In a speech at an Atlanta brewery Tuesday night, Abrams said Georgia has a “once-in-a-generation” opportunity to invest in itself. The money -- $5 billion in surplus plus another $2.3 billion in federal Covid-19 relief funds -- should be invested in education, infrastructure, law enforcement, small business opportunities and rural communities, she said. Georgia also has a $4.3 billion rainy day fund.

Michael Nowak and Gregg Smith were found guilty on Wednesday after a three-week trial. A salesman on the desk, Jeffrey Ruffo, was acquitted. Prosecutors presented evidence that included detailed trading records, chat logs and testimony by former co-workers who “pulled back the curtain” on how Nowak and Smith moved precious-metals prices up and down for profit. 

Apple Inc., stepping up its spending on original podcasts, signed an agreement with a Pulitzer Prize-winning studio and is holding talks with other companies about additional deals.

The iPhone maker is looking to add original content to its Podcasts app that it hopes could eventually turn into shows on its Apple TV+ service. The deal — an agreement with Futuro Studios, the maker of the criminal-justice series “Suave” — will fund development and production of podcasts, according to people familiar with the situation. In exchange, Apple will have the first chance to turn any podcast into a film or TV show.

Earlier this year, a judge halted the formation of a new city from unincorporated neighborhoods in the southeast corner of Louisiana’s East Baton Rouge Parish, ruling that it was “unreasonable.” Campaign organizers had argued cityhood would give their residents more control over the spending of their tax dollars. But the judge ruled that the proposed City of St. George — whose residents would have been disproportionately white and wealthy — would take away revenue from the parish and the city of Baton Rouge, forcing them to make serious budget cuts, including to the sheriff’s and fire departments.

The case against St. George stands to have implications beyond Louisiana, writes Brentin Mock: Like other municipal breakaway attempts, the campaign aims to transfer revenue from an under-resourced government to communities that are already flush. Today on CityLab:

Philadelphia (AP) -- Sesame Place has announced the implementation of diversity and inclusion training for its employees following a $25 million class-action lawsuit alleging multiple incidents of discrimination after outcry sparked from a video of a costumed character snubbing two 6-year-old Black girls went viral online.

The Sesame Street-themed park, operated by SeaWorld Parks, in a statement Tuesday said that all employees will be mandated to participate in training created to address bias, promote inclusion and prevent discrimination by the end of September.

On Tuesday, Unity announced a three-year, multi-million dollar partnership with information technology firm

The investment firm owned 266 million shares, or 10.1% of the total, as of July 31, Harris said in a US regulatory filing on Wednesday. The Swiss bank’s annual reports have long listed Harris with a 5.2% stake, which was the level it disclosed in 2013.

Republicans vow they will waste no time tearing into the FBI search of Donald Trump’s home and other investigations of the former president if the GOP wins control of Congress in November, signaling a protracted fight with the Biden administration.

Party leaders and committee chairmen-in-waiting have already pledged to hold aggressive hearings and issue subpoenas in the wake of Monday’s unprecedented search of the former president’s Florida home. 

On Dec. 8, Disney will introduce an ad-supported version of the flagship streaming service and raise the price of the ad-free option to $11 a month, the entertainment giant said Wednesday. Prices for some packages that include Hulu and ESPN+ will also rise.

Ether jumped as much as 9% amid optimism over what is being touted as the final test before the much-anticipated software upgrade of the Ethereum blockchain network. 

The native cryptocurrency of the most important commercial blockchain has surged about 67% since digital-asset prices bottomed in June. It has outperformed crypto market benchmark Bitcoin, which has increased around 15% during the same period.

Traders went risk-on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 jumping to a three-month high. A rally in tech shares sent both Nasdaq indexes more than 20% above their June bottom, leaving them in a bull market going by a commonly held definition. The Cboe Volatility Index slumped below 20, a level last seen in April. The greenback slid the most since the onset of the pandemic. Treasury two-year yields trimmed a plunge that earlier reached 20 basis points.

Apple Inc. is close to erasing their losses for the year as softer-than-expected inflation data fueled a risk-on rally in the stock market Wednesday. 

The iPhone-maker gained as much as 2.4% to $168.83 as investors piled back into stocks on bets the Federal Reserve could dial back the size of future interest-rate hikes after the July consumer price index showed a

Traders went risk-on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 jumping to a three-month high. A rally in tech shares sent both Nasdaq indexes more than 20% above their June bottom, leaving them in a bull market going by a commonly held definition. The Cboe Volatility Index slumped below 20, a level last seen in April. The greenback slid the most since the onset of the pandemic. Treasury two-year yields trimmed a plunge that earlier reached 20 basis points.

President Jair Bolsonaro is stepping up his aggressive rhetoric in the run up to Brazil’s general election, a strategy that is likely to rally his radical base but risks alienating centrist voters.

In an agribusiness convention on Wednesday, he promised to further ease laws that restrict the ownership of fire weapons if re-elected in October and called on his supporters to arm themselves. 

Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Neel Kashkari, for a long time the US central bank’s biggest dove, is now its biggest hawk.

Kashkari said that he wants to raise the central bank’s benchmark interest rate to 3.9% by the end of this year, and to 4.4% by the end of 2023. That makes him the most hawkish participant on the Fed’s rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee, according to the so-called “dot plot” of interest-rate projections published after the central bank’s June policy meeting.

Mike Ashley’s company is owed £64.4 million ($78.9 million) by one of the retail entrepreneur’s close family members, according to its delayed financial results.

The loan is interest free and not repayable to Mash Holdings until the end of 2030, accounts lodged at Britain’s Companies House said. They didn’t reveal the recipient of the loan.

In an age of ever-increasing distractions, quickly creating customer habits is an important characteristic of successful products. What are the secrets of building services customers love? How can designers create products compelling enough to “hook” users?

Transgender women in Ireland and Northern Ireland will no longer be able to participate in female contact rugby under a policy shift from one of the sport’s governing bodies. 

The change is in line with World Rugby

Musk contends the social media company isn’t producing the names of employees responsible for evaluating how much of Twitter’s customer base is made up of spam and robot accounts, said the people, who asked not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly about the matter. 

The company “has received investigative subpoenas and requests from the SEC for documents and information about certain customer programs, operations and existing and intended future products,” according to a quarterly regulatory filing. The requests relate to Coinbase’s staking programs, asset-listing process, classification of assets and stablecoin products, the company said. 

Gasoline supplies in New York Harbor are at the lowest in a decade, making the region more prone to shortages.

A slowdown in imports offset a rise in production last week, sending gasoline stockpiles in the central East Coast region to the lowest level since November 2012, according to US Energy Information Administration data. Seasonally, regional supply is the second lowest ever in records going back to 1993. New York gasoline futures jumped more than 3% following the government

Shipping costs for mid-size oil tankers from the US Gulf to Europe are near the highest levels since early in the pandemic, due to changes in trade flows amid Russia’s war in Ukraine and fewer available ships globally. 

Daily earnings for Aframax vessels sailing from the US Gulf to northwest Europe have soared to almost $57,000 this week -- more than 12 times the level at the start of the year -- according to data from the Baltic Exchange. The tankers typically haul about 600,000 barrels of crude.