Investments and Business

William H. Donaldson, who made an early fortune as co-founder of the innovative securities firm Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette and later pushed for tougher financial regulation as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission in the wake of the Enron and WorldCom accounting scandals , died Wednesday at his home in Westchester County, New York, at the age of 93. The cause was leukemia, his son Adam said. Mr. Donaldson also briefly served as undersecretary of state under Henry A. Kissinger, ran the New York Stock Exchange and was chief executive of the insurance company Aetna Inc. In 1975, he…

The oil industry in the United States, the world's largest producer of crude oil, is made up of many small and medium-sized oil companies, ranging from family businesses with a few wells in one state to global giants like Exxon Mobil. Wall Street values ​​ConocoPhillips at about $140 billion, or about 10 times larger than Marathon Oil but about a quarter of Exxon. Oil companies have completed some of the largest acquisitions in the past year despite regulatory scrutiny from the Biden administration and oil market volatility. U.S. giants have capitalized on record profits, giving them the firepower to acquire…

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Sony bought Alamo from Altamont Capital Partners and Fortress Investment Group, as well as the chain's founder, Tim League. Mr League said the cinema chain was “more than thrilled” with the deal. This comes at a time of financial difficulty for the Alamo and the film industry as a whole. Many of Alamo's franchised locations filed for bankruptcy and closed this month, making Sony's move a potential lifeline for the struggling chain. Alamo filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2021 before a private equity firm intervened. The theaters will continue to operate under…

The jury was unanimous. But the cable news verdict was a split decision. Viewers across the country rushed to television screens Thursday to learn the outcome of the Manhattan criminal case against former President Donald J. Trump. Fox News got the most viewers for breaking coverage of the 34 allegations, drawing 4.7 million viewers from 5 to 6 p.m., according to Nielsen. That's a huge number of viewers for a weekday afternoon and easily surpassed the audiences of CNN, MSNBC and broadcast networks that interspersed regular programming with special reports. In the evening, after the news of the verdict, MSNBC's…

According to a recording obtained by the New York Times, one of the Washington Post's political stars, Ashley Parker, asked how the paper had arrived at its decision, adding that a skeptical interpretation might be that Mr. Lewis was simply hiring his associates to help him manage the post office. Mr. Lewis is in many ways orchestrating a reunion with the people he worked with in the early chapters of his career. As publisher of the Wall Street Journal, he appointed Murray to the paper's top editorial position in 2018. And he worked with Winnett for years, first at the…

Tesla could use shareholder approval to support Musk's case in court. If it wins the vote on Musk's compensation, the company is likely to turn to Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick, the Delaware Court of Chancery judge who rejected the compensation plan, and argue that shareholders, armed with information she says not having had it when they approved the package, they ratified the proposal again. This, according to the company, makes the issue controversial. If McCormick were to declare the plan acceptable, it is likely that the plaintiffs who initially sued will appeal to the Delaware Supreme Court. Among their potential arguments:…

George Bochetto, a Philadelphia lawyer who claimed to own the house with his late partner's widow, bought it in 2016 for $60,000. “It was abandoned for many years. It was run down,” Mr. Bochetto said in an interview Tuesday. He marveled at how “this little house on the western edge of Louisville, modest as it was, could produce a magnificent world figure.” He added: “Muhammad Ali was one of my heroes as a child.” Mr. Bochetto said he wants the new owners to "make sure the house is preserved" as an honor to him. The sale would also include the…

For months, Nvidia, Microsoft and OpenAI have largely escaped the brunt of the Biden administration's regulatory scrutiny. But things started to change when generative AI, capable of producing human-like text, photos, video and audio, hit the scene in late 2022 and created a frenzy in the industry. Regulators have recently signaled that they want to get ahead of developments in artificial intelligence. In July, the FTC launched an investigation into whether OpenAI had harmed consumers through data collection. In January, the FTC also launched a broad investigation into strategic partnerships between tech giants and AI startups, including Microsoft's investments in…

The humiliation of Modi's party resonates in part as an expression of popular frustration that India remains a land of economic peril for hundreds of millions of people, as well as a country characterized by startling contrasts in wealth. In big cities, five-star hotels boasting luxurious spas look down on teeming, unsanitary slums. In rural areas, malnutrition prevails under many roofs and families struggle to find the money to send their children to school. Even though its working-age population numbers about a billion, India has only 430 million jobs, according to the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy, an independent research…

Ms. Bongiorno and Mr. Chaudhri said Humane was working on problems with the device. The startup has added more voice navigation options to the device, as well as sound effects, to make it easier to use. The updates include the integration of OpenAI's latest chatbot system, GPT-4o, designed to improve battery life by 25% and reduce the device's response time to two seconds. Those updates responded to questions raised by auditors, the founders said. Ms. Bongiorno defined the reviews and feedback as “a gift given to us”. Companies are interested in the device, he added. Within 48 hours of its…