WeWork seeks bankruptcy protection

WeWork has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

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TAG: Correspondent Jeremy House reporting. WeWork added that it was requesting the ability to cancel leases in particular locations that WeWork described as largely non-operational as part of its filing. All affected members have received advanced notice.

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VERBATIM: The filing marks a stunning fall for the office sharing company once seen as a Wall Street darling that promised to upend the way people went to work around the world. WeWork said it entered into a restructuring support agreement with the majority of its stakeholders to “drastically reduce” the company’s debt. Officials will further evaluate WeWork’s commercial office lease portfolio.

China premier seeks to bolster his country’s economic outlook

( ) -q-26- UNDATED (Correspondent Jeremy House) “of about 4.5-percent.”

Seeking to generate excitement around a largely lackluster economy, Chinese Premier Li Qiang is pledging to continue deepening reforms, expand free trade zones and relax market access for foreign investment.

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TAG: Correspondent Jeremy House reporting. The 4.5-percent figure was much slower than the 6.3% annual growth rate of the previous quarter.

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VERBATIM: Li made the remarks as he delivered a keynote speech at the opening of the 6th China International Import Expo in Shanghai. The event seeks to draw thousands of foreign businesses shopping for Chinese products and looking to expand trade and investment with the world’s second-largest economy. Official data show China’s economy expanded at a 4.9% annual pace between July-to-September, beating analysts’ forecasts of about 4.5%.

Humanoid robots are here, but they’re a little awkward

( ) -q-16- UNDATED (Correspondent Jeremy House) “keeping at it.”

The latest artificial intelligence craze has sparked another wave of investments in the quest to build a humanoid. But as correspondent Jeremy House reports, most of the current prototypes are clumsy and impractical.

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TAG: One of the startups, Agility Robotics, has caught the attention of Amazon, which is testing out its Digit robot for warehouse work.

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VERBATIM: Building a robot that’s both human-like and useful is a decades-old engineering dream inspired by popular science fiction. However, humanoids tend to look better in staged performances than in real life. That hasn’t stopped a handful of startups from keeping at it.

Google’s antitrust headaches include its Play Store

Google is trying to protect a lucrative piece of its internet empire. The latest threat is unfolding in a San Francisco federal court. A 10-person jury will decide whether Google’s digital payment processing system in the Play Store that distributes apps for phones running on its Android software has been illegally driving up prices for consumers and developers. Meanwhile, Google is still entangled in the biggest U.S. antitrust trial in a quarter century.

Employers pulled back on hiring in October, adding 150,000 jobs

( ) -q-27- UNDATED (Correspondent Jeremy House) “at least 30-thousand.”

The nation’s employers scaled back their hiring in October.

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TAG: Correspondent Jeremy House reporting. The UAW strikes ended this week with tentative settlements in which the companies granted significantly better pay and benefits to the union’s workers.

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VERBATIM: Employers added a modest 150,000 jobs, a sign that the labor market remains resilient despite economic uncertainties and high interest rates that have made borrowing much costlier for companies and consumers. October’s job growth, though down sharply from a robust 297,000 gain in September, was solid enough to suggest that many companies still want to hire. Economists say the United Auto Workers’ strikes against Detroit’s automakers likely shrank October’s job gain by at least 30,000.

Apple’s sales fall for 4th straight quarter despite strong start for latest iPhones

( ) -q-22- UNDATED (Correspondent Jeremy House) “in each quarter.”

Apple’s sales remained on a downward slope during the summer.

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TAG: Correspondent Jeremy House reporting. Although Apple’s sales in the most recent quarter dipped 1%, the company’s profit rose 11%. Both those figures topped analysts’ projections, but the performance still disappointed investors.

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VERBATIM: That means a full year of declining revenue at the technology trendsetter with a long history of steady growth that turned it into the world’s most valuable publicly traded company. The slight sales deterioration for the July-to-September period marked the end of Apple’s fiscal year. It was a stretch that saw the company suffer a revenue decrease from the prior year in each quarter.

China supported sanctions on North Korea’s nuclear program

( ) -q-24- UNDATED (Correspondent Jeremy House) “to Chinese ports.”

