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Dreamstime/Dreamstime/TNS

WA real estate service settles with Compass in transparency fight

Business / Business News /

A fierce fight over transparency in the local real estate industry appears to have reached a truce.

The primary repository for home listings across Western Washington, the Northwest Multiple Listing Service, has settled with the brokerage Compass and loosened its stance on semiprivate home listings.

Compass touted the settlement Monday, saying...Read more

Erika Schultz/The Seattle Times/TNS

WA envisioned as Napa Valley of tea, with new large matcha farm

Business / Business News /

Exactly 130 years ago, Seattle welcomed the Miike Maru, a Japanese cargo steamship that established the first shipping lane between Tokyo and the U.S.

"Their first shipment was actually tea," Luke Larson, CEO and founder of Vale Concepts matcha company, said last week.

Since then, tea has secured its spot in the hearts of Washingtonians, ...Read more

Rachel Garringer/Dreamstime/TNS

Cash-strapped colleges are draining their endowments to survive

Business / Business News /

A college endowment is supposed to last forever, supporting students, professors and research in perpetuity.

Instead, many cash-strapped schools are draining their nest eggs just to stay alive.

Faced with multi-million dollar deficits, Hiram College in rural Ohio borrowed from its $56 million endowment. The 1,000-student liberal arts school �...Read more

PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP/Getty Images North America/TNS

Bill to aid California newsrooms now on the governor's desk

Business / Business News /

California lawmakers have approved a bill that seeks to throw a lifeline to the state's struggling journalism organizations.

Assembly Bill 2222, which would create refundable tax credits for California local news organizations based on the number of journalists they employ, joins a litany of bills on Gov. Gavin Newsom's desk.

The state Senate ...Read more

Meri Simon/Bay Area News Group/TNS

H-1B visa: Trump administration proposes new rule to strip right to work from visa holders' spouses

Business / Business News /

The Trump administration has revived plans to end work authorization for certain spouses of H-1B visa holders, potentially forcing an unknown number of Bay Area residents from their jobs and making it harder for Silicon Valley companies to recruit and retain foreign workers.

The planned rule would reverse a 2015 policy allowing people on H-4 ...Read more

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images North America/TNS

Study: How much income is considered middle-class in the Bay Area?

Business / Business News /

A new study looks at how much annual household income it takes to be considered middle-class in the most expensive cities in the U.S. Not surprisingly, Bay Area cities took up eight spots in the list of the 10 most expensive cities with a population over 100,000, compiled by MoneyLion, a mobile banking company.

The most affluent city on the ...Read more

Former Meta executive at Reality Labs named Redfin's new CEO

Business / Business News /

Just over a year after acquiring Redfin, Rocket Companies has named a former Meta executive as Redfin's CEO.

Alessio Sanfilippo, Meta's former vice president of insights for Reality Labs — a division focused on building virtual and augmented reality products — will fill the shoes of longtime Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman, effective immediately.

...Read more

Ronaldo Bolaños/Los Angeles Times/TNS

Trump calls for federal tax incentives to revive US film industry

Business / Business News /

President Trump on Monday urged Congress to approve federal tax incentives aimed at reviving American film and television productions, saying Hollywood has been hollowed out by productions moving to Canada and other countries.

In a social media post, Trump said he met with actor Jon Voight, whom he has designated as "Hollywood Ambassador," and ...Read more

Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times/TNS

Los Angeles County sues State Farm over its handling of wildfire claims

Business / Business News /

Los Angeles County announced Monday that it had filed a lawsuit against State Farm General after hundreds of victims of last year's devastating wildfires complained that their claims had been delayed, denied or underpaid.

The lawsuit alleges that State Farm engaged in illegal and deceptive business practices that kept victims of the Palisades ...Read more

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images North America/TNS

California joins 21 other states in lawsuit against Amazon over inflated ad prices

Business / Business News /

California Attorney General Rob Bonta has added California to the list of states suing Amazon, alleging that the online retail giant overcharged businesses using the platform to advertise their products.

