Business

In a tense Senate hearing on Wednesday, lawmakers sharply criticized UnitedHealth Group’s handling of the cyberattack that paralyzed the U.S. health care system, citing the failure of its security systems and the potential disclosure of sensitive medical information of millions of Americans. Democratic and Republican senators questioned whether the cyberattack of Change Healthcare, which manages a third of all U.S. patient records and some 15 billion transactions a year, was so vast because UnitedHealth is too deeply embedded in nearly every aspect of the nation’s medical care. UnitedHealth Group, which reported $372 billion in revenues in 2023 and is one of the nation’s largest corporations, is not only the parent of Change but also the parent of the country’s largest health insurer and ...

In March last year, at a business event in Denver, Colorado, we encountered Joel Kaplan, an entrepreneur who has notably assisted 120 individuals in achieving $100k/month in monthly recurring revenue (MRR) with their businesses. Joel, who co-founded a marketing agency called Atlas Digital in his early 20s, initially focused on helping chiropractors attract more clients through Facebook ads. By 26, his venture was generating over $300k a month, propelling him into millionaire status. After several successful years, Joel sold his share of Atlas Digital and began consulting for emerging marketing agencies, sharing his effective business scaling framework. This framework, which he applied to guide 120 entrepreneurs to $100k/month, revolves around four main pillars: setting appointmen...

The threat to vessels in the Indian Ocean has only added to the difficulties. “This has forced our vessels to lengthen their journey further, resulting in additional time and costs to get your cargo to its destination for the time being,” Maersk said. The company estimated that putting extra ships and equipment onto the Asia-to-Europe route would result in a 15 percent to 20 percent drop in industrywide capacity in the three months through the end of June. That said, shipping companies have plenty of capacity available because they have ordered many new ships in recent years. Maersk said on Monday that customers should expect higher surcharges on shipping invoices as a result of the higher costs borne by the shipping line, which include a 40 percent increase in fuel use per journey. The c...

As the sun sets over the harbor in Kalundborg, a small town about 60 miles west of Copenhagen, light streams through the glass walls of Shaun Gamble’s cafe and bathes his afternoon customers in a warm glow. It’s an enviable location — on the water, next to a large playground — except for the fact that little else is nearby. That is expected to change soon as the town benefits from America’s scramble for weight-loss drugs. Nearby, at a sprawling manufacturing plant, Novo Nordisk makes nearly all of its semaglutide, the active ingredient in the company’s wildly popular diabetes and obesity treatments Ozempic and Wegovy. The company has been in Kalundborg for half a century but in the past two years announced it would invest 60 billion kroner, or about $8.6 billion, into expanding the facili...

The 11-foot sculpture looks like something out of a comic strip: a luxury handbag perched on skinny legs and matched with high-end sneakers. The work is by the Austrian-born artist Erwin Wurm, and it represents accessories from the collections of Lanvin, the French fashion house. “Desire” (the title of the sculpture) was commissioned by Lanvin and unveiled in Beijing in early April. It will travel to six other Chinese cities, including Shanghai — where, in June, a Wurm solo exhibition opens at the Fosun Foundation: the nonprofit arm of the Fosun Group, Lanvin’s majority owners. “I made this piece because it fit into my series,” Wurm, 69, said in a phone interview, referring to his “walking bag” sculptures, which parody women’s contemporary passion for handbags. “I reduce females to long l...

The company didn’t disclose how much of that revenue came from A.I., but executives noted an increase in the availability of such services. (Amazon has invested billions in the hot A.I. start-up Anthropic, and it’s making the A.I. chatbot Q more widely available via A.W.S.) Wall Street approves of some kinds of A.I. spending. Shares in Microsoft and Alphabet jumped after their earnings reports last week, but those in Meta slumped — despite all three announcing that they were going to spend a lot more on the technology. (So will Amazon: Brian Olsavsky, its C.F.O., told analysts on Tuesday that the $14 billion that his company spent on capital expenditures and leases this quarter would be the low point of the year.) A big difference: Alphabet, Amazon and especially Microsoft reported gains ...

Both companies attributed their declines to lower profitability from refining crude oil into products like gasoline and diesel. Their earnings were also hurt by falling prices for natural gas, a key fuel that is used in heating and industry. Natural gas prices, which soared after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, have fallen sharply as markets adjusted. Chevron’s adjusted earnings of $2.93 per share were slightly above expectations, while Exxon Mobil’s, at $2.06 per share, were below, said Biraj Borkhataria, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, an investment bank. The two companies are locked in a rivalry over the oil riches of Guyana. Exxon Mobil led the development of the Latin American country into the most important new oil producer in recent years. But Chevron is trying to move int...

Honda Motor on Thursday said it and several suppliers would invest $11 billion to build batteries and electric cars in Ontario, a significant commitment from a company that has been slow to embrace the technology. Like Toyota and other Japanese carmakers, Honda has emphasized hybrid vehicles, in which gasoline engines are augmented by electric motors, rather than cars powered solely by batteries. The Honda Prologue, a sport-utility vehicle made in Mexico, is the company’s only fully electric vehicle on sale in the United States. But the investment adjacent to the company’s factory in Alliston, Ontario, near Toronto, is a shift in direction, raising the possibility that Honda and other Japanese carmakers could use their manufacturing expertise to push down the cost of electric vehicles and...

Loren Brey, a poultry grower in Minnesota, walked onto the farm where his egg-laying turkeys nest in November to discover a handful of hens, dead from the highly pathogenic avian flu. Within a week, he lost nearly half of his entire flock. So when Mr. Brey’s turkeys began producing eggs again in the spring, he gave a seemingly unconventional prevention method a go: lasers installed atop his barns, firing beams of green light to fend off wild ducks, owls and other possible carriers of the deadly virus. As migratory birds fly north for the spring, poultry farmers and backyard keepers across the country are bracing for yet another outbreak of avian flu. Although the most recent strain has felled only a small portion of the nearly 10 billion chickens, turkeys, ducks and other birds sold acros...

Jiani Luo’s leadership journey is a compelling tale of innovation, empathy, and strategic acumen. As a leader in the marketing industry, she has made remarkable strides, especially in nurturing and elevating Visible Minority and Asian businesses in the competitive landscape of the U.S. market. This focus reflects not only her professional expertise but also her commitment to diversity and inclusion. Starting with her academic pursuits that spanned from Shanghai to New York, Jiani has always been poised for leadership. After earning a Bachelor’s degree from Shanghai Normal University, she pursued a Master’s degree in Marketing at Pace University, followed by a Master’s in Project Management at New York University. These academic accomplishments laid a strong foundation for her unders...