Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
Across the country, Americans are opening medical bills and finding extra charges that can add hundreds of dollars to the cost of a simple checkup or video visit. These line items, often labeled “facility fees” or buried in vague billing codes, are turning routine care into a financial shock. I set out to understand how…
Pacific Gas and Electric is again asking regulators to let it charge customers more, even as bills in its territory already rank among the highest in the country. The utility argues that another round of increases is needed to harden its grid, reduce wildfire risk and keep investors on board, but critics say California has…
Gov. Kathy Hochul has finally disclosed how much she personally paid in New York City congestion tolls, a small but politically loaded detail in the broader deal that keeps the MTA’s controversial pricing system alive. The revelation lands as the program marks its first full year, with supporters touting cleaner air and stronger transit finances…
Massachusetts residents are being promised relief on winter gas and electric bills, but the fine print means many will effectively pay interest on that help later. The Healey administration’s push to blunt high heating costs has collided with the way utilities recover their expenses, turning a headline win on affordability into a complicated bargain for…
Credit card interest has quietly become one of the most punishing household expenses in America, with typical annual percentage rates hovering in the low 20s even for borrowers with solid histories. Now President Donald Trump’s push to cap card rates at 10 percent for a year has jolted the industry, and Bank of America is…
Verizon has quietly rewritten the rules that once made it relatively painless to take your phone to another carrier. A long standing promise to unlock devices after a short period has been replaced with a far tougher standard that keeps new phones tied to Verizon for most of a year. The change arrives just as…
New York City’s latest attempt to shore up delivery worker pay has set off a fierce clash between regulators, gig platforms, workers, and customers. A new tipping rule, paired with an aggressive minimum pay regime, is forcing apps to change how they nudge users to reward couriers and how they structure fees. The result is…
Tesla is stripping key highway automation from new cars in the United States and Canada and shifting those capabilities behind a monthly subscription, turning what used to be a built-in selling point into an ongoing bill. The change affects familiar Autopilot behaviors on multi-lane roads and folds them into the company’s paid Full Self-Driving (Supervised)…
Shoppers who rely on plastic for their weekly runs at Walmart and Target are about to feel a new kind of sticker shock. A long running fight over credit card “swipe fees” is reaching a turning point, and the fallout is expected to land directly at the checkout counter. Instead of quietly absorbing rising processing…
President Donald Trump told Americans that by Jan. 20, credit card companies would be breaking the law if they charged more than 10 percent interest. Yet as that deadline passed, card statements still showed rates in the high teens and twenties, and banks kept business as usual. The gap between the promise and reality lies…