Jerome H. Powell’s term as chair of the Federal Reserve ends in February. Slots for the vice chair and the Fed’s top bank regulator will also be up for grabs soon, and a position on the Fed’s Board of Governors is already vacant.

Assuming officials leave once their leadership terms end, the Biden administration may, in quick succession, be able to appoint four of the Fed’s seven board members, powerful policymakers who have constant votes on monetary decisions and exclusive regulatory authorities, Jeanna Smialek and Alan Rappeport report for The New York Times.

Many who would like to see Mr. Powell replaced play down the role Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will have in shaping President Biden’s decision wether to oust Mr. Powell. But Treasury secretaries have traditionally been central to the Fed selection process. Ms. Yellen’s views will carry significant weight in the deliberations, coloring both who is considered and the ultimate outcome.

It’s unclear...

Retail sales dropped in July, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday, a sign that consumer spending was hampered amid an uneven economic recovery from pandemic-induced restrictions.

The 1.1 percent decline in sales last month, led by a fall in spending on homes and cars, followed an increase in spending in June and was a bigger drop than economists had expected.

The increase in coronavirus cases caused by a surge in the Delta variant of the coronavirus has not affected spending yet, but shoppers could pull back if lockdowns are reinstated. Sales at restaurants and bars increased as consumers continued to dine outdoors. As fall approaches and the weather gets cooler, diners might be more reluctant to eat outside.

When Kmart opened its first store, in Garden City, Mich., in 1962, the aim was to become an all-under-one-roof retailer. Americans’ shopping habits had gravitated toward the suburbs after World War II, and Kmart was going to cater to them.

Kmart last opened a new store in 2002; since then, it has all been closings. When it merged with Sears in 2005, Kmart had 2,085 locations. With the abrupt closing of the Astor Place Kmart in Manhattan last month, the number of open Kmart stores is down to 17.

For a time, the company’s real estate decisions worked well. But as shoppers moved farther into the suburbs, Kmart didn’t move with them. Kmart continued to build inside beltways and urban centers, even though its core customers were no longer there, a strategy that helped lead to the company’s tumble, retail experts say.

But the retailers’s two-decade slide has transformed the commercial real estate market in unexpected ways, bringing churches, truck washes and...

Politico, the Washington news site popular with Beltway power brokers, is seeking as much as $1 billion in a potential deal with the German publishing giant Axel Springer.

Led by its owner, Robert Allbritton, Politico has been in talks with Axel about a potential investment or an outright sale, two people familiar with the matter said. Such a deal would amount to a hefty premium for Politico, which generates about $200 million a year in revenue, they said.

That would make it one of the most expensive media mergers in recent memory. A $1 billion deal would amount to five times Politico’s yearly sales. BuzzFeed, one of the largest digital publishers in the country, recently announced a financial transaction that would take it public at a valuation of $1.5 billion, or about three times its annual revenue. The New York Times Company is valued at about four times annual revenue.

A spokesman for Mr. Allbritton responded to inquiries by referring to an email sent to...

Retail sales dropped in July, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday, showing signs that consumer spending was hampered amid an uneven economic recovery.

The 1.1 percent decline in sales last month, which followed an increase in spending in June, was bigger than the drop economists had expected and came as spending on homes and cars fell.

SIENA, Italy — Last month Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, the world’s oldest bank, acquired another distinction: Europe’s weakest lender.

The bank performed worse than any other in a test of its financial health by European regulators, the latest gloomy chapter in a long-running saga of ill-fated deals, financial shenanigans, criminal wrongdoing and even a mysterious death.

The stress test by regulators, which showed that a severe recession would wipe out the bank’s capital, has forced the Italian government to face an unpleasant truth: Monte dei Paschi’s five-and-a-half-century run is coming to an end. With prodding from Rome, UniCredit, one of Italy’s largest banks, said last month that it was in talks to buy Monte dei Paschi on the condition that the government keep all the bad loans.

Monte dei Paschi, founded in 1472, will probably live on as a brand name on bank branches in central Italy, and customers probably won’t notice much difference, at least at...

Retail sales dropped in July, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday, a sign that consumer spending was hampered amid an uneven economic recovery from pandemic-induced restrictions.

The 1.1 percent decline in sales last month, which followed an increase in spending in June, was bigger than economists had expected and came as spending on homes and cars fell.

The increase in coronavirus cases caused by a surge in the Delta variant has not affected spending yet, but shoppers could pull back if lockdowns are reinstated. Sales at restaurants and bars increased as consumers continued to dine outdoors, but as fall approaches and the weather gets cooler, diners might be more reluctant to eat outside.

