Chanel, the French fashion house known for its No. 5 perfumes and quilted leather handbags, spent record amounts maintaining its stores, supply chain, advertising and fashion shows in 2020, despite the strain of pandemic lockdowns and sales volatility in one of the most tumultuous years in retail history.

The company said Tuesday that revenue for 2020 was $10.1 billion, down 18 percent compared with the previous year. Operating profit fell 41.4 percent in the same period, to just over $2 billion. But unlike some industry rivals that were forced to slash costs last year, Chanel spent $1.36 billion on “brand support activities” like advertising and runway shows, and $1.12 billion on capital expenditure investments such as the acquisition and renovation of its boutiques network, new offices and the ecosystem of small artisanal workshops that produce its luxury wares.

“One of the luxuries of being a privately owned luxury company is that we could prioritize protecting...

Amazon and its founder, Jeff Bezos, have pioneered news ways of mass-managing people through technology, relying on a maze of systems that minimized human contact to grow unconstrained.

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There was a hug for the bandleader, Jon Batiste, without any need for social distancing. There were chants of “Ste-phen! Ste-phen! Ste-phen!” And a standing ovation that lasted a minute and a half.

“So how ya been?” Stephen Colbert said to a roar of laughter from a crowd of more than 420 people — all vaccinated, most of them maskless — at the Ed Sullivan Theater in Midtown Manhattan.

The CBS late night host was back in his element on Monday, connecting with a capacity crowd 460 days after the coronavirus pandemic had emptied the theater where he has worked since 2015. He was reveling in the moment.

“I am proud to say that we are the first show back up on Broadway,” Mr. Colbert said, adding a profane taunt of “The Lion King.”

According to prosecutors, the F.D.A. learned that at least five children had experienced acute non-viral hepatitis, which can lead to liver failure, after drinking the father and son’s Re²al Water products.

The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday approved a new drug to treat a vaginal yeast infection that is especially common in women who are pregnant, using birth control pills or taking antibiotics.

The drug, Brexafemme (ibrexafungerp) made by SCYNEXIS, is a one-day oral treatment and the first of a new class of triterpenoid antifungal drugs. The company said the new drug kills candida — the yeast that can cause an infection.

The standard oral medication, Diflucan (fluconazole), inhibits the growth of yeast but does not kill it.

But the treatment most likely wouldn’t be prescribed widely at first for common vaginal yeast infections. Dr. David Angulo, the company’s chief medical officer, estimated that the list price of the drug would range from $350 to $450 for the four-tablet treatment. By comparison, GoodRx lists the average retail price of fluconazole as $29.81.

The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday approved a new drug to treat a vaginal yeast infection that is especially common in women who are pregnant, using birth control pills or taking antibiotics.

The drug, Brexafemme (ibrexafungerp) made by SCYNEXIS, is a one-day oral treatment and the first of a new class of triterpenoid antifungal drugs. The company said the new drug kills candida — the yeast that can cause an infection.

The standard oral medication, Diflucan (fluconazole), inhibits the growth of yeast but does not kill it.

But the treatment most likely wouldn’t be prescribed widely at first for common vaginal yeast infections. Dr. David Angulo, the company’s chief medical officer, estimated that the list price of the drug would range from $350 to $450 for the four-tablet treatment. By comparison, GoodRx lists the average retail price of fluconazole as $29.81.

Production began to resume at nine beef plants in the United States on Wednesday after a cyberattack on the world’s largest meat processor forced them to shut down a day earlier.

Union officials said Wednesday that certain plants were operational but were not at full capacity yet. JBS had said late Tuesday that the “vast majority” of its plants would reopen the next day.

About 400 workers were back on the job at the JBS beef plant in Souderton, Pa., versus about 1,500 who would work in a typical day, said Wendell Young IV, the president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1776, which represents workers at the plant. A JBS beef plant in Cactus, Texas, canceled work for many employees scheduled for one of its shifts on Wednesday, according to a Facebook post meant for workers.

Mr. Young added that the company had told the union that the plant would be running essentially as normal by Thursday, although workers’ start times would be delayed by a few...

The Kroger supermarket in Yorktown, Va., is in a county where mask wearing can be casual at best. Yet for months, the store urged patrons to cover their noses and mouths, and almost everyone complied.

The Biden administration on Wednesday moved closer to imposing tariffs on certain goods from six countries in retaliation for taxes those nations have imposed on digital services offered by companies like Facebook, Amazon and Google.

The United States finalized a list of products that would be subject to tariffs but immediately suspended the levies for 180 days while international tax negotiations proceeded.

Under the administration’s announcement, 25 percent tariffs would apply to about $2.1 billion worth of goods from Austria, Britain, India, Italy, Spain and Turkey.

The Trump administration began investigating those countries’ digital services taxes in June 2020, and the Biden administration faced a one-year deadline to take action.

Global employment will take years to return to prepandemic levels, the United Nations’ labor organization said on Wednesday in a report that urged governments to build social protection systems to avoid the destabilizing effects of deepening economic and social inequality.

The pandemic wiped out around 144 million jobs last year, including a projected 30 million new jobs that would have been created, the International Labor Organization said in its assessment of employment and social trends.

