General News

By Hannah Lang

(Reuters) - The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will apply some credit card consumer protection rules to buy now, pay later (BNPL) lenders, the agency said on Wednesday, in a bid to impose more oversight on the fast-growing sector.

BNPL providers such as Affirm, Klarna and Afterpay partner with retailers to finance customer purchases, which shoppers repay in installments. The sector has become a major source of... (continue reading...)

(Reuters) -TJX Cos raised its annual profit forecast and beat first-quarter sales estimates on Wednesday, helped by easing costs and robust demand.

Off-price product categories including apparel and home goods has helped drive demand at TJX for four straight quarters, while its efforts to improve inventory management and lower discounts strengthened its margins to 30%, a 1.1 percentage points increase compared to a year earlier.

The company's... (continue reading...)

Goldman Sachs analysts said in a note that they now project a debt-to-GDP ratio of 130% by 2034, a significant increase from their previous forecast of 97%. 

This shift reflects a more challenging fiscal environment over the past five years, characterized by a persistent primary deficit—excluding interest costs—approximately 5% of GDP wider than historical norms during full employment periods.

The debt-to-GDP ratio has already increased by 19 percentage points to... (continue reading...)

(Reuters) - Google will start testing search and shopping ads in its AI-generated answers in the U.S., the Alphabet-owned company said on Tuesday, days after it rolled out the AI Overviews feature widely at its annual I/O conference.

Ads will appear in a 'sponsored' section within AI Overview based on the query's relevance and information, , the company said in a blog post.

Google has been looking to extend its dominance beyond... (continue reading...)

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Apple said on Tuesday it plans to ask a U.S. judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the Justice Department and 15 states in March that alleged the iPhone maker monopolized the smartphone market, hurt smaller rivals and drove up prices.

In a letter to U.S. District Judge Julien X. Neals in New Jersey, Apple said "far from being a monopolist, Apple faces fierce competition from well-established rivals,... (continue reading...)