Business

The New York Times reports: A national lobbying group has retracted its startling estimate that “organized retail crime” was responsible for nearly half the $94.5 billion in store merchandise that disappeared in 2021, a figure that helped amplify claims that the United States was experiencing a nationwide wave of shoplifting. The group, the National Retail Federation, edited that claim last …

Reuters reports: A former executive at Twitter Inc, now called X Corp, has filed a lawsuit claiming he was fired after Elon Musk acquired the company for objecting to budget cuts that would prevent the company from complying with a U.S. government settlement over its security practices. Alan Rosa, who was Twitter’s global head of information security, filed the lawsuit …

Ars Technica reports: AI face detection now counts among the tools that could be used to help adult sites effectively estimate UK user ages and block minors from accessing pornography, the UK’s Office of Communications said in a press release on Tuesday. The only foreseeable problem, Ofcom noted: There’s little evidence that the AI method of age estimation will be …

Axios reports: A factory planning to pump out 10,000 two-legged robots a year is taking shape in Salem, Oregon — the better to help Amazon and other giant companies with dangerous hauling, lifting and moving. Agility Robotics says that its RoboFab manufacturing facility will be the first to mass-produce humanoid robots, which could be nimbler and more versatile than their …

TechCrunch reports: 23andMe spokesperson Katie Watson confirmed that hackers accessed the personal information of about 5.5 million people who opted-in to 23andMe’s DNA Relatives feature, which allows customers to automatically share some of their data with others. The stolen data included the person’s name, birth year, relationship labels, the percentage of DNA shared with relatives, ancestry reports and self-reported location. …

Bloomberg News reports: Alaska Air Group Inc. agreed to buy rival Hawaiian Holdings Inc. for $1.9 billion in cash and debt, challenging the Biden administration’s aggressive stance on mergers that has already derailed one partnership between carriers. Alaska will pay $18 per share in cash in a deal that includes about $900 million of Hawaiian’s debt, according to a statement …

Reuters reports: The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday is set to hear a challenge by President Joe Biden’s administration to the legality of OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy settlement, a deal that if approved would shield its wealthy Sackler family owners from lawsuits over their role in the country’s opioid epidemic. Purdue’s owners under the settlement would receive immunity in …

Reuters reports: Walmart said on Friday it is not advertising on social media platform X, one of the latest brands to say it has dropped the Elon Musk-owned site. “We aren’t advertising on X as we’ve found other platforms to better reach our customers,” a Walmart spokesperson said. The platform has struggled to retain advertisers since Musk acquired the company …

Courthouse News reports: A 12-year-old federal antitrust case against the nation’s largest egg producers came to a tentative close on Friday, after a jury delivered a verdict awarding four food corporations $17.7 in damages. Jurors in awarded Kraft, Kellogg’s, General Mills and Nestle the money after a two-day damages trial in Chicago’s Dirksen Federal Courthouse, the second half of a …

Axios reports: Mark Cuban tells Axios that he never plans to run for any elective office, cooling off speculation that began after he struck a deal earlier this week to sell his majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks. Cuban had previously told NBC News that he had “no plans” to run for president in 2024, but hadn’t issued a blanket …

Deadline reports: Elon Musk made plain his view of the widespread advertiser withdrawal this month from X, formerly Twitter. “Don’t advertise,” he advised any marketer with misgivings. “Somebody’s going to try to blackmail me with advertising?! Blackmail me with money? Go f–k yourself. Go. F–k. Yourself. Is that clear? I hope it is.” The remarks came at the beginning of …

The New York Times reports: Meta has received more than 1.1 million reports of users under the age of 13 on its Instagram platform since early 2019 yet it “disabled only a fraction” of those accounts, according to a newly unsealed legal complaint against the company brought by the attorneys general of 33 states. Instead, the social media giant “routinely …

The New York Times reports: X, the social media company formerly known as Twitter, could lose as much as $75 million in advertising revenue by the end of the year as dozens of major brands pause their marketing campaigns after its owner, Elon Musk, endorsed an antisemitic conspiracy theory this month. Internal documents viewed by The New York Times this …

Reuters reports: Florida judge found “reasonable evidence” that Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk and other managers knew the automaker’s vehicles had a defective Autopilot system but still allowed the cars to be driven unsafely, according to a ruling. Judge Reid Scott, in the Circuit Court for Palm Beach County, ruled last week that the plaintiff in a lawsuit over a …

Bloomberg Law reports: General Mills Inc., a Kraft Heinz Co. unit, Kellogg Co., and Nestle SA for years likely overpaid for eggs because the nation’s largest producers and two trade groups conspired to restrict the supply, an Illinois federal jury decided on Tuesday. A US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois jury of nine men and three women …

Bloomberg News reports: In February 2019, Binance Holdings Ltd.’s then-Chief Compliance Officer Samuel Lim acknowledged that the cryptocurrency exchange was being used to funnel money to Hamas, explaining to a colleague that terrorists normally sent “small sums.” That apparently nonchalant attitude caught up with Binance and its chief executive officer, Changpeng Zhao [photo], on Tuesday. In announcing $4.3 billion in …

The Street reports: Elon Musk, who has more than 163 million followers, vehemently agreed with a user who accused Jews of pushing “hatred against whites.” Musk then criticized the Anti-Defamation League in part for pushing this so-called antiwhite racism. Musk never once provided evidence or examples behind these claims. Musk has since maintained that he is not antisemitic, going so …

Bloomberg News reports: Binance Holdings Ltd.’s Chief Executive Officer Changpeng Zhao arrived in Seattle federal court Tuesday to plead guilty to anti-money laundering charges under a sweeping deal worked out with the Justice Department designed to keep the company operating. Zhao agreed to step down as part of the settlement, which included the Treasury Department and the Commodity Futures Trading …

Reuters reports: Messaging platform X on Monday sued media watchdog group Media Matters, alleging the organization defamed the platform after it published a report that said ads for major brands had appeared next to posts touting Nazism. X, formerly Twitter, has faced growing outrage since Media Matters published the report on Thursday, which led IBM, Comcast and several other advertisers …

The Tampa Bay Times reports: Chick-fil-A is starting to deliver food by drone in the Tampa Bay area — so far only from one location within Hillsborough County. A Brandon-Valrico Chick-fil-A restaurant announced Monday on Facebook that it now has drone delivery service to locations within a 1.2-mile radius. The drone delivery fee is free for a limited time, according …