Retail sales dropped in July, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday, showing signs that consumer spending was hampered amid an uneven economic recovery.

The 1.1 percent decline in sales last month, which followed an increase in spending in June, was bigger than the drop economists had expected and came as spending on homes and cars fell.

Retail sales dropped in July, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday, showing signs that consumer spending was hampered amid an uneven economic recovery.

The 1.1 percent decline in sales last month, which followed an increase in spending in June, was bigger than the drop economists had expected and came as spending on homes and cars fell.

Pershing Square Tontine Holdings, the special purpose acquisition company run by the billionaire hedge-fund investor Bill Ackman, got sued this morning in a novel case that could have far-reaching implications for the SPAC industry.

The case, which is being argued by Robert Jackson, a former S.E.C. commissioner, and John Morley, a law professor at Yale, contends that Ackman’s SPAC isn’t an operating company, but is actually an investment company like Ackman’s funds, which should be regulated by the Investment Company Act of 1940. If certain SPACs were regulated as investment companies, much of the industry could be affected because it would make it harder for anyone in the investment business to participate in a SPAC.

SPACs are already under fire from regulators who have pledged to tighten protections for investors, and they face a rising number of class-action lawsuits by aggrieved shareholders. Around 600 SPACs have gone public over the past year and SPAC-linked...

TOKYO — Japan stepped back into economic growth in the second three months of 2021, but prospects for a more robust recovery looked dim as the country grappled with its worst coronavirus outbreak since the pandemic began.

The country’s economy, the third-largest after the United States and China, grew at an annualized rate of 1.3 percent during the April-to-June period, recording a quarterly increase of 0.3 percent. The expansion followed a quarter-to-quarter drop of 0.9 percent in the previous three-month period.

Even as other major economies have roared back to life, Japan’s has been stuck in a cycle of growth and contraction as the country has struggled with a persistent spread of infections that has kept its shops, bars and restaurants under constricted schedules.

Currently, case levels in Japan are at record highs. The country reported almost 18,000 new infections on Sunday, with nearly 4,300 in Tokyo, which entered its fourth state of emergency in July....

TOKYO — Japan stepped back into economic growth in the second three months of 2021, but prospects for a more robust recovery looked dim as the country grappled with its worst coronavirus outbreak since the pandemic began.

The country’s economy, the third-largest after the United States and China, grew at an annualized rate of 1.3 percent during the April-to-June period, recording a quarterly increase of 0.3 percent. The expansion followed a quarter-to-quarter drop of 0.9 percent in the previous three-month period.

Even as other major economies have roared back to life, Japan’s has been stuck in a cycle of growth and contraction as the country has struggled with a persistent spread of infections that has kept its shops, bars and restaurants under constricted schedules.

Currently, case levels in Japan are at record highs. The country reported almost 18,000 new infections on Sunday, with nearly 4,300 in Tokyo, which entered its fourth state of emergency in July....

As Jerome H. Powell nears the end of his term as Federal Reserve chair, Ms. Yellen will have a say over whether he should stay on. Many progressive Democrats want him replaced.

Los torrefactores tienen un problema. El costo de los granos que importan se ha incrementado mucho este año, lo que les causa preocupación ante la posibilidad de que sus clientes, que van desde tiendas de comestibles a cafeterías y gente en busca de su dosis diaria de cafeína, no puedan soportar un aumento de precios.

El clima extremo ha dañado los cultivos en Brasil, el mayor exportador de café en el mundo. Además, también se han hecho unos cuellos de botella en el transporte marítimo debido a la pandemia y ni qué decir de las protestas políticas que paralizaron las exportaciones desde Colombia, por lo que el costo de los granos ha subido casi un 43 por ciento en 2021.

ISLE OF WIGHT, England — For the second year running, a hallowed rite for millions of people in Britain — decamping to the warmer climate of the Mediterranean — has been disrupted by the pandemic. The number of flights in and out of Britain are half their 2019 levels.

This year, the Isle of Wight, a small island off the south coast of England, has lured even more visitors to its sandy beaches, coastal walks and arcades. But pandemic restrictions, staff shortages and the often uncooperative British weather are challenging visitors and business owners this season.

Last month, federal authorities charged the founder of the electric vehicle manufacturer Nikola, which had gone public in the summer of 2020, with defrauding investors. They were led there partly by the work of a little-known Wall Streeter named Nathan Anderson.

