Investments and Business

For more than two decades, workers at a factory in Perrysburg, Ohio, near Toledo, have been making something that other businesses stopped producing in the United States long ago: solar panels.How the company that owns the factory, First Solar, managed to hang on when most solar panel manufacturing left the United States for China is critical to understanding the viability of President Biden’s efforts to establish a large domestic green energy industry.Mr. Biden and Democrats in Congress last year authorized hundreds of billions of dollars in federal incentives for manufacturing solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, electric cars and semiconductors. The…

The Biden administration on Wednesday announced that it was awarding $238 million through the Defense Department to set up eight hubs around the United States for promoting innovation in the semiconductor industry.The funds are one of the earliest releases of the nearly $53 billion in grants and subsidies that Congress and the Biden administration have approved to build up the domestic semiconductor industry, which U.S. officials say has been left vulnerable by decades of offshoring.The Biden administration has a variety of funding programs in the works to encourage chip research institutions and manufacturers to set up operations in the United…

Hollywood’s bitter, monthslong labor dispute has taken a big first step toward a resolution.The Writers Guild of America, which represents more than 11,000 screenwriters, reached a tentative deal on a new contract with entertainment companies on Sunday night, all but ending a 146-day strike that has contributed to a shutdown of television and film production.In the coming days, guild members will vote on whether to accept the deal, which has much of what they had demanded, including increases in compensation for streaming content, concessions from studios on minimum staffing for television shows, and guarantees that artificial intelligence technology will not…

The United Automobile Workers union expanded its strike Friday at two large U.S. automakers — General Motors and Stellantis, the parent of Chrysler, Jeep and Ram — as negotiators remained far apart on key issues a week into the walkout.The strike is not a full-scale walkout by the union’s roughly 150,000 members but a “limited and targeted” work stoppage, which began on Sept. 15 after workers’ four-year contracts expired. On Friday, the union cranked up the labor action to include 38 parts distribution centers at G.M. and Stellantis, but it did not include Ford in the expansion, citing progress in…

The Canadian labor union Unifor said on Sunday that its members had voted to ratify a new contract with Ford Motor, a relief for the Detroit automaker, which is locked in a separate battle with its U.S. union over demands for better pay and benefits.Unifor, which represents about 5,600 Canadian autoworkers, said its members at Ford ratified a new three-year collective agreement.Ford has offered the union members wage increases of up to 25 percent in its new contract. The agreement provides a 10 percent wage increase for the first year followed by increases of 2 percent and 3 percent through…

The Biden administration on Friday issued final rules that would prohibit chip companies vying for a new infusion of federal cash from carrying out certain business expansions, partnerships and research in China, in what it described as an effort to protect United States national security.The regulations come as the Biden administration prepares to disburse more than $52 billion in federal grants and tens of billions of dollars of tax credits to build up the U.S. chip industry. The new rules aim to prevent chip makers that benefit from U.S. grants from passing technology, business know-how or other benefits to China.The…

It was the tail end of another long, hot Tokyo summer, and salarymen across the city were looking at their wardrobes with dread.Every year from May to September, Japan’s famously conservative corporate workers and government employees set aside their stiff, dark suits for more casual attire. Out go the neckties and starched shirts; in come short-sleeved polos and linen shirts, even the occasional Hawaiian. Then, as the calendar approaches October, formality returns, if not drastically cooler temperatures.The metamorphosis is part of a Japanese initiative known as “Cool Biz,” a glass-half-full description of what could just as easily be called “Hot…

The United States and China have created a new structure for economic dialogue in an effort to improve communication between the world’s largest economies and stabilize a relationship that has become increasingly strained in recent years.The Treasury Department said on Friday that the United States and China had agreed to create economic and financial working groups that would hold regular meetings to discuss policy and exchange information. The announcement followed visits to Beijing by three of President Biden’s cabinet members over the summer that were intended to ease tensions over economic and geopolitical matters that has been festering for years…

California is taking some of the world’s biggest energy companies, including Shell, Exxon Mobil and Chevron, to court, accusing them of concealing the damage caused by fossil fuels on the state for more than half a century. The state’s lawsuit is the most significant attempt to take on Big Oil over its role in climate change, as the energy majors report bumper profits and oil nears $100 a barrel.The strategy has echoes of an earlier fight: states’ legal battle against Big Tobacco in the 1990s.California wants the companies to cover costs of fighting wildfires and mitigating the effects of dense…