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The future of Netflix, Amazon and other streaming services

The future of Netflix, Amazon and other streaming services

Associated media - Associated media Ted Sarandos, 59, co-chief executive of Netflix, worked his way up through the now-defunct DVD industry before going straight to Netflix when the company was still renting DVDs by mail. Mike Hopkins, 55, head of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios, was steeped in digital as chief executive of Hulu, the pioneering streaming service owned by Disney, Fox and NBCU, before joining Sony as head of its television unit in 2017. He came to Amazon in 2020 and reports to the company’s chief executive, Andy Jassy, 56, who has no professional background in entertainment. Over…
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Biden proposes eliminating medical debt from credit reports

Biden proposes eliminating medical debt from credit reports

Related media - Associated media That has changed significantly in recent years, as the three national credit reporting agencies – TransUnion, Equifax and Experian – have eliminated much of that debt from credit reports. Over the past two years, they have stopped reporting debts under $500 and debts less than a year in collections. According to a recent study by the Urban Institute, these changes have erased medical debt from the credit reports of millions of Americans. The percentage of Americans with unpaid healthcare bills on their credit reports dropped from 12% in August 2022 to 5% in August 2023.…
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Chinese restaurants move to Hong Kong

Chinese restaurants move to Hong Kong

Connected media - Associated media In the Shek Tong Tsui area, where Return Home Hunan opened in May, many of the brightly colored restaurants – once mainstays of the neighborhood – had recently closed their doors. A restaurant that served cheap noodles and milk tea was gone, as was a restaurant where retirees gathered to eat dim sum and catch up on the day’s news. “The restaurant business is hard work,” said Roy Tse, the owner of a local restaurant that sold lunch rice dishes once popular among office workers in Hong Kong’s Taikoo Shing business district. There are fewer…
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Google CEO testifies in Ozy Media founder’s fraud trial

Google CEO testifies in Ozy Media founder’s fraud trial

Related media - Linked media At the center of the federal criminal trial is an incident in 2021 in which Mr. Watson’s deputy deceived Goldman Sachs employees on a fundraising call by posing as a YouTube executive. The revelation of the call precipitated Ozy’s downfall. Defense lawyers for Mr. Watson and Ozy blamed his deputy, Samir Rao, for the fake phone call and for misrepresenting Ozy’s financial data to potential investors. Ms. Frison said in her opening statement in May that Mr. Rao was “incompetent for the role he was filling.” Mr. Rao and Suzee Han, Ozy’s former chief of…
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wallets are not cool. Go digital.

wallets are not cool. Go digital.

Connected media - Associated media In a survey that asked just over 2,500 Americans about digital payments, about 80% of Gen Z respondents said they use mobile wallets, and among them, half were eager to use their phone a lot of more than paying for things, according to recent data from Pymnts Intelligence, a research firm that studies trade. Younger people are increasingly using their phones for purposes that older adults would use a traditional wallet for, such as carrying around documents like driver’s licenses, boarding passes and event tickets. Some of these digital items can be added to Apple…
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UAW reaches agreement on pay and safety at electric vehicle battery plant

UAW reaches agreement on pay and safety at electric vehicle battery plant

Associated media - Linked media GM and Ultium released statements saying they were pleased with the deal. The union has said it wants to use the Ultium Cells contract as a model to negotiate local deals at other battery plants that GM and its Detroit rivals are building. GM began production this year at a battery plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee, and has another under construction in Lansing, Michigan. Ford Motor plans two battery plants in Kentucky, one in Tennessee and one in Michigan. Stellantis, the maker of Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge and Ram vehicles, plans two battery plants in Indiana.…
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Amazon fined nearly  million over warehouse labor quotas

Amazon fined nearly $6 million over warehouse labor quotas

Linked media - Linked media An Amazon spokesperson said in a statement that the company is appealing the sanctions and denied that the company used “fixed quotas.” Spokeswoman Maureen Lynch Vogel said “individual performance is evaluated over an extended period of time, relative to the performance of the entire site team” and that workers can “review their performance whenever they wish.” . California law also prohibits quotas that interfere with employees’ ability to take mandatory breaks or use the bathroom, or that prevent employers from following state health and safety laws. Experts said the law was among the first in…
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Elon Musk got 72% in Tesla shareholder vote on pay

Elon Musk got 72% in Tesla shareholder vote on pay

Connected media - Related media With the pay package, Musk would own 20.5% of Tesla, up from about 13%. He has said he would like a 25% stake, stressing in January that it would be “enough to be influential, but not so much that it can’t be overthrown.” If he didn’t get such a large stake, he said, “he would rather build products outside of Tesla.” Even after this week’s rally, Tesla shares are down more than 20% this year, versus a 14% gain in the broader stock market. The company remains by far the most valuable auto company, with…
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Disney’s Splash Mountain will reopen with a Princess Tiana theme

Disney’s Splash Mountain will reopen with a Princess Tiana theme

Related media - Associated media Tiana’s Bayou Adventure uses the same trails as Splash Mountain, and riders still ride in vehicles made to look like hollowed-out logs. But everything else has been redesigned. Instead of a suspenseful story involving Br’er Rabbit being thrown into a field of brambles, the new attraction focuses on a Mardi Gras party: Tiana and her friend Louis, a trumpet-playing alligator, are at the search for creatures to form a band. Midway through the film, the cheerful Mama Odie, a voodoo queen in “The Princess and the Frog” and now a “fairy godmother of the bayou,”…
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