Business
Several Western news organizations suspend operations in Russia.

A number of Western media organizations moved on Friday to droop their journalistic operations in Russia within the wake of a harsh new crackdown on information and free speech by President Vladimir V. Putin’s authorities.
Bloomberg Information and the BBC mentioned their correspondents in Russia may not freely report due to the brand new censorship regulation signed by Mr. Putin on Friday, which successfully criminalized impartial journalism on the invasion of Ukraine. Beneath the laws, which may take impact as early as Saturday, journalists who merely describe the struggle as a “struggle” may very well be sentenced to jail.
“The change to the prison code, which appears designed to show any impartial reporter right into a prison purely by affiliation, makes it inconceivable to proceed any semblance of regular journalism contained in the nation,” Bloomberg’s editor in chief, John Micklethwait, wrote in a observe to employees.
CNN Worldwide, the worldwide arm of CNN, mentioned it had stopped airing in Russia, and ABC Information mentioned that it could not broadcast from the nation on Friday. “We’ll proceed to evaluate the scenario and decide what this implies for the security of our groups on the bottom,” ABC Information, which relies in New York, mentioned in a press release.
Information organizations aren’t essentially asking their correspondents to depart Russia, at the very least not but.
“We aren’t pulling out BBC Information journalists from Moscow,” Jonathan Munro, the interim director of BBC Information, wrote on Twitter. “We can not use their reporting in the interim however they continue to be valued members of our groups and we hope to get them again on our output as quickly as doable.”
He added: “Ideas with colleagues in Moscow whose voices can’t be silenced for lengthy.”
A spokeswoman for The New York Instances had no quick touch upon Friday.
The censorship regulation builds on the Kremlin’s insistence that characterizations of its assaults on Ukraine as a “struggle” or “invasion” moderately than a “particular navy operation” quantity to disinformation. Its passage prompted a number of impartial Russian media shops to close down their operations, as nicely.
A number of overseas information shops mentioned their journalists in Ukraine would proceed to report on the Russian invasion. This week, the BBC mentioned it could use shortwave radio frequencies to broadcast information in Kyiv and in components of Russia.
Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman for Russia’s Overseas Ministry, accused the BBC of enjoying “a decided function in undermining the Russian stability and safety.” Early on Friday, the BBC reported that entry to its web site in Russia gave the impression to be restricted.
Mr. Putin has been dismantling the final vestiges of a Russian free press. On Thursday, the pillars of Russia’s impartial broadcast media collapsed beneath strain from the state.
Echo of Moscow, the freewheeling radio station that was based by Soviet dissidents in 1990 and symbolized Russia’s new freedoms, was “liquidated” by its board. TV Rain, the youthful impartial tv station that calls itself “the optimistic channel,” mentioned it could droop operations indefinitely.
And Dmitri A. Muratov, the journalist who shared the Nobel Peace Prize final 12 months, mentioned that his newspaper Novaya Gazeta, which survived the murders of six of its journalists, may very well be on the verge of shutting down as nicely.

Business
Epic Games says Apple blocked 'Fortnite' in U.S. app store
Epic Games on Friday said that its popular game “Fortnite” will be offline on Apple devices because the iPhone maker blocked its recent app update.
The dispute comes just weeks after Epic Games and other app developers cheered a judge’s ruling that limited the commissions that Apple makes through third party apps distributed through its app store.
Apple received a scathing rebuke from U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who sided with Epic Games, which alleged that the Cupertino, Calif., tech giant ran afoul of an order she issued in 2021 after finding the company engaged in anticompetitive behavior.
Under the ruling, Apple can’t collect commissions on purchases U.S. customers make through links inside iPhone apps that direct them to outside websites. Developers, which make money by selling digital goods and services via their apps and games, want to avoid giving Apple a cut of their revenue by sending customers to other websites.
“That [Apple] thought this court would tolerate such insubordination was a gross miscalculation,” the judge wrote in her ruling.
Many developers applauded the court’s ruling, which limits what they call the Apple tax, and said they would pass on the savings to customers.
Epic Games’ Chief Executive Tim Sweeney earlier this month said “Fornite” would return to the App Store in the U.S. and possibly worldwide if Apple extends “the court’s friction free, Apple tax-free framework” globally. But on Friday, the “Fortnite” X account said that Apple blocked its submission.
“Now, sadly, Fortnite on iOS will be offline worldwide until Apple unblocks it,” the account posted. Epic Games did not return requests for further comment.
