The family of an elderly couple killed when the roof of their F-250 pickup collapsed during a rollover accident in 2014 has been awarded a massive $1.7 billion in punitive damages from Ford.
The jury appeared to endorse the plaintiff’s arguments that Ford knew of the problem years before the fatal crash, acted slowly to correct it and that other deaths have resulted from the same design flaw.
DoorDash has confirmed that it has teamed up with Facebook Marketplace to make that awkward exchange of items with a stranger a bit easier. The company said DoorDash Drive, its business-to-business service that provides drivers to merchants through their own website or app, is now in the early stages of testing a service that will allow DoorDash drivers to pick up and drop off Facebook Marketplace items to customers.
DoorDash and Facebook’s parent company Meta are currently offering the test in several cities in the United States, giving many drivers another opportunity to earn money. Items that are eligible for delivery are Marketplace items that can fit in the trunk of a car and must be located up to 15 miles away. DoorDash drivers are expected to make deliveries within 48 hours or less.
The housing market is shifting, and faster than builders and sellers can adapt.
During the pandemic, low mortgage rates and increased demand led to a surge in the housing market, causing prices to soar and competition to rise. However, the tight market led to sky-high prices and an eventual rise in mortgage rates, which ultimately priced out millions of would-be buyers. Now, builders are faced with an excess of unsold homes, Bloomberg reported.
The once nationwide housing shortage — coupled with the boom brought on by the pandemic — pushed the market to a pressure point. Home prices rose by 20.6% year-over-year in March of 2022, marking the largest increase in the 30 years of record-keeping, according to the Joint Center for Housing Studies tabulations of CoStar and CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Indices data.
Your Spotify home page is getting a makeover.
This week, Spotify is launching separate feeds for music and podcasts that will be accessible through the Home page on the app. This makes it easier to find what you’re really looking for. Your existing Home feed won’t change, but you will notice two new tabs on the upper left of the page: one labeled “Music” and titled “Podcasts & Shows.”
These feeds will essentially put all of Spotify’s recommendations in one place. The Music feed will feature new releases and playlists based on users’ music taste, while the Podcast & Shows feed will keep you up to date on the latest episodes of shows you follow, as well as suggestions based on what you’re listening to now.
Ford on Thursday will once again begin taking orders for its popular F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck. But this time the base model of the pickup will cost about $7,000 more than before.
When the Lightning first went on sale, the Pro version — the base model intended mostly as a simple work truck — cost about $40,000. Now it will cost about $47,000. More expensive versions of the truck have similar price increases, up to $8,500 for highly equipped extended range models. The Lightning is currently eligible for the $7,500 federal EV tax credit. (With electric vehicle tax credit rules set to change under new legislation, it’s unclear if the truck will continue to be eligible in the future.)
Brick-and-mortar Toys “R” Us stores are back! Well, kind of. Macy’s has announced the opening of Toys “R” Us stores at its retail locations in nine states, and stores in another 19 states are set to open before the holiday 2022 shopping season.
Some background: The iconic toy retailer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy back in 2017 and the last of the chain’s brick-and-mortar shops closed in January 2021 due to the pandemic. But then in August 2021, Toys “R” Us announced its comeback: It would partner with Macy’s to open stores-within-stores inside the department chain’s locations.
There are a number of text message marketing laws that your business should be following when trying to reach its target audience.
Text message marketing, also known as SMS marketing, is becoming a poular marketing channel. This rapid rise has many businesses scrambling to incorporate text message marketing into their marketing strategies. Before you get started, however, it is critical to understand the laws surrounding this marketing method. Even though you may not intend to break the law, some aspects of compliance may be easy to miss, and even a tiny oversight could cost your business millions of dollars and damage consumers’ trust in your company.
Amazon and Apple posted better than expected sales, reassuring investors that the tech giants will be able to weather slowdowns in global economies.
Amazon forecast in a trading update that higher fees for its Prime membership would boost its bottom line, while Apple said demand for its all important iPhone remained strong.
Both firms said they were making progress controlling running costs, despite prices rising at rapid rates.
The updates sent shares soaring.
The quarterly updates from Apple and Amazon are closely watched as indicators of how customers are reacting to the economic climate.
In an era full of giant tech companies devouring smaller tech companies, the Federal Trade Commission is actually trying to stop one such acquisition.
The FTC filed a lawsuit on Wednesday to block Meta from acquiring the VR developer Within, per The Verge. Within is perhaps best known for developing Supernatural VR, a popular VR fitness app. The federal agency’s primary charge is that, in purchasing Within, Meta would be monopolizing VR fitness, given that it already owns another one of the most popular VR workout games in Beat Saber.
“Letting Meta acquire Supernatural would combine the makers of two of the most significant VR fitness apps, thereby eliminating beneficial rivalry between Meta’s Beat Saber app and Within’s Supernatural app,” the FTC’s complaint said.
With the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hike on Wednesday — its fourth since March — consumers again face the question of where to park their savings for the best return and how to minimize their borrowing costs.
In its bid to beat back high inflation, the US central bank hiked its overnight lending rate another 75 basis points to a range of 2.25% to 2.50%. And more rate hikes are anticipated later this year.
“With inflation running north of 9%, we’re not at the finish line and there will be more interest rate increases to come in the months ahead,” said Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at Bankrate.com.
Here are a few ways to situate your money so that you can benefit from rising rates, and protect yourself from their downside.
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