general news

SYDNEY—“Buy now, pay later” companies battling a slowing economy and strained household budgets are increasingly turning to niche sectors to secure their futures. For Brian Shniderman, a pivot toward healthcare led to a debate over the Brazilian butt lift.Mr. Shniderman, chief strategy officer for Australia’s Openpay Group Ltd. OPY 13.95% , said payment plans that allowed shoppers to pay in installments for items such as clothing can be…

T-Mobile admitted a security lapse in 2021 after personal information of over 50 million of its current, former and prospective customers was found for sale online. Photo: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg News…

Vince McMahon, the king of U.S. wrestling, retired as chief executive officer and chairman of World Wrestling Entertainment Inc., WWE 0.62% following disclosures by The Wall Street Journal of multiple payouts to women who had alleged sexual misconduct and infidelity. In a news release, the 76-year-old executive said his daughter, Stephanie McMahon, and the company’s current…

LONDON—The deal between Moscow and Kyiv to allow for the export of Ukrainian grain is helping push global prices lower, but it won’t translate into a slug of new exports soon.Wheat prices fell Friday, as the deal raised hopes that a restart to Ukrainian grain exports would ease a brewing global food-supply crisis. Wheat futures traded in Chicago were down more than 4% at $7.72 a bushel. Having surged to a record high of $12.94 a bushel following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, prices have tumbled…

This past week brought home the double-headed crisis testing the European Union’s resilience.Russia is trying to break its unity by curbing supplies of natural gas to the bloc. At the same time, rising inflation is ending an era of negative interest rates and increasing the risk of a fracturing eurozone economy. Sanctions on Russia have hit the bloc harder than other Western countries, because its economies are more intertwined than others in the West. According to EU officials, Moscow’s…

Federal Reserve officials have indicated they are gravitating toward another 0.75-percentage-point rate rise at their July 26-27 Federal Open Market Committee meeting, even as they have faced questions about their willingness to do more than that to bring down high inflation. Central bankers have signaled they will do whatever it takes to lower inflation that is now running above 9%, but at least one policy maker is worried about how the economy will respond to a series of large rate rises. Here is a roundup of…

The U.S. challenge to Mexico’s nationalist energy policies creates a dilemma for President Andrés Manuel López Obrador —one that could either force him to retreat from his populist agenda or face retaliatory tariffs from Mexico’s biggest export market.The U.S. Trade Representative Office this week filed for dispute settlement consultations under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on grounds that Mexico’s energy policies undermine U.S. firms in favor of state-run companies, in a case that has…

In the latest incarnation of a very old idea, now you can bet on or against a stock—without owning it or even putting up all the money yourself.Earlier this month, AXS Investments, a New York-based asset manager, launched eight exchange-traded funds that offer exposure to one stock at a time. Seven are leveraged, meaning that you can rack up as much as twice the daily gain or loss of the stock you bet on or against. Greg Bassuk, chief executive of AXS, calls the new ETFs “sharper knives…

SEOUL—One of the world’s largest shipbuilders struck a deal over wages with subcontract workers Friday, ending a weekslong strike that had triggered roughly $600 million in losses and pushed back deliveries of in-demand vessels for liquefied natural gas. South Korea’s Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. had seen construction disrupted at its main shipyard since June 2. Around 120 striking workers, demanding a big boost to wages, occupied an oil…

ISTANBUL—Russia and Ukraine agreed Friday to resume exports of millions of tons of Ukrainian grain via the Black Sea for the first time since the Russian invasion, a deal aimed at freeing up vital supplies amid fears of a global food crisis. The deal is the product of months of diplomacy led by the United Nations and Turkey, both of which are signatories to a pair of parallel agreements with Russia and Ukraine. It raises hopes that grain stocks could soon be shipped out from Ukrainian ports, after the war caused a…