CNN – Business/Consumer

By Auzinea Bacon, CNN (CNN) — In 2024, US buyers had a choice of three cars priced under $20,000. Now, there are none. Data on car-buying costs released Monday show how much the loss of cheaper models can hurt customers: New car buyers paid $50,326 on average in December, a record high, according to estimates

By Samantha Delouya, Hadas Gold, CNN (CNN) — Ashley St. Clair, the mother of one of Elon Musk’s children, sued Musk’s xAI on Wednesday, alleging that the company’s AI chatbot Grok generated sexually explicit deepfake images of her without her consent. “xAI’s product Grok, a generative artificial intelligence (‘AI’) chatbot, uses AI to undress, humiliate,

By Chris Isidore, Adam Cancryn, CNN (CNN) — Hundreds of millions of dollars that the United States is raising from the sale of Venezuelan oil is being sequestered in Qatar. It’s an indirect path that could speed the flow of much-needed money to Venezuela, but it also raises questions about the transparency surrounding those funds.

By Samantha Delouya, CNN (CNN) — The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate was 6.06% for the week ending January 15, according to Freddie Mac. The last time home borrowing rates were this low was September 2022. Experts hope the drop could help ease the stalemate in the housing market. “The impacts are noticeable, as weekly

By Brian Stelter, CNN (CNN) — Early on in her tenure as President Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi scrapped a Biden-era policy that banned the Justice Department from pursuing reporters’ phone records and notes while investigating leakers. The message was unmistakable: Trump-era investigators would welcome a confrontation. And now they have one. This week, the

By David Goldman, CNN (CNN) — The United States is considering whether to strike Iran as turmoil intensifies for the country’s authoritarian regime. The Iranian government is at its weakest point in years, destabilizing yet another OPEC nation less than two weeks after the United States toppled the government of Venezuela. Protests have erupted in

By Samantha Delouya, CNN (CNN) — The United States has completed its first sale of Venezuelan oil, valued at $500 million, according to an administration official. Additional sales of oil are expected in the coming days and weeks, the official added. In the days since the United States attacked Venezuela and captured its president, Nicolás

By Elisabeth Buchwald, Lisa Eadicicco, CNN (CNN) — President Donald Trump enacted a new 25% tariff on “certain advanced computing chips” on Wednesday, according to a White House fact sheet. That includes Nvidia’s H200 chip and AMD’s MI325X. However, chips imported to support building up the US technological supply chain would be exempt. It’s unclear,

By Hadas Gold, CNN (CNN) — Elon Musk’s Grok artificial intelligence chatbot will no longer edit “images of real people in revealing clothing” on the X platform, the company confirmed Wednesday evening, following global outrage after Grok was found to be complying with user requests to digitally undress images of adults and in some cases

By Lisa Eadicicco, CNN (CNN) — Verizon said it has resolved an hours-long outage that is believed to have left tens of thousands of US customers without access to voice and data services for much of Wednesday. “Today, we let many of our customers down and for that, we are trulysorry,” a Verizon spokesperson said

By Clare Duffy, CNN New York (CNN) — YouTube will now let parents limit the amount of time their teens can spend scrolling through its short-form video feature, Shorts, or block them all together. The option is part of a group of new parental controls the popular video platform announced on Wednesday. YouTube, like many

CNN By Katelyn Polantz, Devan Cole, CNN (CNN) — The longtime government contractor whose activity prompted the controversial search of a Washington Post reporter’s home acknowledged he mishandled classified information, prosecutors said, according to a court hearing transcript obtained by CNN. Aurelio Perez-Lugones told federal investigators he was angry about “recent government activity,” Assistant US

By Brian Stelter, Katelyn Polantz, CNN (CNN) — Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson has spent the past year as a “federal government whisperer,” receiving tips from hundreds of federal workers impacted by President Donald Trump’s transformation of the government. Early Wednesday morning, FBI agents arrived at Natanson’s home and executed a search warrant. One phone,

By Alicia Wallace, CNN (CNN) — Price hikes picked up speed for US-based businesses toward the end of last year, a potential signal that inflation has yet to peak and prices could soon rise faster for consumers. US wholesale inflation picked up speed in November, pushed higher in part by fast-rising energy prices, according to

