SEATTLE — Microsoft plans to buy the powerhouse but troubled video game company Activision Blizzard for nearly $70 billion, its biggest deal ever and one that places a major bet that people will be spending more and more time in the digital world. The blockbuster acquisition, announced on Tuesday, would catapult the company into a […]

In 2019, the painter Faith Ringgold traveled to Rikers Island so that she could see how her first public art commission, a 1972 mural called “For the Women’s House,” was faring. Not so good, she decided, and the artist, who is 91, continued to quietly wage her campaign to see her work, which hung in […]

Laurence D. Fink, the founder and chief executive of the investment giant BlackRock, has become one of the most influential voices in business over the past decade in pushing corporate leaders to think beyond profits, to their social purpose. Mr. Fink has delivered his words in annual letters that have drawn remarkable attention, but also […]

Over the weekend, a British government minister attempted to deal a death blow to the main source of funding for the BBC, a license fee charged each year to any household with a TV. Nadine Dorries, who oversees the BBC in the cabinet, said on Twitter that an upcoming announcement about the license fee “will […]

What’s Up? (Jan. 9-15) What’s Next for Vaccine Mandates The Supreme Court on Thursday blocked the Biden administration’s mandate for large employers that would have required workers to be vaccinated or undergo weekly testing. Parts of the mandate were scheduled to take effect on Monday. The ruling does not affect state or city requirements for […]

So far, 10,000 digital wallets — tools that allow people to store their crypto assets — have been connected to the Quartz platform, even though Ubisoft minted just 3,000 NFTs in its first batch, Mr. Pouard said. That suggested an appetite for more NFTs in the future, he said. A Guide to Cryptocurrency Card 1 […]

Out of the 2,700 rooms sold, Mr. Campbell said only 35 have been canceled since Jan. 1. For guests who cannot travel because of government restrictions or lockdowns, Atlantis is showing more flexibility and issuing credits for future cruises, Mr. Campbell said. Because of the fast-changing circumstances of the pandemic, he said, the company is […]

Michael Parks, a Pulitzer-Prize-winning foreign correspondent for The Los Angeles Times who went on to become the top editor at the paper, one of the nation’s largest metropolitan dailies, died on Jan. 8 at a hospital in Pasadena, Calif. He was 78. The cause was a heart attack and kidney failure, his son Christopher said. […]

Google said Friday that it would spend $1 billion to purchase a London office building, making it the owner of another high-priced piece of real estate as the internet giant bets on an eventual return to office for its employees around the world. The company said it would buy a building in London’s West End […]

Delta Air Lines said on Thursday that it lost $408 million in the final three months of last year, as the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, which emerged late in that period, interfered with holiday operations and pushed back the airline’s recovery. About 8,000 Delta employees — more than one in 10 — had called […]