Gold, silver and platinum jumped to all-time highs to extend a historic end-of-year rally for precious metals, with support from escalating geopolitical tensions, U.S. dollar weakness and thin market liquidity.

Spot gold rose as much as 1.2% to a peak above $4,530 an ounce on Friday. Spot silver for immediate delivery advanced for a fifth ...Read more

U.S. stocks wavered near a record high in thin holiday trading, as yields on 10-year Treasuries bounced and investors shifted attention toward commodities. Nvidia Corp. climbed as analysts viewed a licensing deal with artificial intelligence startup Groq positively.

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100 were both trading little changed at 12:32 p.m. ...Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Talks between Kaiser and a labor union representing health care workers ground to a halt late last week, raising concerns about another strike at California’s largest health care provider.

The union representing 31,000 Kaiser workers statewide — including about 2,000 rehab therapists, physician assistants, nurse ...Read more

A Stanford software engineering degree used to be a golden ticket. Artificial intelligence has devalued it to bronze, recent graduates say.

The elite students are shocked by the lack of job offers as they finish studies at what is often ranked as the top university in America.

When they were freshmen, ChatGPT hadn't yet been released upon the ...Read more

It’s noon, and I’m sitting in Jackson, Tennessee, a waypoint on Interstate 40 an hour east of Memphis. My husband calls and wants to know if I’ll be home in Indianapolis for dinner. I look at the Volkswagen GTI while knowing there are hours of challenging roads ahead.

“Yeah, I’ll be there,” I said. I threw my bags under the hatch, ...Read more

For many people, automobiles serve a purely utilitarian purpose. They are a means of transportation, a necessity, and little more than a recurring expense. Yet for most of us, they are far more than that. In their design, one glimpses human aspiration; in their performance, a promise of escape. Behind the wheel, anxieties are momentarily left ...Read more

Automobiles are rolling department stores containing everything from electronics to music to tires to wardrobe fashion. Wardrobe fashion? Check out the stylish blue leather seats in the Cadillac Optiq.

This year brought more cool features to keep the shoppers coming.

One feature I didn’t care for? The warning gong — BEEP BEEP BEEP — in ...Read more

A cybersecurity breach of Columbus, Georgia-based insurance giant Aflac Inc. potentially exposed the personal information of approximately 22.65 million people, the company said in a statement last week.

The affected files included names, contact information, claims information, health information, Social Security numbers, and/or other personal...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — At Quruxlow Restaurant on Lake Street in Minneapolis, only a portion of the dining space is being used because of a drop-off in customers. Business at the African restaurant is also roughly half of what it was before this month’s ICE crackdown, according to the restaurant’s manager.

The restaurant is just one immigrant-owned...Read more

Applications for U.S. unemployment benefits fell last week, highlighting the seasonal swings in the data at this time of year.

Initial claims decreased by 10,000 to 214,000 in the week ended Dec. 20, according to Labor Department data released Wednesday. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for 224,000 applications.

...Read more

China is still restricting the rare earth elements that the U.S. needs to produce its own permanent magnets and other products even after President Donald Trump reached a deal with his Chinese counterpart in October to lift restrictions on the supplies, according to market participants.

More than a dozen consumers, producers, government ...Read more

Stuffed animals that talk back. Chessboards with pieces that move on their own. And a chatty holographic fairy in a crystal ball.

Your next toy purchase might be powered by artificial intelligence and able to converse with your kids.

Chatbots and AI-powered assistants that can quickly answer questions and generate texts have become more common...Read more

Four years ago, California startup Theta Labs' cryptocurrency was soaring, and its future appeared bright when it landed a partnership with pop star Katy Perry.

The Bay Area company had built a marketplace for digital collectibles known as nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, and had teamed up with Perry to launch NFTs tied to her Las Vegas concert ...Read more

Downtown L.A. is doing better than you think it is, but the government needs to do more to energize the city, said one of the region's longest and most successful real estate leaders.

Bill Witte is retiring after running Related California, a large-scale developer of both luxury and low-income apartments, for more than three decades.

Among the...Read more

DETROIT — Downtown bustled this week with shoppers like Bill Atwood, 55, who stopped by GW Home to buy his wife a lamp for Christmas. The Detroiter has lived in Brush Park for 26 years and remembers the scarce retail offerings back then.

“I always dreamed of being able to Christmas shop here,” he said. “Back in 1999 there was almost ...Read more

After business consultant Len Kendall lost his Pacific Palisades home in the January firestorms, he sought to put a temporary stop on his mortgage payments but set aside the effort after realizing the paperwork involved.

So he was pleased to learn in September about a new state law that required mortgage servicers to offer up to 12 months of ...Read more

C.H. Robinson, one of the world’s largest logistics providers, has gone from disrupted to disruptor.

Five to 10 years ago, the Eden Prairie-based company was facing an existential threat from digital startups in the logistics space.

Firms like Uber Freight and Conroy Logistics believed they could digitize the processes of connecting shippers...Read more

If you’re buying a home, refinancing your mortgage, or just want to know how much your home is worth, you’re probably going to need a property appraisal.

At its most basic, “an appraisal is an opinion of value for a home,” said Matthew Sestito, a Philadelphia-based appraiser who works throughout the five-county area for the national ...Read more

A federal judge said the Trump administration can move ahead with a $100,000 fee on new H-1B visa applications, providing a setback for U.S. technology companies that rely on hiring skilled foreign workers.

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell said in a ruling Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s move to radically increase the cost of the ...Read more