Amazon’s upcoming “Lord of the Rings” series is moving production from New Zealand to the U.K for Season 2.

The untitled series was picked up for multiple seasons at the streamer when it was first ordered back in 2017. Filming was completed on the first season of the show on Aug. 2. Season 1 post-production will continue in New Zealand through June 2022, while pre-production on Season 2 will begin concurrently in the U.K. after the first of the year.

“As we look to relocate the production to the U.K., we do not intend to actively pursue the Season One MoU five percent financial uplift with the New Zealand government or preserve the terms around that agreement, however we respectfully defer to our partners and will remain in close consultation with them around next steps,” said Albert Cheng, COO and co-head of TV for Amazon Studios.

BENGALURU, Aug 13 (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve will announce a plan to taper its asset purchases in September, according to a solid majority of economists polled by Reuters who also said the U.S. jobless rate would remain above its pre-pandemic level for at least a year.

Since the release last week of a strong U.S. jobs report, which showed an unexpectedly sharp drop in the unemployment rate to 5.4% in July, a flurry of Fed officials have suggested the U.S. central bank might start reducing its $120 billion in monthly purchases of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities (MBS) sooner rather than later. read more

Nearly two-thirds of respondents, 28 of 43, said the Fed is likely to announce a taper of its asset purchases - currently set at $80 billion of Treasuries and $40 billion of MBS per month - at its September meeting.

But while that timing has become more likely in the minds of many Fed watchers over the past month, it is by no means a done deal...

It’s exactly 14 years since I became the first employee of ProPublica, and with less than four weeks left to go as its president, and just two months before I leave its staff, I find myself reflecting about ProPublica’s beginnings. That brings me to the big insight of ProPublica’s founder, my friend Paul Steiger: the power of partnerships in the new world of journalism.

The Center for Investigative Reporting, founded in 1977 by Lowell Bergman and others, had pioneered independent nonprofit investigative reporting. The Center for Public Integrity, launched in 1989 by Chuck Lewis, added the idea of such an organization employing its own reporting staff. But both of these organizations either published through others (ranging from television to book publishers) or offered their work to all comers, in effect syndicating it.

What Steiger realized in 2006 and 2007 was that the advent of consumer broadband was not only beginning to crush legacy publishers (the newspaper...

Members of President Biden’s economic team generally support nominating Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to a second term, but growing resistance from prominent Democrats including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) could lead to his replacement, according to people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Powell, who was appointed to his first term by former Republican President Donald Trump, has received high marks from some Democrats for steering the central bank toward a paradigm shift that has placed greater attention on reducing unemployment. That coincided last year with a forceful response to the coronavirus pandemic.

But some progressives are unhappy with his bent toward easing financial regulations that were put in place after the 2008 crisis and think the central bank should have someone more in sync with Democratic politics in charge.

If Mr. Powell isn’t given a new four-year term next February, when his current term expires, the leading contender...

In March 2020, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S., investors pulled more than $100 billion out of corporate investment-grade and high-yield bond mutual funds, forcing funds to sell some of their holdings. The spread between corporate bond yields and U.S. Treasuries (a market that had its own dysfunction) widened, transaction costs rose, and issuance of new bonds came to a halt, disrupting the flow of credit to the nation’s corporations. This led the Federal Reserve to intervene by offering, for the first time, to buy corporate bonds and exchange traded corporate bond funds in what proved a successful effort to keep credit to corporations flowing. It was an extraordinary move that underscores the risks these funds pose to financial stability. (For details, see this Federal Reserve note.)

The growth of open-end fixed income funds magnifies the systemic significance of the tension between shareholders’ expectations of daily liquidity and the (often...

Pentagon records obtained by POLITICO paint the clearest picture yet of how far the Trump administration went to get around Congress and speed the diversion of military construction funds to build its border wall in 2019.

The diversion, totaling $3.6 billion, disrupted scores of improvements for military operations and the quality of life for troops and their families. The newly released documents provide the first-ever look at the inner workings of how that money was moved around — and it’s not a pretty sight for congressional committees, which were left in the dark and denied basic answers about the accounting maneuvers.

The Biden administration will relieve Americans from paying their federal student loans through the end of January, extending the pause for what it says is the last time as the government seeks to keep the economic recovery rolling.

The move continues the suspension of payments for all loans owned by the Education Department, maintaining a 0% interest rate and keeping in place a freeze on the collection of defaulted debt. Payments will begin coming due again on Feb. 1.

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Interest on many municipal bonds issued by local and state governments and some non-profits is exempt from federal income taxes. As a result, investors, mainly high-income individuals, are willing to lend money to issuers at a lower interest rate than they would demand if the bonds were taxable. Build America Bonds (known as BABs or direct-pay bonds) were created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 as an alternative way for the federal government to subsidize local and state government borrowing. Instead of making the interest on those bonds exempt from federal income taxes, the federal government provided a subsidy directly.

The BABs program ended in 2010, but the concept has been part of the 2021 debate over financing increased federal infrastructure spending. Here is a primer on these bonds.

In March 2020, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S., investors pulled more than $100 billion out of corporate investment-grade and high-yield bond mutual funds, forcing funds to sell some of their holdings. The spread between corporate bond yields and U.S. Treasuries (a market that had its own dysfunction) widened, transaction costs rose, and issuance of new bonds came to a halt, disrupting the flow of credit to the nation’s corporations. This led the Federal Reserve to intervene by offering, for the first time, to buy corporate bonds and exchange traded corporate bond funds in what proved a successful effort to keep credit to corporations flowing. It was an extraordinary move that underscores the risks these funds pose to financial stability. (For details, see this Federal Reserve note.)

The growth of open-end fixed income funds magnifies the systemic significance of the tension between shareholders’ expectations of daily liquidity and the (often...

SYDNEY— Square Inc. has agreed to acquire Afterpay Ltd. in an all-stock deal worth around $29 billion, illustrating how financial technology companies are seeking scale to challenge banks for a bigger slice of the payments industry.

Square said a key attraction of the deal was a growing wariness toward traditional credit among younger consumers, a group particularly hard hit by the Covid-19 pandemic, as lockdowns crushed many hospitality and casual jobs.

Afterpay’s technology allows users to pay for goods in four, interest-free installments while receiving the goods immediately. Customers pay a fee only if they miss an automated payment, a transgression that also locks their account until the balance is repaid. Australia-based Afterpay, which has yet to turn a profit, says this limits bad debts, particularly in a downturn when job security is shaky and household finances are stretched.

Most of Afterpay’s revenue comes from retail merchants, which pay a...