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Associated media - Associated media Innovation on wheels Has Apple really crashed the car? The tech giant has killed its electric vehicle project as it pivots to artificial intelligence, prompting many observers to declare the venture a major failure for the company. Here’s a contrarian thought: That critique misses a wider point about how Apple innovates, because the company has used the project to power a whole ecosystem of products and services that have been unmitigated successes. Apple invested billions to build a self-driving car. Reports emerged about the secret effort, code-named Project Titan, in 2014, and the company has…

One year after a series of bank runs threatened the financial system, government officials are preparing to unveil a regulatory response aimed at preventing future meltdowns.After months of floating fixes at conferences and in quiet conversations with bank executives, the Federal Reserve and other regulators could unveil new rules this spring. At least some policymakers hope to release their proposal before a regulation-focused conference in June, according to a person familiar with the plans.The interagency clampdown would come on top of another set of proposed and potentially costly regulations that have caused tension between big banks and their regulators. Taken…

The Internal Revenue Service is on a charm offensive, as long as you don’t earn too much money.After a multiyear pandemic pause, the agency is rebooting its collection efforts, hammering home its intent to chase down high earners who owe the most. On Thursday, the I.R.S. said it was sending letters to over 25,000 people with more than $1 million in income who had not filed tax returns since 2017.Everyone else, the agency insists, is going to benefit from the $80 billion that the agency won via the Inflation Reduction Act, which was passed in 2022. The year before that,…

For decades, California’s behemoth economy has outpaced those of most nations, holding an outsize role in shaping global trends in tech, entertainment and agriculture.While that reputation remains, the state has a less enviable distinction: one of the nation’s highest unemployment rates.Nationwide, the rate is 3.7 percent, and in January, the country added 353,000 jobs. California’s job growth has been slower than the nationwide average over the last year, and the unemployment rate remains stubbornly high — 5.1 percent in the latest data, a percentage point higher than a year earlier and outpaced only by Nevada’s 5.4 percent.With layoffs in the…

After watching “Navalny,” the documentary about the Russian opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny, a Chinese businesswoman messaged me, “Ren Zhiqiang is China’s Navalny.” She was talking about the retired real estate tycoon who was sentenced to 18 years in prison for criticizing China’s leader, Xi Jinping.After Mr. Navalny’s tragic death this month, a young dissident living in Berlin posted on X, “Teacher Li is closest to the Chinese version of Navalny.” He was referring to the rebel influencer known as Teacher Li, who used social media to share information about protests in China and who now fears for his life.There…

Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said on Tuesday that she had personally urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to increase commercial engagement with the West Bank, contending that doing so was important for the economic welfare of both Israelis and Palestinians.Ms. Yellen’s plea was outlined in a letter that she sent to Mr. Netanyahu on Sunday. It represented her most explicit public expression of concern about the economic consequences of the war between Israel and Hamas. In the letter, Ms. Yellen said, she warned about the consequences of the erosion of basic services in the West Bank and called…