Marketplace Stories

Piles of debt and a fraying social safety net hamper the island’s recovery, even six months after the storm. Click the audio player above to hear the full story. 

A Senate bill that would roll back some banking restrictions passed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis is moving forward with bipartisan support. Seventeen Democrats voted along with Republicans on Tuesday to allow the banking bill to proceed to a vote. Proponents say it will provide relief to small and mid-sized banks. But […]

Automation touches many consumer products — the cars we drive, the sneakers we put on and now the jeans we wear.  Levi Strauss & Co. is planning to swap out garment workers for laser machines that could create the worn look on a pair of jeans in less than two minutes. Suzanne Kapner, a reporter […]

Making a pair of sneakers is a labor-intensive process, and it could take months. But Adidas is trying to change that. In its newly built Speedfactory in Germany, Adidas is making most parts of the shoes with machines. Marc Bain is a fashion reporter at Quartz and one of the first group of people who […]

President Donald Trump was back on the topic of trade today. Taking questions at the White House, he said that the United States “has been taken advantage of” on trade. And he doubled down on his promise to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. They are needed, he said, because of trade deficits. But […]

No major movie studio would make an Academy Award-winning movie like Rain Man today, says Wall Street Journal reporter Ben Fritz: “It’s an original idea. It’s driven by movie stars. It’s a domestic film.”  In his new book, “The Big Picture: The Fight for the Future of Movies,” Fritz writes about the rise of the […]

Approximately 140,000 Americans now work in primary steel and aluminum production — down from approximately 230,000 in 2000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Meanwhile, according to Moody’s Analytics, more than 6 million Americans work in industries that use steel and aluminum to make other products, such as motor vehicles, aerospace, construction and metal […]