International authorities say there is growing evidence that shows Beijing is helping cash-strapped North Korea evade a range of international sanctions designed to hamper Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.

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TAG: Correspondent Jeremy House reporting.

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VERBATIM: China has long maintained it enforces the sanctions it has supported since North Korea started testing nuclear weapons and forcefully pushed back on any suggestions to the contrary. But there is evidence of China’s help from Chinese middlemen laundering the proceeds of North Korean hackers’ cyber heists. Meanwhile, Chinese ships deliver sanctioned North Korean goods to Chinese ports.

Biden administration awards $653 million in grants for 41 port projects

( ) -q-21- UNDATED (Correspondent Jeremy House) “improve worker safety.”

The Transportation Department is awarding $653 million in grants to upgrade and improve 41 water-based ports across the United States.

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TAG: Correspondent Jeremy House reporting.

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VERBATIM: The grants are part of the $1 trillion in infrastructure investments included in a bipartisan law signed by President Biden in 2021. Biden administration officials say the projects being supported will allow ports to meet greater shipping demands. The projects are also designed to lower costs for consumers and improve worker safety.

Real estate industry faces pushback to longstanding agent commissions rules

( ) -q-29- UNDATED (Correspondent Jeremy House) “Multiple Listings Service.”

A series of court challenges seek to upend longstanding real estate industry practices that determine the commissions agents receive on the sale of a home — and who foots the bill.

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TAG: Correspondent Jeremy House reporting.

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VERBATIM: One case ended this week with a federal jury in Missouri ordering the National Association of Realtors and some of the nation’s biggest real estate brokerages to pay almost $1.8 billion in damages after finding that they artificially inflated agent commissions. At least two other court cases are pending. At issue: whether home sellers should be forced to pay the commission for the buyer’s agent in order to have their home listed on the widely used Multiple Listings Service.

Europe’s inflation eased to 2.9% in October thanks to lower fuel prices

( ) -q-29- UNDATED (Correspondent Jeremy House) “out 0.1-percent growth.”

The inflation that has been wearing on European consumers fell sharply to 2.9% in October, its lowest in more than two years.

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TAG: Correspondent Jeremy House reporting. Ireland’s drop in GDP of 1.8% was the largest among eurozone economies. It disproportionately reflects the finances of multinational companies that are based there.

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VERBATIM: Fuel prices fell and rapid interest rate hikes from the European Central Bank took hold. But that encouraging news was balanced by official figures showing economic output in the 20 countries that use the euro shrank by 0.1% in the July-to-September quarter. Germany, the largest of the 20 countries that use the euro, saw its economy output fall by 0.1%, while No. 2 economy France only scraped out 0.1% growth.

Toyota’s profits zoom on cheap yen, strong global sales

( ) -q-24- UNDATED (Correspondent Jeremy House) “rose 24-percent.”

Toyota’s profit in the latest quarter jumped nearly threefold from a year ago.

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TAG: Correspondent Jeremy House reporting. A cheap yen is a plus for Japan’s giant exporters like Toyota by raising the value of its overseas earnings when translated into yen. The U.S. dollar was trading at about 145 Japanese yen in the latest quarter, up from 138 yen. It’s trading above 150 yen lately.

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VERBATIM: The increase came as vehicle sales grew around the world and a cheap yen boosted the Japanese automaker’s overseas earnings. Toyota reported Wednesday 1.28 trillion yen in quarterly profit, up from 434 billion yen the previous year. Quarterly sales rose 24%.

Auto strike settlements will raise costs for Detroit’s Big 3

( ) -q-28- UNDATED (Correspondent Jeremy House) “prices for consumers.”

The big three automakers are experiencing lighter pocketbooks.

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TAG: Correspondent Jeremy House reporting. The automakers will also try to absorb those cost increases through expense reductions and efficiencies while still aiming to post strong enough profits to please Wall Street.