Apple said on Friday that it asked that “Epic Sweden resubmit the app update without including the U.S. storefront of the App Store so as not to impact Fortnite in other geographies.”
“We did not take any action to remove the live version of Fortnite from alternative distribution marketplaces,” Apple said in a statement.
Rob Enderle, principal analyst with advisory services firm Enderle Group, said the recent ruling applies to the U.S. and Apple wants to retain the rest of its control worldwide. Apple makes significant money through apps.
“Apple is using their … strength to prevent ‘Fortnite’ from benefiting globally from their core win,” Enderle said.
Epic Games filed its lawsuit against Apple in 2020. “Fornite” generates revenue by letting people buy digital goods, such as “skins,” in the game, and Epic wanted to let users buy items outside the Apple system to avoid the company’s commission.
While the judge ruled that Apple did not have a monopoly in the mobile gaming market, the court ordered Apple to let app developers put links in its apps so customers could make outside purchases and bypass the company’s commission fee. Apple, however, defied the order, the court said.
Apple limited the ways that developers could communicate with its customers about out-of-app purchases and used wording that discouraged users from clicking on those links, the judge wrote. Apple would charge a commission fee for any goods or services purchased within seven days of a consumer clicking on a link that took them out of the app, the ruling said.
Apple is appealing the ruling and has said it strongly disagreed with the judge’s decision.
Business
Consumers Show Signs of Strain Amid Trump's Tariff Rollout

The U.S. consumer has seemed unstoppable in recent years, spending throughout soaring inflation and the highest borrowing costs in decades. That resilience helped to keep at bay a recession that many thought inevitable after the pandemic.
Consumer spending has fueled the economy
Year-over-year percentage change in retail and food service sales
President Trump’s tariffs and their scattershot rollout have once again raised concerns that the United States may soon face an economic downturn. While the odds of an outright recession have fallen as the highest levies have been paused, there are reasons to be worried about the ability of consumers to continue to prop up growth.
Consumer spending accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, meaning a sharp enough pullback could cause significant damage.
For now, consumers are still spending, although more slowly than in the past. Their attitudes about the economic outlook have soured in recent months in anticipation of elevated prices, slower growth and higher unemployment. Americans have also become choosier about how they spend their money. Leisure and business travel has declined. People are buying fewer snacks and eating out less as they look to cut costs. They are even doing fewer loads of laundry to save money.
“The economy is really vulnerable to anything that could go wrong, and clearly there’s a lot that could go wrong,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics.
It is not yet clear if the slowdown simply reflects distortions related to stockpiling before Mr. Trump’s trade war starts to really bite, or if it is an early sign of a full-blown retreat.
Part of what has enabled consumers to spend so freely up until this point is a stockpile of savings that they accrued as a result of government stimulus during the pandemic and a booming stock market. Those savings have now largely been tapped out.
“The cushion that was there during the pandemic to weather the storm of higher prices is not there now,” Diane Swonk, the chief economist at KPMG, said. The highest-earning 10 percent of Americans, who drive the bulk of consumer spending, are still in good shape, but it’s the bottom 90 percent that worry her most.
Those households are under increased financial stress.
The share of outstanding credit card debt that is 90 days or more past due started increasing in 2023 and has continued to rise across geographies and income levels, according to data through the first quarter of this year released Tuesday by the New York Fed and research by the St. Louis Fed. The trend has become particularly pronounced for poorer households.
Credit card delinquency is high
Percentage of credit card debt that is 90 days or more past due
And real-time credit reports from Experian, one of the three major U.S. credit rating firms, suggest the pace accelerated in April.
Americans are struggling with other kinds of payments, too. The overall delinquency rate, which includes all loan types, reached its highest level since 2020 in the first quarter of this year, according to the Fed data. This was driven by student loan delinquencies, as past-due student loans once again were included in credit reports after a pandemic-era pause on federal student loan repayments.
Because they now have to pay down those balances after a five-year reprieve, consumers may increasingly have trouble servicing other kinds of loans, another strain.
What matters most, however, is the labor market. “If American consumers have money, they’re going to spend it, and the primary place they get money is through their jobs,” said Eric Winograd, an economist at the investment firm AllianceBernstein.
Businesses are still hiring, layoffs are low and the unemployment rate has stabilized at a historically low level of around 4 percent. But the labor market is noticeably less robust than it was in the aftermath of the pandemic, a period that was marked by booming hiring, soaring wages and acute worker shortages.
“Nothing emboldens consumers quite like a strong labor market, and we don’t have that anymore,” said Tom Porcelli, chief U.S. economist at PGIM Fixed Income.
