It’s trendy for employers to offer unlimited paid time off, and for good reason: To workers, it seems like a dream. Roughly 1 in 10 companies has adopted such plans, and they’re motivated by four primary benefits, none of which directly relate to employee leave.

All these benefits can blind an organization to the problems of unlimited PTO. The policy doesn’t work with hourly employees (unlimited unpaid time off can), and it can breed inequity and inconsistency, because it depends on manager approval. And, critically, a simple unlimited PTO policy doesn’t fix the problem of burnout among employees who don’t take enough time away from the office. With unlimited PTO, the always-on mentality can slip in, manifesting in people answering emails even while attempting to take time away from work, because they’re worried that a colleague who’s in the office—not lounging on the beach—might get an edge on a promotion.

In the midst of an arid summer that set heat records across Europe, the continent’s rivers are evaporating.

The Rhine — a pillar of the German, Dutch and Swiss economies for centuries — is set to become virtually impassable at a key waypoint later this week, stymieing vast flows of diesel and coal. The Danube, which snakes its way 1,800 miles through central Europe to the Black Sea, is gummed up too, hampering grain and other trade.

American signed the paperwork for the Dreamliner Wednesday morning, marking the resumption of handovers of the jets, an important source of cash for Boeing. The carrier, which had voiced its frustrations over the extended halt, reaffirmed its plans to take delivery of nine of the long-range aircraft this year in an Instagram post by Chief Executive Officer Robert Isom.

Four straight days of losses were erased in seconds Wednesday after

Slowing US inflation is prompting traders to pare bets for a 75-basis-point increase in interest rates from the Bank of Canada next month.

Overnight swap markets suggest about a 45% chance that officials led by Governor Tiff Macklem will increase borrowing costs by three quarters of a percentage point at their Sept. 7 decision. A move of that magnitude would bring the policy rate to 3.25%, the highest since April 2008.

Hi, it’s Fareed in London, rounding up a recent flurry of headlines in green energy M&A. Elsewhere, Elon Musk takes steps to avoid a Twitter -related fire sale of Tesla stock, and the UK plans to probe another big deal. Today's top stories

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Food prices in the US soared in July, keeping the cost of living painfully high even as lower gasoline costs offered some relief to consumers. 

Overall food prices climbed 10.9% from a year earlier, the biggest increase since 1979, according to data published by the Labor Department on Wednesday. Several essentials like cereal and certain dairy products posted record year-over-year rises.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reinforced a pledge that Washington and its allies will continue supplying military aid to Ukraine to help it repel Russia’s invasion “for as long as it takes.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy earlier vowed to “liberate” Crimea as speculation swirled about the cause of a major fire at an air base on the peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014. “This Russian war against Ukraine and against all of free Europe began with Crimea and must end with Crimea -- its liberation,” Zelenskiy said.

Political ad spending in the 2022 midterms has already broken a record for off-year congressional elections and is set to plow through the all-time high of $9 billion spent on the 2020 presidential contest.

Money spent on broadcast, cable, streaming and digital platforms to sway voters ahead of November elections is on track to more than double this year to $9.7 billion from what was spent on the 2018 midterms, according to a projection by AdImpact, a firm that tracks political advertising spending. 

At the height of NFT mania, everyone from athletes like Tom Brady to celebrities like Justin Beiber seemed to be buying (or talking about) collections like Bored Ape Yacht Club. Non-fungible tokens aren’t just pictures of monkeys though - they exist on the blockchain, and buying or selling them typically requires paying in some kind of cryptocurrency, often Ether.While the link between NFT prices and the prices of tokens like Ether or Solana is not always straightforward, it’s true that nonfungible tokens haven’t been entirely spared from the chill of the crypto winter. For more on NFTs, and how and whether they’re holding up these days, Bloomberg reporter Prarthana Prakash joins this episode.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

US inflation decelerated in July by more than expected, reflecting lower energy prices, which may take some pressure off the Federal Reserve to continue aggressively hiking interest rates.

The consumer price index increased 8.5% from a year earlier, cooling from the 9.1% June advance that was the largest in four decades, Labor Department data showed Wednesday. Prices were unchanged from the prior month. A decline in gasoline offset increases in food and shelter costs. 

The Federal Reserve will probably continue raising interest rates into next year to bring down “unacceptably high” inflation, Chicago Fed President Charles Evans said. 

“We’ve tightened monetary policy quite a lot, very quickly,” Evans said Wednesday at an event hosted by Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. “I expect that we will be increasing rates the rest of this year and into next year to make sure inflation gets back to our 2% objective.”

The enthusiasm from Big Oil isn’t shared by some smaller and independent producers, which pump the vast majority of the crude and gas produced in the US. They’re bracing for a raft of new fees and taxes, including penalties on

In January, Congress is set to welcome a female representative from Vermont. It will be the first time in 233 years that each of the 50 states will have sent a woman to Capitol Hill.

That’s thanks to Vermont, which is poised to be the last state to send a woman to represent it in Washington. Becca Balint, who served in the state senate, won the Democratic primary for the state’s only House seat on Tuesday. 

Investors representing around 75% of $19.6 billion worth of Ukraine’s foreign bonds agreed to defer coupon and principal payments until 2024, the Finance Ministry in Kyiv said on Wednesday. 

If you’re in France and are looking for some traditional Dijon “moutarde” to complete your dinner recipe, then you have a problem.

The country is having to adapt to a lingering shortage of the tangy mustard, including the Amora and Maille brands owned by consumer staples giant

In the midst of an arid summer that set heat records across Europe, the continent’s rivers are evaporating.

The Rhine — a pillar of the German, Dutch and Swiss economies for centuries — is set to become

The toy and entertainment company, also known for the Paw Patrol franchise, has been working with Nordlight to expand its digital games business since acquiring a minority stake in the Swedish studio last year, according to a statement Wednesday. The founders of Stockholm-based Nordlight helped create Candy Crush, one the most popular mobile phone games ever.

Bond issuers appear to be reviewing the merits of tapping the ESG debt market, based on an assessment that the lower financing costs the label generally brings aren’t worth the risk of being exposed to greenwash accusations.

“There’s a number of issuers that are reconsidering the cost benefit trade-off,” Jason Taylor, the managing director for sustainability advisory and finance at National Bank of Canada, said in an interview. 

A member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was charged by the US in a plot to murder former national security advisor John Bolton. 

The alleged plan by Shahram Poursafi was likely to avenge the January 2020 death of Iran’s Qasem Soleimani, commander of the IRGC’s elite Quds force, according to a