Business

Courthouse News reports: A Texas federal jury awarded American Airlines $9.4 million on Tuesday from a travel website behind the controversial “skiplagging” hack of booking cheaper tickets to a connecting city and then abandoning the subsequent flight on the ticket to a final destination. Jurors deliberated for several hours after five days of trial before U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman …

The Hollywood Reporter reports: A production company for Blade Runner 2049 has sued Tesla, which allegedly fed images from the movie into an artificial intelligence image generator to create unlicensed promotional materials. Alcon Entertainment, in a lawsuit filed Monday in California federal court, accuses Elon Musk and his autonomous vehicle company of misappropriating the movie’s brand to promote its robotaxi …

Bloomberg News reports: TGI Friday’s Inc. is seeking financing as the casual-dining chain prepares to file for bankruptcy protection in coming weeks, according to people with knowledge of its plans, after struggling to turn around a business pressured by customers’ tighter budgets and preference for faster food. The company is huddling with lenders in search of a loan that would …

The New York Times reports: Mr. Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, effectively dictates NASA’s rocket launch schedule. The Defense Department relies on him to get most of its satellites to orbit. His companies were promised $3 billion across nearly 100 different contracts last year with 17 federal agencies. His entanglements with federal regulators are also numerous and adversarial. His companies have …

Ars Technica reports: The US Space Force’s Space Systems Command announced Friday it has ordered nine launches from SpaceX in the first batch of dozens of missions the military will buy in a new phase of competition for lucrative national security launch contracts. The nine launches are divided into two fixed-price “task orders” that Space System Command opened up for …

The Associated Press reports: The U.S. government’s road safety agency is investigating Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” system after getting reports of crashes in low-visibility conditions, including one that killed a pedestrian. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says in documents that it opened the probe on Thursday after the company reported four crashes when Teslas encountered sun glare, fog and airborne …

NBC News reports: Walgreens said Tuesday it plans to close 1,200 stores over the next three years as it seeks to further downsize its footprint amid flagging sales and changing consumer behavior. The pharmacy chain said 500 of the closings would occur over the next 12 months. It estimates a quarter of its 8,700 stores in the U.S. are unprofitable. …

Columbus’s NBC affiliate reports: Small business owners in Lancaster say they experienced an influx of customers after their shops were included on a social media post tying them to a debated LGBTQ+ Pride event. Brandon Love, owner of fragrance and gift store Bewilderment, told NBC4 his downtown Lancaster business is one of several that saw a boost in sales when …

Ars Technica reports: Former Twitter executives, including former CEO Parag Agrawal, are urging a court to open discovery in a dispute over severance and other benefits they allege they were wrongfully denied after Elon Musk took over Twitter in 2022. According to the former executives, they’ve been blocked for seven months from accessing key documents proving they’re owed roughly $200 …

The New York Times reports: TD Bank agreed to pay about $3 billion in fines to U.S. authorities and pleaded guilty on Thursday to money-laundering-related charges in a case brought by federal prosecutors, who said the Canadian bank made it “convenient” for criminals to open accounts, transfer funds and even deposit seven-figure sums of cash at its branches. The combined …

CNBC reports: Spirit Airlines shares tumbled to a record low on Friday after a report that it’s exploring Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The carrier faces a deadline this month to renegotiate more than $1 billion in debt. A bankruptcy filing would mark a dramatic turn for the carrier with its iconic yellow planes that caters to budget-conscious travelers. Spirit has …

NBC News reports: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has surpassed Jeff Bezos as the world’s second richest person, reports CNBC. Zuckerberg’s net worth reached $206.2 billion on Thursday, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, topping the $205.1 billion net worth of the former Amazon CEO and president. The Facebook co-founder now trails Tesla chief Elon Musk by roughly $50 billion, the …

The Jerusalem Post reports: Former-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson claimed in his book Unleashed that he discovered a bugging device, used for listening in on private conversations, in his personal bathroom at the Foreign Office after he met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2017. Johnson claimed that his security team found the device after Netanyahu had used the bathroom. …

CNN reports: Striking members of the International Longshoremen’s Association will be back to work at the ports on Friday, the union announced Thursday evening, as the union and the management group representing shipping lines, terminal operators and port authorities have reached a tentative deal on wages. The union agreed to extend the contract it had with the United States Maritime …

NBC News reports: The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, the state’s criminal investigation agency, said Wednesday it is looking into allegations against an Erwin plastics factory where several workers died and some went missing after they were swept away by floodwaters from Hurricane Helene. Relatives of the missing and deceased workers and factory employees who survived have alleged they were made …

CNN reports: CNN, one of the most popular news websites in the world, is starting to ask some of its visitors to pay $3.99 a month for access. On Tuesday, the news organization is laying the first bricks in a so-called paywall that should, over time, help foot the bill for CNN’s journalism around the world. “Starting today, we are …

Reuters reports: DirecTV on Monday agreed to buy EchoStar’s satellite television business that includes Dish TV, capping decades of on-and-off talks to create one of the nation’s largest pay TV distributors with a combined 20 million subscribers. The transaction comes at a time when satellite TV services DirecTV and Dish are hemorrhaging market share to competitors like Netflix and Amazon’s …

Ars Technica reports: Officials in Ireland have fined Meta $101 million for storing hundreds of millions of user passwords in plaintext and making them broadly available to company employees. Meta disclosed the lapse in early 2019. The company said that apps for connecting to various Meta-owned social networks had logged user passwords in plaintext and stored them in a database …

Bloomberg News reports: Toyota Motor Corp. distanced itself from some of its LGBTQ initiatives and said it doesn’t have a quota system to boost diversity among its suppliers, after a social media attack from an anti-DEI activist. The Japanese carmaker was targeted by Robby Starbuck Thursday for sponsoring LGBTQ events and programs and offering “preferential treatment for diverse suppliers.” Toyota …

Bloomberg News reports: The US Justice Department sued Visa Inc. Tuesday, alleging the global payments giant illegally monopolized the debit card market, in the Biden administration’s first major antitrust case in the financial services industry. Antitrust enforcers alleged in a complaint filed in Manhattan federal court that Visa, which handles more than 60% of US debit transactions, entered into a …