Companies are posting far fewer job openings and positions are no longer much more plentiful than the number of people looking for work as businesses reassess their staffing needs in an environment of slowing growth.
Jobs are no longer much more plentiful than available workers
Job openings vs. unemployment
Spending is now consistently increasing faster than income, once adjusted for inflation. This imbalance cannot last, said Neil Dutta, head of economic research at Renaissance Macro. Either incomes will need to accelerate or consumption must slow over time. “Given what we know about the job market and wage growth, it’s more likely that consumer spending slows than incomes rise,” he said.
Spending is growing faster than income
Year-over-year percentage change in real consumption vs. real income
Pay is no longer soaring for workers in the lowest-paid industries, such as leisure and hospitality, who saw their earnings increase the fastest in the initial recovery period when the job market was strong and demand for their services was high. Now, pay is rising faster in high-wage industries — as pay for lower- and mid-wage jobs stagnate.
Wage growth has slowed, particularly for workers in low-wage industries
Median year-over-year percentage change in industry-level earnings for nonmanagers
It is too early to say if the lessons of the post-pandemic period will prove applicable this time around. Consumers are clearly under heightened pressure, but it will take time to know whether they are buckling under that weight or once again muscling through.
So far, policymakers at the Federal Reserve do not appear too worried just yet and are taking their time to assess the economic impact of Mr. Trump’s policies before restarting interest rate cuts.
“The U.S. consumer never lets us down,” John Williams, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said in a recent interview.
Business
Retail theft surge in Inland Empire store prompts new policy: Leave shopping bags with the cashier
A locally owned grocery store fed up with a rise in theft in its Inland Empire community is trying to crack down on the problem by restricting the use of large personal shopping bags in the store.
On a Facebook post in April, Matthew and Allison Whitlow announced their ownership of the Grocery Outlet on East Florida Avenue in Hemet. Less than a month later, the owners noted on social media that a personal bag policy will be strictly enforced citing “an influx of theft.”
In the post, the Whitlows asked that customers leave their reusable shopping and personal bags — including anything larger than a small handbag — in the front of the grocery store with a cashier.
“While this has always been posted on our front door, we have had some take advantage and walk out of store without stopping by the register,” according to a Facebook post.
The Whitlows declined to speak with The Times about the incidents that led to their decision.
But asking customers to leave their reusable bags at the front of the store could create confusion for shoppers who are trying to follow state law and help the environment.
Since 2014, California has worked to eliminate single-use plastic bags from grocery stores and have recently taken a step further by passing legislation that would do away with the thicker plastic bags made of high-density polyethylene, or HDPE. Grocery stores have been offering the thicker HDPE bags to shoppers instead of the banned thin plastic bags.
In response, shoppers across the state have stocked up on reusuable grocery bags, made of canvas or cloth.
The new bag policy is in response to an uptick in retail theft across the state, an issue so problematic that state officials have dispatched California Highway Patrol officers to help local police get a handle on retail crime and car theft and help bolster traffic enforcement.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has sent officers to Oakland and Bakersfield, cities that have had immense issues with smash-and-grab retail crime.
Customers who leave their large bags at the front are allowed to take out and carry their smartphones and wallets while they shop.
The Whitlows are encouraging their customers to use store-provided hand baskets instead.
“With us being locally/independently owned, when theft occurs, it not only hurts us, but the community,” the post stated. “We know this is inconvenient for everyone, but we want to ensure that we have products for you all as well as not lose any so we can keep pricing affordable.”
Rather than resort to theft, the owners suggested in the post that shoppers who are struggling to make ends meet ask for help.
“Please ask for one of the owners, Matt or Allison, and we will see what we can do to help,” the post stated.
-
Austin, TX6 days ago
Best Austin Salads – 15 Food Places For Good Greens!
-
Technology1 week ago
Netflix is removing Black Mirror: Bandersnatch
-
World1 week ago
The Take: Can India and Pakistan avoid a fourth war over Kashmir?
-
News1 week ago
Reincarnated by A.I., Arizona Man Forgives His Killer at Sentencing
-
News1 week ago
Jefferson Griffin Concedes Defeat in N.C. Supreme Court Race
-
News1 week ago
Who is the new Pope Leo XIV and what are his views?
-
News1 week ago
Efforts Grow to Thwart mRNA Therapies as RFK Jr. Pushes Vaccine Wariness
-
Lifestyle1 week ago
André 3000 Drops Surprise Album After Met Gala Piano Statement