Tesla’s Sales Slip as It Readies Factories for New Models
3Oct Avatar photoBy Alexander W. FergusonNo Comments
Technology

Tesla’s Sales Slip as It Readies Factories for New Models

Sales of Tesla electric cars slipped from July through September after the company paused production at some factories to upgrade assembly lines.The company delivered 435,000 vehicles worldwide in the third quarter, down from 466,000 in the second quarter. Wall Street analysts had expected the decline, which they attributed to production slowdowns as Tesla refitted factories in the United States and China.The decline “was caused by planned downtimes for factory upgrades,” Tesla said in a statement on Monday, adding that it still expects to deliver 1.8 million vehicles this year, up from 1.3 million in 2022.Still, the dip in sales may renew concerns that demand for Tesla cars is slackening even after the company cut prices. In China, Tesla is trying to fend off Chinese carmakers, like BYD a...
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He Announces Baseball Games in Spanish. It Is Not His First Language.
3Oct Avatar photoBy Alexander W. FergusonNo Comments
Sports

He Announces Baseball Games in Spanish. It Is Not His First Language.

Bill Kulik is a longtime Spanish language radio broadcaster for the Philadelphia Phillies. But listeners tuning in wouldn’t always know that.Instead of calling baseball’s championship by its Spanish name, “La Serie Mundial,” he calls it the World Series. He recently described a player’s up and down career as “a roller coaster” instead of “una montaña rusa,” the proper phrase in Spanish. And when saying something was quite funny, he said “bien funny.”This is the distinctive linguistic world of Mr. Kulik, a broadcaster nicknamed El Gringo Malo (The Bad Gringo), whose on-air persona is irreverent and even silly. Though most of what Mr. Kulik says in front of a microphone is in Spanish, he sprinkles in generous doses of English and Spanglish, a blending of the two languages.Of the 16 teams — o...
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Takeaways From a New Book on Sam Bankman-Fried
3Oct Avatar photoBy Alexander W. FergusonNo Comments
Economy

Takeaways From a New Book on Sam Bankman-Fried

On the same day that Sam Bankman-Fried’s trial on federal fraud charges begins, the best-selling author Michael Lewis is set to publish a widely anticipated book on Tuesday about Mr. Bankman-Fried’s failed cryptocurrency exchange, FTX.Mr. Lewis, the author of “The Blind Side,” “The Big Short” and “Moneyball,” spent months interviewing Mr. Bankman-Fried and other top FTX executives, and had access to the company’s headquarters in the Bahamas for the book, “Going Infinite.”The book features previously unreported details about Mr. Bankman-Fried’s empire, from its founding in the Bay Area to its epic collapse in the Bahamas last year. Here are some takeaways.Is Bankman-Fried guilty?Mr. Lewis does not offer a “yes” or “no” answer. He depicts Mr. Bankman-Fried as delusional and often callous in ...
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NYC Schools Began to Recover From the Pandemic. Now a New Crisis Looms
3Oct Avatar photoBy Alexander W. FergusonNo Comments
News

NYC Schools Began to Recover From the Pandemic. Now a New Crisis Looms

Just a year ago, the outlook for New York City was bleak: The nation’s largest school system had lost 120,000 children in five years, and Mayor Eric Adams warned gravely, “We’re in a very dangerous place.”But today, despite some continuing and intense struggles, the darkest projections seem to have been avoided. Public school enrollment is no longer in free fall, buoyed partly by migrant arrivals. Fears of a large-scale flight of middle-class families fleeing to charters or private schools have not come to pass. And at his recent State of Our Schools address, the schools chancellor was optimistic about the city’s trajectory.Now, though, the system is barreling toward a steep new challenge: a huge fiscal cliff that could reduce the education budget by hundreds of millions of dollars. In som...
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Watch Out for ‘Junk’ Fees When Booking Travel Online
2Oct Avatar photoBy Alexander W. FergusonNo Comments
Technology

Watch Out for ‘Junk’ Fees When Booking Travel Online

Many of us are desperate to travel this summer after a pandemic stifled our plans for years. But travelers — and I’m sorry to be a killjoy — should beware: Those seemingly cheap plane tickets or hotel rooms advertised online may be a trap to make you spend more than anticipated.That’s because hotels and airlines, struggling to recoup their losses from the pandemic, are increasingly resorting to nickel-and-diming consumers with hidden charges, according to studies and travel experts. Regulators call these “junk fees.”You have probably encountered junk fees at least a few times in your travels. The extra charges can come in many forms, such as fees for resort amenities, checked luggage and seat selection, and they’re typically not disclosed upfront when you use an online search engine. They ...
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Ranking 133 college football teams after Week 5: Georgia’s close calls open door for new No. 1
2Oct Avatar photoBy Alexander W. FergusonNo Comments
Sports

