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Money & Markets

Congress mandates new car tech to stop drunken driving

WASHINGTON — Congress has created a new requirement for automakers: Find a high-tech way to keep drunken people from driving cars. It’s one of the mandates along with a burst of new spending aimed at improving auto safety amid escalating road fatalities in the $1 trillion infrastructure ...

US government works to ‘cocoon’ old nuclear reactors

SPOKANE, Wash. — Costs to clean up a massive nuclear weapons complex in Washington state are usually expressed in the hundreds of billions of dollars and involve decades of work. But one project on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation is progressing at a much lower price. The federal ...

Paid leave, immigration, tax changes added to Biden bill

WASHINGTON — House Democrats added a new paid family leave program, immigrant work permits and a state-and-local tax break to President Joe Biden’s $1.75 trillion social services and environmental bill Wednesday, reviving key priorities in the rush to finish up and start voting after dismal ...

Facebook to shut down face recognition system, delete data

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Facebook said it will shut down its face-recognition system and delete the faceprints of more than 1 billion people amid growing concerns about the technology and its misuse by governments, police and others. “This change will represent one of the largest shifts in ...

Fed pulls back economic aid in face of risting uncertainties

WASHINGTON — If you find the current economy a bit confusing, don’t worry: So does the nation’s top economic official, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. At a highly anticipated news conference Wednesday, Powell said the Fed was sticking by its bedrock economic forecast: COVID-19 ...

Treasury says plans to borrow $1.02 trillion this quarter

WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department said Monday it plans to borrow $1.02 trillion during the current quarter, the largest amount since the government began passing trillion-dollar rescue packages for the economy in the spring of 2020. Treasury said the borrowing estimate for the ...