaming platform Roblox is facing more lawsuits from parents who allege the San Mateo, California, company isn't doing enough to safeguard children from sexual predators.

A Los Angeles County mother, whose identity wasn't revealed in a November lawsuit, alleges that her daughter met a predator on Roblox who persuaded her child to send ...Read more

If there were any doubts that hostile corporate takeovers, which went into a decline after their heyday in the 1980s, are back, the $78 billion hostile bid by Paramount for Warner Bros. Discovery should put them to rest.

The bid by Paramount, which is controlled by the family of billionaire Larry Ellison, has many of the features of hostile ...Read more

Time has named “the Architects of AI” as the magazine’s 2025 Person of the Year, recognizing the influence of the revolutionary technology on society, culture and the future of work.

This year, the honor given to any person, group, idea, or object that most influenced the global conversation over the past 12 months went to the individuals...Read more

A pro-housing group sued Gov. Newsom on Wednesday over his decision to restrict SB 9, a housing law that allows owners to parcel up their properties, in the wake of the January fires.

YIMBY Law, a San Francisco-based organization, alleges that Newsom's executive order over the summer allowing cities to suspend SB 9 is a constitutional overreach...Read more

Coca-Cola has named a successor to CEO James Quincey who will take the reins of the global beverage giant early next year.

Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Henrique Braun will become chief executive on March 31, with Quincey moving into the role of executive chairman, Coca-Cola said in a late Wednesday news release. Braun ...Read more

Most customers of state-owned Citizens Property Insurance Corp. could see significant rate decreases in 2026.

The company is recommending an average 2.6% statewide rate decrease for personal lines accounts beginning on June 1, the start of hurricane season.

Across the state, a projected 463,096 policyholders would save an average of $359 ...Read more

Federal Reserve officials delivered a third consecutive interest-rate reduction and maintained their outlook for just one cut in 2026.

The Federal Open Market Committee voted 9-3 Wednesday to lower the benchmark federal funds rate by a quarter point to a range of 3.5%-3.75%. It also subtly altered the wording of its statement suggesting greater...Read more

The number of federal employees who left their jobs in 2025 will total about 317,000, according to the Office of Personnel Management, after efforts by Elon Musk and the Trump administration to reshape the government workforce.

In the most detailed official accounting to date, OPM Director Scott Kupor said Wednesday in a post on X that the ...Read more

Amazon.com Inc.’s new Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is the company’s most serious effort yet to turn its e-reader into a productivity tool. But with a starting price of $630 — making it the priciest Kindle yet — Amazon will need to persuade even its most loyal readers that the upgrade is worth it.

The device, which went on sale starting in ...Read more

Michigan's auto industry remains dominant by several metrics but faces serious threats from southern states and China, from the electric vehicle transition and other technological upheaval, and from educational shortcomings, a new MichAuto report finds.

"Michigan cannot expect to win the future of the industry through legacy alone," Glenn ...Read more

Federal Reserve officials delivered a third consecutive interest-rate reduction and maintained their outlook for just one cut in 2026.

The Federal Open Market Committee voted 9-3 Wednesday to lower the benchmark federal funds rate by a quarter point to a range of 3.5%-3.75%. It also subtly altered the wording of its statement suggesting greater...Read more

Ford Motor Co. will develop two passenger electric vehicles for Europe with French rival Renault SA, and the two automakers will explore collaboration on light commercial vehicles.

The companies announced the partnership on Tuesday after the European Commission delayed a meeting scheduled this week to advance an automotive package that could ...Read more

People aren't lovin' it.

McDonald's was forced to pull down an AI-generated Christmas commercial from YouTube after some consumers said the AI-slop-filled tongue-in-cheek take on the holidays was distasteful.

The ad, titled "It's the most terrible time of the year," was a satirical take on holiday realities. It showed a series of short, ...Read more