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VERBATIM: From generous pay and benefits to stronger job security, the United Auto Workers union won significant concessions in tentative settlements that have ended their strikes against Detroit’s automakers. Now, General Motors, Ford and Stellantis are facing sharply higher labor costs, estimated by some analysts at exceeding $1 billion per year, per company. Analysts say the companies will likely try to offset their cost increases by raising vehicle prices for consumers.

Samsung reports improved profit as losses from chip business narrow

( ) -q-24- UNDATED (Correspondent Jeremy House) “its DRAM chips.”

Samsung Electronics has reported its highest quarterly profit for the year.

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TAG: Correspondent Jeremy House reporting. The South Korean technology giant’s 1.8 billion dollar operating profit for the three months to September still marked a 77.6% decline from the same period last year.

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VERBATIM: Samsung saw narrowed losses from its computer chip business amid a slow recovery in global demand. The company said it expects its business to further improve in coming months. It cites the replacement cycles of personal computers and smartphones and the expansion of artificial intelligence-based devices and services, which has been increasing the demand for its DRAM chips.

Stellantis expects strike to cost it 750 million euros in Q3 profits

( ) -q-20- UNDATED (Correspondent Jeremy House) “markets except Asia.”

Automaker Stellantis says that the autoworkers strike in North America is expected to cost the company around 750 million euros in profits — less than its North American competitors.

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TAG: Correspondent Jeremy House reporting. Stellantis’s Chief Financial Officer Natalie Knight told journalists that Stellantis’ strike impact was lower than the other Big Three automakers due to its global profile as well as some high-profile cost-cutting measures.

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VERBATIM: The Europe-based maker of Jeep, Fiat and Peugeot reported a 7% boost in net revenues to 45.1 billion euros. Production halts caused by the strikes cost the company 3 billion euros in sales through October. The net revenue boost was due to higher volumes in all markets except Asia.

Cutting-edge AI raises fears about risks to humanity

( ) -q-28- UNDATED (Correspondent Jeremy House) “on frontier AI.”

Frontier AI has become the latest buzzword as concerns grow that the emerging technology has capabilities that could endanger humanity.

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TAG: Correspondent Jeremy House reporting.

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VERBATIM: Chatbots like ChatGPT wowed with their ability to do tasks as good as or better than humans, thanks to cutting-edge artificial intelligence systems. Now, everyone from the British government to top researchers and even major AI companies themselves are raising the alarm about frontier AI’s as-yet-unknown dangers and calling for safeguards. The debate comes to a head Wednesday at a summit in Britain focused on frontier AI.

Strike ends against vital Great Lakes shipping artery

( ) -q-22- UNDATED (Correspondent Jeremy House) “the coming days.”

A deal has been reached to end a week-long strike that had shut down a major shipping artery in the Great Lakes.

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TAG: Correspondent Jeremy House reporting.

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VERBATIM: The strike halted the flow of grain and other goods from the U.S. and Canada. Around 360 workers in Ontario and Quebec with Unifor, Canada’s largest private-sector union, walked out October 22nd in a dispute over wages with the St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corporation. The union will vote to ratify the deal in the coming days.

China holds major financial conference to discuss economy

( ) -q-31- UNDATED (Correspondent Jeremy House) “and disaster prevention.”

China’s leaders are meeting in Beijing to talk about the country’s economy.

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TAG: Correspondent Jeremy House reporting. By dipping deeper into deficit, the government is looking to counter a sharp slowdown in housing construction. Economists say the challenge lies in finding ways to ensure sustainable, balanced growth.

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VERBATIM: The meeting is aimed at searching for ways to mend the China’s fractured property market, create jobs for millions of unemployed youths and spur faster growth. The National Financial Work Conference, usually held twice a decade, is expected to further fortify leader Xi Jinping’s control of the country’s 61 trillion dollar financial sector. It follows the announcement last week of plans to issue 330 billion dollars in bonds for infrastructure projects and disaster prevention.

Biden executive order requires AI safeguards

President Biden is signing a sweeping executive order to guide the development of artificial intelligence. The order requires industry to develop safety and security standards, introduce new consumer protections and give federal agencies an extensive to-do list to oversee the rapidly progressing technology. AI has been a source of deep personal curiosity for Mr. Biden, given its potential impact on the economy and national security. The president had directed his staff to move with urgency on a policy that could maximize AI’s possibilities and contain its perils.