The Federal Trade Commission is also part of the suit against Amazon. According to Bonta, the e-commerce giant has “secretly, systematically...Read more

Rebecca Droke/AFP/GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/TNS

United Steelworkers and US Steel continue bargaining as contract expiration nears

Business / Business News /

United Steelworkers has agreed to a 30-day extension of the labor union’s contract with U.S. Steel Corp., as negotiations for a new agreement — the first since Nippon Steel’s acquisition of the Pittsburgh-based steelmaker — continue.

The union, which represents more than 10,000 workers under a master agreement across U.S. Steel ...Read more

Homeowners in Black neighborhoods are paying more for insurance. Pittsburgh offers a troubling example

Business / Business News /

Lyft driver Elwin Green knew exactly what he was paying to insure his home in Pittsburgh's Homewood neighborhood.

What he didn’t know was that his homeowners insurance bill was more than twice what the average homeowner in some of Allegheny County’s wealthiest communities are paying.

Green, 74, pays Allstate $3,875 a year to insure his 2,...Read more

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images North America/TNS

AI is watching your spending and setting your prices accordingly. California lawmakers want to stop it

Business / Business News /

In 2025, a New York resident filed a lawsuit against JetBlue Airlines.

The lawsuit included a screenshot of a tweet from X. In it, a user complained to JetBlue that they were trying to "make it to a funeral" but that flight prices had risen $230 in just one day. A JetBlue representative replied to the tweet, recommending that the customer clear...Read more

Clarence Tabb Jr./The Detroit News/TNS

Feds unveil new crackdown on fraud in nation's trucking industry

Business / Business News /

Federal officials in Detroit announced a broad crackdown on fraud within the trucking industry Aug. 31 that includes immediately shutting down more than 100 truck-driving schools in an attempt to boost safety on America’s roads and prevent injuries and deaths.

The crackdown, including a new task force involving law enforcement and federal ...Read more

Chad Livengood/The Detroit News/TNS

Canada's retaliatory tariffs poised to hit Michigan manufacturing

Business / Business News /

Canada's retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods could constrain about $1.5 billion worth of Michigan exports, according to a Detroit News analysis of federal trade data.

The tariffs, ranging from 15% to 50%, are set to take effect Sept. 8 and will apply to more than 700 items, including iron, steel, aluminum and derivative articles made from those ...Read more

AMAZON/TNS

Amazon is bringing drone delivery back to California

Business / Business News /

Amazon customers in Tracy, California, could soon receive their packages from an autonomous drone in as little as 30 minutes.

The e-commerce giant is preparing to launch its Prime Air service in Tracy as part of a broader expansion effort that will bring delivery drones to 500 cities and towns by the end of the year.

Prime Air already operates...Read more

Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images North America/TNS

Avoiding the family drama: How Josh Kushner built a $16 billion legacy and became the newest owner of the Lakers

Business / Business News /

When news broke that Mark Walter's insurance businesses were under federal investigation and that the Lakers and Dodgers owner might be in financial trouble, Josh Kushner sensed a business opportunity.

The New York venture capitalist called former Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger — his partner in a bid for a new Las Vegas NBA franchise — ...Read more

Thomas Simonetti/AFP/Getty Images North America/TNS

Tech industry's warning as Maryland counties block data centers

Business / Business News /

Charles Degliomini worries Maryland is racing toward a wall of its own making. The executive vice president at Rekor Systems — a Columbia-based technology firm that uses AI for roadway intelligence — says Baltimore-area jurisdictions’ fight against data centers is cutting off the very infrastructure artificial intelligence needs to keep up...Read more

General Motors/General Motors/TNS

Casey Williams: GM is serious about EVs even as the segment struggles domestically

Business / Business News /

It’s May 1969 at the General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Michigan. Company leaders are gathered to drive proposals for efficient commuter cars, including the 512 Electric — a microcar with removable canopy and lead acid batteries that goes 58 miles … at 25 mph.

Three decades later, GM introduced the Impact concept that became the ...Read more

Vincent Feuray/Hans Lucas/AFP/Getty Images North America/TNS

Lawsuit claims Elon Musk's AI company chatbot Grok produced child pornography based on woman's childhood rapes

Business / Business News /

A woman repeatedly raped as a child by a man who put photos and videos of the crimes online claims in a lawsuit that Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence firm xAI allowed imagery of her abuse onto its X social media platform, and that the company’s Grok chatbot generated additional child pornography from the images.

The woman, identified as ...Read more