Investments and Business

In the latest sign of a growing backlash within corporate America to the 88-year-old federal agency that enforces labor rights, Amazon argued in a legal filing on Thursday that the National Labor Relations Board was unconstitutional.The move followed a similar argument by SpaceX, the rocket company founded and run by Elon Musk, in a legal complaint in January, and by Trader Joe’s during a labor board hearing a few weeks later.The labor board consists of a prosecutorial arm, which issues complaints against employers or unions deemed to have violated federally protected labor rights; administrative judges, who hear complaints; and a…

The pandemic created an economic crisis unlike any recession on record. So perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that the aftermath, too, has played out in a way that almost no economists expected.When unemployment soared in the first weeks of the pandemic, many feared a repeat of the long, slow rebound from the Great Recession: years of joblessness that left many workers permanently scarred. Instead, the recovery in the labor market has been, by many measures, the strongest on record.In early 2021, some economists foresaw a surge in inflation. Others were skeptical: Similar predictions in recent years — in some cases…

A congressional investigation has determined that five American venture capital firms invested more than $1 billion in China’s semiconductor industry since 2001, fueling the growth of a sector that the United States government now regards as a national security threat.Funds supplied by the five firms — GGV Capital, GSR Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, Sequoia Capital and Walden International — went to more than 150 Chinese companies, according to the report, which was released Thursday by both Republicans and Democrats on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.The investments included roughly $180 million that went to Chinese firms that the…

Still, Ms. Juszczyk, whose website says she is self-taught and started her business after making Halloween costumes for herself and her husband, has more than just the endorsements of Ms. Swift and other celebrities going for her.The fact that Nike was first credited with making Ms. Swift’s jacket reflects the fact that Ms. Juszczyk has, consciously or not, positioned herself at the red hot center of a number of macro fashion trends. To wit: the buzz around upcycling; the desire for customization; the transformation of streetwear into luxury; and the increasing convergence of sports and fashion. As one of her…

The history of Las Vegas has been marked by a relentless churn of hotels, casinos, theaters and restaurants. But only recently has the city’s landscape included major professional sports teams.The Golden Knights of the National Hockey League were the first to start play here in 2017. The Aces of the Women’s National Basketball Association started in 2018, and the National Football League’s Raiders arrived from Oakland in 2020. Last year, Major League Baseball’s Athletics were given the go-ahead to make the same Oakland-to-Las Vegas move, and the National Basketball Association is expected to add a team in the coming years.Las…

Disney sees a revenge story: Mr. Peltz is aligned with Ike Perlmutter, who was ousted from an executive job at Disney, and Jay Rasulo, a former Disney executive who was passed over for chief executive in 2015 and resigned. Disney has asked shareholders to reject Trian and another activist investor, Blackwells Capital, arguing that giving them board seats would slow the company’s turnaround effort. (Mr. Peltz waged an unsuccessful campaign for a Disney shake-up last year.)“The last thing that we need right now is to be distracted, in terms of our time, our energy, by an activist or activists that…

Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen will tell lawmakers on Tuesday that the United States has had a “historic” economic recovery from the pandemic but that regulators must vigilantly safeguard the financial system from an array of looming risks to preserve the gains of the last three years.Ms. Yellen will deliver the comments in testimony to the House Financial Services Committee nearly a year after the Biden administration and federal regulators took aggressive steps to stabilize the nation’s banking system following the abrupt failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.While turmoil in the banking system has largely subsided, the Financial…

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Ms. Goodfriend, 79, who started counseling pet owners in 2005, credited this spike to the pandemic, which she said made people “more aware of grief and more inclined to express it.”At the Schwarzman Animal Medical Center, which has been operating in Manhattan since 1910, a free pet-loss-support group has been available to clients since 1983. Susan Cohen, 79, a veterinary social worker who came up with the idea for the group, said it started with about five people attending each in-person session. By the time she stopped working at the center, in 2011, that number had doubled.The demand for such…

The United States produced an unexpectedly sizable batch of jobs last month, a boon for American workers that shows the labor market retains remarkable strength after three years of expansion.Employers added 353,000 jobs in January on a seasonally adjusted basis, the Labor Department reported on Friday, and the unemployment rate remained at 3.7 percent.The report also put an even shinier gloss on job growth for 2023, including revisions that added more than 100,000 to the figure previously tallied for December. All told, employers added 3.1 million jobs last year, more than the 2.7 million initially reported.After the loss of 14…