“The hit on labor markets in terms of jobs, and in terms of the effect on people’s incomes, has been four times greater than the financial crisis,” Guy Ryder, the organization’s director general, said in an interview.

The organization expects to see significant growth in employment starting in the second half of 2021, but “this will be uneven and not enough to repair the damage caused by the crisis,” Mr. Ryder said.

The Kroger supermarket in Yorktown, Va., is in a county where mask wearing can be casual at best. Yet for months, the store urged patrons to cover their noses and mouths, and almost everyone complied.

The Kroger supermarket in Yorktown, Va., is in a county where mask wearing can be casual at best. Yet for months, the store urged patrons to cover their noses and mouths, and almost everyone complied.

Our Times colleague Ed Lee, who wrote about a study finding that ViacomCBS used overseas tax shelters to avoid paying billions in U.S. taxes, goes deeper into the story for us:

Every multinational takes advantage of tax shelters, but the way ViacomCBS does it is particularly fascinating. The company behind the “SpongeBob,” “Mission Impossible” and “Transformers” franchises has avoided paying $4 billion in U.S. corporate income tax since 2002, according to a study from a Dutch nonprofit.

This article is part of the On Tech newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it weekdays.

The Silicon Valley myth doesn’t leave much room for companies that are neither raging successes nor spectacular flameouts. But to fully understand the tech industry and ensure that its goals don’t go off the rails, we need to talk more about the companies that are in the meh middle.

You probably know the myth I’m referring to. There are wild stories of companies that started from almost nothing and grew up to become Apple, Facebook or Uber. Then there are the horror stories of start-ups that burned bright and spectacularly flopped like the first iteration of the office rental start-up WeWork and the blood testing company Theranos.

Those polar opposites are the start-ups that people write books and make movies about. The untouchables and the unforgivables are the images that we hold in our minds of technology companies.

But most of life isn’t success or failure,...

A few months after Wang Xing founded a Groupon-like e-commerce service called Meituan, he learned that China’s biggest internet company, Tencent, had started a similar venture.

“Is there any business that Tencent wouldn’t do?” he asked.

Mr. Wang’s quote led a 2010 magazine article about Tencent with a headline so famously profane — think the rough Chinese equivalent of an F-bomb — that two top editors were fired shortly after it was published. The cover depicted Tencent’s mascot, a chubby penguin wearing a red scarf, stabbed with knives, blood dripping to the floor.

Dramatic, perhaps, but back then the Chinese technology industry considered Tencent to be Public Enemy No. 1. It wouldn’t hesitate to copy somebody else’s idea and drive the upstart out of business. Its top executives were confronted at industry conferences and in media interviews. Entrepreneurs called it the industry’s most brazen copycat.

More than a decade later, the Chinese government is...

Depop, the fashion resale marketplace beloved by Generation Z, will be acquired by Etsy for $1.6 billion, the two companies announced on Wednesday.

The cash deal, which is expected to close by the third quarter of this year, underscores the growing influence of clothing resale platforms. More shoppers are turning to the secondhand market for something cheaper and — potentially — greener as the overproduction of clothing increasingly adds to landfills.

The trend appears to have been accelerated by the pandemic as more shoppers looked to declutter wardrobes, earn cash by selling their old clothes or set up fashion customization businesses from their bedrooms.

Investor appetite is also on the rise. Last month, Europe’s largest secondhand fashion marketplace, Vinted, raised 250 million euros in a funding round that valued the start-up at €3.5 billion ($4.26 billion), while in the United States companies such as ThredUp and Poshmark have gone public this...

Depop, the fashion resale marketplace beloved by Generation Z, will be acquired by Etsy for $1.6 billion, the two companies announced on Wednesday.

The cash deal, which is expected to close by the third quarter of this year, underscores the growing influence of clothing resale platforms. More shoppers are turning to the secondhand market for something cheaper and — potentially — greener as the overproduction of clothing increasingly adds to landfills.

The trend appears to have been accelerated by the pandemic as more shoppers looked to declutter wardrobes, earn cash by selling their old clothes or set up fashion customization businesses from their bedrooms.

Investor appetite is also on the rise. Last month, Europe’s largest secondhand fashion marketplace, Vinted, raised 250 million euros in a funding round that valued the start-up at €3.5 billion ($4.26 billion), while in the United States companies such as ThredUp and Poshmark have gone public this year.

Depop, the fashion resale marketplace beloved by Generation Z, will be acquired by Etsy for $1.6 billion, the two companies announced on Wednesday.

The cash deal, which is expected to close by the third quarter of this year, underscores the growing influence of clothing resale platforms. More shoppers are turning to the secondhand market for something cheaper and — potentially — greener as the overproduction of clothing increasingly adds to landfills.

The trend appears to have been accelerated by the pandemic as more shoppers looked to declutter wardrobes, earn cash by selling their old clothes or set up fashion customization businesses from their bedrooms.

Investor appetite is also on the rise. Last month, Europe’s largest secondhand fashion marketplace, Vinted, raised 250 million euros in a funding round that valued the start-up at €3.5 billion ($4.26 billion), while in the United States companies such as ThredUp and Poshmark have gone public this...