India's billionaires got richer while coronavirus pushed millions of vulnerable people into poverty
CNN
India has been hobbled by an economic slump and a brutal wave of coronavirus that new research shows pushed millions of people into poverty.
But as these Indians struggle to live on a few dollars a day, the country's ultra-wealthy have gotten even richer and more influential, as their combined fortunes have soared by tens of billions of dollars in the last year. Mukesh Ambani — chairman of the sprawling conglomerate Reliance Industries — is now worth more than $80 billion, some $15 billion more than a year ago, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Not far behind him is Adani Group founder Gautam Adani, whose wealth skyrocketed from less than $13 billion this time last year to $55 billion today.
Hundreds of millions of dollars that the United States is raising from the sale of Venezuelan oil is being sequestered in Qatar. It’s an indirect path that could speed the flow of much-needed money to Venezuela, but it also raises questions about the transparency surrounding those funds.
Tess Coward, a 27-year-old PR professional based in New York City, woke up feeling under the weather on Wednesday. But without the ability to make phone calls or receive text messages, she couldn’t get in touch with her doctor or log into the provider’s patient portal.
The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate was 6.06% for the week ending January 15, according to Freddie Mac. The last time home borrowing rates were this low was September 2022.
Inside The Washington Post, the impact was immediate. Reporters called the search “incredibly disturbing” and unprecedented. Natanson met with Post lawyers and security experts, scrambled to line up her own outside legal counsel, and urged her colleagues to keep reporting.
Federal immigration agents have been circling El Burrito Mercado, a prominent Mexican supermarket and restaurant in St. Paul, Minnesota, for the last week.
The United States is considering whether to strike Iran as turmoil intensifies for the country’s authoritarian regime.
The US has completed its first sale of Venezuelan oil since the US attached Venezuela and captured its president, Nicolás Maduro, earlier this month, according to an administration official.
President Donald Trump enacted a new 25% tariff on “certain advanced computing chips” on Wednesday, according to a White House fact sheet. That includes Nvidia’s H200 chip and AMD’s MI325X. However, chips imported to support building up the US technological supply chain would be exempt.
Verizon said some of its wireless services were down Wednesday, leaving many customers without access to voice and data services.
YouTube will now let parents limit the amount of time their teens can spend scrolling through its short-form video feature, Shorts, or block them all together.
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Price hikes picked up speed for US-based businesses toward the end of last year, a potential signal that inflation has yet to peak and prices could soon rise faster for consumers.
Trump is threatening to take “strong action” against Iran just after capturing the leader of Venezuela. His administration is criminally investigating the chair of the Federal Reserve and is taking a scorched-earth approach on affordability by threatening key profit drivers for banks and institutional investors.