Federal Reserve will make interest rates decision this week

This week the Federal Reserve will decide what to do about interest rates

VERBATIM:

The central bank has already hiked rates eleven times since March of last year, raising the cost of borrowing for homes and cars, while at more than twenty-percent, the average credit card rate has hit an historic high. This, at a time when skyrocketing prices have forced many people to rely more heavily on credit cards to make ends meet. The general consensus among economists is that the Fed will refrain from raising rates at Wednesday’s meeting, while not closing the door on the possibility of future rates hikes in the not-too-distant future. Rich Thomason reporting.

Salman Rushdie could take the stand against accused attacker

Author Salman Rushdie could take the stand against the man accused of repeatedly stabbing him.

(VERBATIM)

Chautauqua County District Attorney Jason Schmidt says Rushdie is on the witness list for the trial of 25-year-old Hadi Matar. A judge on Friday scheduled the trial to begin Jan. 8. Matar has pleaded not guilty to charges of assault and attempted murder. He’s accused of rushing the stage at the Chautauqua Institution in New York where Rushdie was about to speak in August 2022 and stabbing him more than a dozen times. A fatwa had been issued for Rushdie’s death by the Ayatollah Khomeini. Keith Peters reporting.

Amazon posts strong revenue and profits ahead of the holidays

( ) -q-26- UNDATED (Correspondent Jeremy House) “business grew robustly.”

Amazon has reported strong revenue and profits from the summer months driven by growth in online sales and its advertising business.

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TAG: Correspondent Jeremy House reporting. Amazon’s cloud computing unit AWS grew by 12%.

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VERBATIM: For the three months that ended on September 30, the company said it earned $143.1 billion in revenue, a 13% jump compared to the same period last year. Amazon made $9.9 billion in profits, topping analysts’ expectations. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says the company had a strong quarter as it improved its delivery speed and its advertising business grew robustly.

Exxon Mobil Q3 results mixed compared with last year’s big numbers

( ) -q-26- UNDATED (Correspondent Jeremy House) “of $89.29 billion.”

Exxon Mobil’s third-quarter profit and revenue declined compared with the same time last year when the company put up enormous numbers.

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TAG: Correspondent Jeremy House reporting.

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VERBATIM: Despite the lower numbers, the oil giant had its strongest ever refinery throughput for the period and raised its quarterly dividend. Exxon Mobil earned $9.07 billion in the period. That compares with $19.66 billion a year earlier. Revenue slipped to $90.76 billion from $112.07 billion, but still topped Wall Street’s estimate of $89.29 billion.

UK PM Sunak warns against rush to regulate AI before understanding risks

( ) -q-19- UNDATED (Correspondent Jeremy House) “companies developing it.”

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak warns against moving too fast on regulating AI before it’s fully understood.

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TAG: Correspondent Jeremy House reporting. Sunak is hosting a summit next week that’s focusing on the risks from so-called frontier artificial intelligence. These are cutting edge systems that can carry out a wide range of tasks but could contain unknown risks to public safety and security.

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VERBATIM: As authorities around the world scramble to draw up guardrails for artificial intelligence, Sunak warned about acting too quickly even as he outlined a host of risks that AI could bring. He said only governments are able to keep people safe from AI’s risks. Sunak adds it shouldn’t be left up to the tech companies developing it.

Economy posted strong 4.9% growth rate last quarter

( ) -q-28- UNDATED (Correspondent Jeremy House) “to restaurant meals.”

The nation’s economy expanded at a 4.9% annual rate from July through September.

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TAG: Correspondent Jeremy House reporting.

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VERBATIM: The economy expanded last quarter at the fastest pace in more than two years — and more than twice the 2.1% annual rate of the previous quarter. Analysts say Americans defied higher prices, rising interest rates and widespread forecasts of a recession to spend at a brisk pace. Thursday’s report on the nation’s gross domestic product showed that consumers drove the acceleration, ramping up their spending on everything from cars to restaurant meals.