Business

Alaska Airlines grounded its fleet of Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft on Friday after a flight operated by the airline made an emergency landing at Portland International Airport in Oregon that evening because of a midair pressure problem that passengers said blew out a chunk of the fuselage.The airline said that Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 had made a safe emergency landing carrying 171 passengers and six crew members at the Portland airport shortly after takeoff for Ontario, Calif. Within hours, the company said that it was grounding all 65 of its Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft until it could inspect…

The Biden administration on Thursday announced plans to provide $162 million in federal grants to Microchip Technology, an Arizona-based semiconductor company that supplies the automotive, defense and other industries.The agreement is the second award announced under a new program intended to help ensure that American companies that rely on semiconductors have a stable supply. Last month, the Biden administration announced a $35 million grant for BAE Systems, a defense contractor.The investment will enable Microchip to increase its production of semiconductors that are used in cars, airplanes, appliances, medical devices and military products. The administration said it expected the award to…

The financial news network Cheddar placed at least some of its employees on unpaid leave on Tuesday, the latest development for the start-up that bills itself as a destination for younger viewers.The news network put the affected workers on furlough, effective immediately, and barred employees from further work, according to an email sent to the employees.“We would like to have given you more notice of this action, but the decision was necessitated by unforeseen internal and external factors that required rapid adjustments in our business strategy,” said the email, which was seen by The New York Times.Altice USA, the cable…

Over the past two weeks, the owner of a hip wine bar in Buenos Aires saw the price of beef soar 73 percent, while the zucchini he puts in salads rose 140 percent. An Uber driver paid 60 percent more to fill her tank. And a father said he spent twice as much on diapers for his toddler than he did last month.In Argentina, a country synonymous with galloping inflation, people are used to paying more for just about everything. But under the country’s new president, life is quickly becoming even more painful.When Javier Milei was elected president on Nov.…

The boom in artificial intelligence tools that draw on troves of content from across the internet has begun to test the bounds of copyright law.Authors and a leading photo agency have brought suit over the past year, contending that their intellectual property was illegally used to train A.I. systems, which can produce humanlike prose and power applications like chatbots.Now they have been joined in the spotlight by the news industry. The New York Times filed a lawsuit on Wednesday accusing OpenAI and Microsoft of copyright infringement, the first such challenge by a major American news organization over the use of…

Despite lingering inflation, Americans increased their spending this holiday season, early data shows. That comes as a big relief for retailers that had spent much of the year fearing the economy would soon weaken and consumer spending would fall.Retail sales from Nov. 1 to Dec. 24 increased 3.1 percent from a year earlier, according to data from Mastercard SpendingPulse, which measures in-store and online retail sales across all forms of payment. The numbers, released Tuesday, are not adjusted for inflation.Spending increased across many categories, with restaurants experiencing one of the largest jumps, 7.8 percent. Apparel increased 2.4 percent, and groceries…