By Bryan Mena, CNN Washington (CNN) — Sales at US retailers rose at a solid pace in November, despite jitters about the economy and a slowing labor market. Retail sales rose 0.6% in November, the Commerce Department said Wednesday, up sharply from October’s downwardly revised 0.1% decline. That was higher than the 0.4% increase economists

By Luciana Lopez, Nathaniel Meyersohn, CNN (CNN) — Saks Global, the parent company of luxury retailer Saks Fifth Avenue, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection late Tuesday. The company had struggled with a heavy debt load following its purchase of rival Neiman Marcus in 2024. Saks was in a precarious financial situation before its Neiman

By Clare Duffy, CNN New York (CNN) — Microsoft says it will ask to pay higher electricity bills in areas where it’s building data centers, in an effort to prevent electricity prices for local residents from rising in those areas. The move is part of a broader plan to address rising prices and other concerns

By Alicia Wallace, CNN (CNN) — US consumer prices rose 2.7% annually in December, closing out a year that saw slight progress on inflation but continued affordability concerns for many Americans. The latest Consumer Price Index, which measures the average change in prices for some commonly purchased goods and services, showed that the annual pace

By Lianne Kolirin, CNN London (CNN) — The BBC is taking steps to have Donald Trump’s defamation lawsuit against it dismissed, a court document showed. Last month, the US president sued the British broadcaster for defamation over a BBC documentary featuring edited clips of a speech he made on January 6, 2021. The edit spliced

By Lisa Eadicicco, CNN Las Vegas (CNN) — Amazon doesn’t just want Alexa to know you. It wants her to remember things about you, like a close friend or family member would. That’s the driving philosophy behind the vision for Alexa’s future, which Amazon executives detailed in conversations with CNN at the annual Consumer Electronics

By Chris Isidore, CNN (CNN) — Tesla’s robotaxi service has been mostly hypothetical so far, but it’s certainly taking the company’s shareholders for a real ride. Tesla debuted its ride-hailing service using cars with its so-called full self-driving (FSD) tech in Austin, Texas, in June. At the rollout, CEO Elon Musk announced the ambitious goal

CNN By Elisabeth Buchwald, CNN (CNN) — President Donald Trump said on Monday that countries that do business with Iran will face a new 25% tariff. The announcement appears to mean goods from China, a major trading partner of both Iran and the United States, would become significantly more expensive to import. “Effective immediately, any

By Elisabeth Buchwald, CNN (CNN) — President Donald Trump said on Monday that countries that do business with Iran will face a new 25% tariff. The announcement appears to mean goods from China, a major trading partner of both Iran and the United States, would become significantly more expensive to import. “Effective immediately, any Country

By Clare Duffy, CNN New York (CNN) — Apple plans to use Google’s Gemini artificial intelligence model to power its updated version of Siri, which is set to launch later this year, the two companies announced Monday. “After careful evaluation, Apple determined that Google’s Al technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models

By Brian Stelter, Liam Reilly, CNN (CNN) — Paramount is taking its pursuit of CNN’s parent company Warner Bros. Discovery to court. On Monday Paramount CEO David Ellison announced a lawsuit in Delaware Chancery Court, where shareholders typically bring corporate disputes, as it attempts a hostile takeover of the iconic entertainment company. Ellison criticized Warner

By Nathaniel Meyersohn, CNN New York (CNN) — The biggest chains in America are using facial recognition technology to try to stop shoplifting. But most customers are unaware their faces are being scanned while they shop. Facial recognition isn’t new — it’s been controversially used for over a decade. Despite widespread disdain for the technology’s

By John Towfighi, CNN New York (CNN) — Investors took one look at the Trump administration’s criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and decided to resuscitate the “Sell America” trade Sunday night, selling off US stock futures, bonds and the dollar. But the “Sell America” trade was muted Monday, with US stocks recovering

By Clare Duffy, CNN New York (CNN) — When Elliston Berry, then 14 years old, discovered a classmate had made and shared a deepfake nude image of her, she didn’t know where to turn for information on what had happened or how to get the photos removed from social media. Now, she’s pushing to ensure

By Matt Egan, CNN New York (CNN) — Greenland’s untapped mineral wealth has helped land the island at the top of President Donald Trump’s empire-building wish list. Trump officials view Greenland’s underground riches as a way to loosen China’s stranglehold over the rare-earth metals that are critical for everything from fighter jets and lasers to