Ranking 133 college football teams after Week 5: Georgia’s close calls open door for new No. 1

Sign up for the Until Saturday newsletter | Jayna Bardahl and The Athletic’s college football staff deliver expert analysis on the biggest CFB stories five days per week. Get it sent to your inbox.It’s been a while since we’ve had a season without a clear-cut No. 1 team this deep into the fall.Several teams can make a case, and there are still many big games to be played. But at this point, it’s time for a change. Texas is the new No. 1 in this week’s Athletic 133.There are two reasons for it. The first is Texas itself. The Longhorns went to Alabama and handled the Crimson Tide in what is the most impressive single win of the season. Texas also took care of business with blowouts of Baylor and Kansas in the last two weeks. Yes, Texas had a brief scare against Wyoming, but the other teams i...
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FTX Chief Once Met With Powell. Now D.C. Crypto Lobbyists Are Struggling.
2Oct Avatar photoBy Alexander W. FergusonNo Comments
Economy

FTX Chief Once Met With Powell. Now D.C. Crypto Lobbyists Are Struggling.

Cryptocurrency lobbyists were riding so high in early 2022 that an FTX executive felt comfortable directly emailing Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, to ask him to meet with Sam Bankman-Fried, the soon-to-be-disgraced founder of the cryptocurrency exchange.It worked.“The day that would work for me is February 1,” Mr. Powell replied to a Jan. 11 email from Mark Wetjen, an FTX policy official and former commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.Mr. Powell’s public calendar shows that he and Mr. Bankman-Fried met as planned. And Mr. Wetjen went on to send the Fed chair two policy papers that FTX had recently published, according to emails obtained through a public records request. “Hope you’re finding these useful!” Mr. Wetjen wrote. “Great to have people like...
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Who’s Rooting Hardest for a Sam Bankman-Fried Conviction? The Crypto Industry.
2Oct Avatar photoBy Alexander W. FergusonNo Comments
Technology

Who’s Rooting Hardest for a Sam Bankman-Fried Conviction? The Crypto Industry.

Travis Kling has spent a lot of time this year focusing on his mental, physical and spiritual health. That has been his coping mechanism since his cryptocurrency firm, Ikigai Asset Management, lost most of its assets from last year’s collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, where he was a customer.Mr. Kling said he harbored no hatred for Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX’s founder. But as Mr. Bankman-Fried’s criminal fraud trial kicks off on Tuesday, Mr. Kling is eager to see the onetime crypto mogul — who is now viewed as its biggest villain — held accountable for his actions.“That will be cathartic for the crypto ecosystem,” Mr. Kling said.Eleven months after FTX’s implosion sent an already declining cryptocurrency market into a doom spiral, Mr. Bankman-Fried’s trial is set to reopen wounds tha...
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Selling Saudi Soccer, One Like at a Time
2Oct Avatar photoBy Alexander W. FergusonNo Comments
Sports

Selling Saudi Soccer, One Like at a Time

Neymar’s endorsement was not, perhaps, the most ringing. Back in Brazil to play for his national team this month, he had been asked — not for the first time — to address the lingering suspicion that, in leaving Paris St.-Germain for Saudi Arabia and Al-Hilal, one of the finest players of his generation might not have chosen the most challenging coda to his career.Neymar’s immediate instinct was to dismiss the premise. “I can assure you the game in Saudi Arabia is the same: The ball is round, we have goal posts,” he said with a slight smile and a nervous laugh. “For the names that have gone to Saudi Arabia, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Saudi league was better than the French,” he added. He was still smiling then, but it did not feel quite as warm.Clearly, the accusation — one thrown not j...
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Crypto Goes on Trial, as Sam Bankman-Fried Faces His Reckoning
2Oct Avatar photoBy Alexander W. FergusonNo Comments
Economy

Crypto Goes on Trial, as Sam Bankman-Fried Faces His Reckoning

A year ago, Sam Bankman-Fried was a fixture on magazine covers and in the halls of Congress, a tousle-haired crypto billionaire who hobnobbed with movie stars and bankrolled political campaigns.On Tuesday, the founder of the failed FTX digital currency exchange is set to leave the jail where he has been confined for more than seven weeks and stand trial in a Manhattan courtroom on federal charges of fraud and money laundering, capping one of the largest and swiftest corporate collapses in decades.The charges against Mr. Bankman-Fried, 31, have put the rest of the crypto industry on trial with him. He has emerged as a symbol of the unrestrained hubris and shady deal-making that turned cryptocurrencies into a multitrillion-dollar industry during the pandemic. The demise of FTX in November he...
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