Business News at a Glance
White House Delays Tariffs on EU, Canada and Mexico for 30 Days
The Trump administration has delayed a decision about whether to impose steel and aluminum tariffs on the European Union, Canada and Mexico for another 30 days, giving key allies a reprieve as the countries carry out further negotiations, a person familiar with the discussions said Monday evening. The 25 percent tariffs on steel and 10 percent on aluminum were set to go into effect Tuesday. The administration, which granted temporary exemptions to a handful of countries in March, has also reached initial agreements with Argentina, Australia and Brazil that will allow them to avoid the tariffs, at least for now.
WhatsApp Figure Leaving Facebook Amid Data Dispute
When Jan Koum, a founder of the messaging app WhatsApp, sold the service to Facebook in 2014, he explained how deeply he cared about the privacy of communication. Growing up in the Soviet Union during the 1980s had made him realize the importance of being able to speak freely, he wrote in a blog post. On Monday, Koum, 42, a member of Facebook’s board, said in a post on the social network that “it is time for me to move on.” According to a company executive, Koum had grown increasingly concerned about Facebook’s position on user data in recent years.
It Took 17 Years: Freelancers Receive $9 Million in Copyright Suit
Seventeen years after nearly 3,000 freelance journalists filed a class-action lawsuit claiming copyright infringement by some of the country’s biggest publishers, the checks are finally in the mail. They will start receiving their pieces of a settlement totaling $9 million this week. The Authors Guild filed the suit — along with the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the National Writers Union and 21 freelance writers — in 2001 after publishers licensed articles by freelancers to the electronic database Lexis/Nexis and other indexers without getting the writers’ approval. The publishers include The New York Times, Dow Jones and Knight Ridder.
Actress Sues Weinstein, Saying He Harmed Her Career
Ashley Judd sued Harvey Weinstein on Monday, opening a new legal battlefront for the disgraced film producer by claiming that her career withered because he spread lies about her in Hollywood after she rejected his sexual requests. It is rare for people to recover damages for smear campaigns because of how complicated it can be to prove the action took place. But Judd has a director on her side: Peter Jackson, who came forward in December to say he removed her from a casting list “as a direct result” of what he now thought was “false information” provided by Weinstein.
Did Michelle Wolf Kill the White House Correspondents’ Dinner?
Comedian Michelle Wolf’s punchlines about Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Kellyanne Conway at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner set off a debate that raised the possibility that Saturday’s edition of the nearly 100-year-old event could be the last of its kind. "It will not surprise you to hear that my email inbox is overflowing with advice on how to improve the dinner,” Olivier Knox, the incoming president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, said Monday. Pressure on the association to reimagine the dinner is building, ratcheted up by social media and a frustrated press corps.
Creepy or Not? Your Privacy Concerns Likely Reflect Your Politics
Are you creeped out by the idea of a company checking a job candidate’s credit history before deciding whether to hire her or him? A new poll on surveillance from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania found that Americans are deeply divided over tracking. And political affiliation is a main predictor of Americans’ emotional reactions to surveillance. Among people who identified themselves as Democrats, 62 percent said they felt “creeped out” by the idea of companies checking job applicants’ credit history. By contrast, half of independents and just 29 percent of Republicans felt creeped out.