A stock researcher and investor, Mr. Anderson and his upstart firm, Hindenburg Research, are having a moment. In early August, the Securities and Exchange Commission subpoenaed the sports betting firm DraftKings after Hindenburg said in a June report that it had potentially enabled black-market betting. And shares of Lordstown Motors have fallen nearly 70 percent since Hindenburg said in March that the electric truck maker was hyping commercial interest for its vehicle. Federal authorities are investigating Lordstown’s claims.

Mr. Anderson’s five-person firm, which takes its name from the German airship that blew up in 1937, is a newbie in the world of finance. Founded in 2017, Hindenburg specializes in...

Johnson & Johnson’s Covid vaccine was supposed to be one of Africa’s most important weapons against the coronavirus.

The New Jersey-based company agreed to sell enough of its inexpensive single-shot vaccine to eventually inoculate a third of the continent’s residents. And the vaccine would be produced in part by a South African manufacturer, raising hopes that those doses would quickly go to Africans.

That has not happened.

South Africa is still waiting to receive the overwhelming majority of the 31 million vaccine doses it ordered from Johnson & Johnson. It has administered only about two million Johnson & Johnson shots. That is a key reason that fewer than 7 percent of South Africans are fully vaccinated — and that the country was devastated by the Delta variant.

At the same time, Johnson & Johnson has been exporting millions of doses that were bottled and packaged in South Africa for distribution in Europe, according to executives at...

Last month, federal authorities charged the founder of the electric vehicle manufacturer Nikola, which had gone public in the summer of 2020, with defrauding investors. They were led there partly by the work of a little-known Wall Streeter named Nathan Anderson.

A stock researcher and investor, Mr. Anderson and his upstart firm, Hindenburg Research, are having a moment. In early August, the Securities and Exchange Commission subpoenaed the sports betting firm DraftKings after Hindenburg said in a June report that it had potentially enabled black-market betting. And shares of Lordstown Motors have fallen nearly 70 percent since Hindenburg said in March that the electric truck maker was hyping commercial interest for its vehicle. Federal authorities are investigating Lordstown’s claims.

Mr. Anderson’s five-person firm, which takes its name from the German airship that blew up in 1937, is a newbie in the world of finance. Founded in 2017, Hindenburg specializes in...

As Jerome H. Powell nears the end of his term as Federal Reserve chair, Ms. Yellen will have a say over whether he should stay on. Many progressive Democrats want him replaced.

ISLE OF WIGHT, England — For the second year running, a hallowed rite for millions of people in Britain — decamping to the warmer climate of the Mediterranean — has been disrupted by the pandemic. The number of flights in and out of Britain are half their 2019 levels.

This year, the Isle of Wight, a small island off the south coast of England, has lured even more visitors to its sandy beaches, coastal walks and arcades. But pandemic restrictions, staff shortages and the often uncooperative British weather are challenging visitors and business owners this season.

TOKYO — Japan stepped back into economic growth in the second three months of 2021, but prospects for a more robust recovery looked dim as the country grappled with its worst coronavirus outbreak since the pandemic began.

The country’s economy, the third-largest after the United States and China, grew at an annualized rate of 1.3 percent during the April-to-June period, recording a quarterly increase of 0.3 percent. The expansion followed a quarter-to-quarter drop of 0.9 percent in the previous three-month period.

Even as other major economies have roared back to life, Japan’s has been stuck in a cycle of growth and contraction as the country has struggled with a persistent spread of infections that has kept its shops, bars and restaurants under constricted schedules.

Currently, case levels in Japan are at record highs. The country reported almost 18,000 new infections on Sunday, with nearly 4,300 in Tokyo, which entered its fourth state of emergency in July....

Johnson & Johnson’s Covid vaccine was supposed to be one of Africa’s most important weapons against the coronavirus.

The New Jersey-based company agreed to sell enough of its inexpensive single-shot vaccine to eventually inoculate a third of the continent’s residents. And the vaccine would be produced in part by a South African manufacturer, raising hopes that those doses would quickly go to Africans.

That has not happened.

South Africa is still waiting to receive the overwhelming majority of the 31 million vaccine doses it ordered from Johnson & Johnson. It has administered only about two million Johnson & Johnson shots. That is a key reason that fewer than 7 percent of South Africans are fully vaccinated — and that the country was devastated by the Delta variant.

At the same time, Johnson & Johnson has been exporting millions of doses that were bottled and packaged in South Africa for distribution in Europe, according to executives at...

Roblox earnings: The gaming platform, which went public in March, is set to report its second-quarter financial results. Investors will see whether people are spending less time online as pandemic restrictions ease.

New York vaccine mandate: New York will become the first U.S. city to require proof of at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine for a variety of activities, including indoor dining.