Regulation and Deregulation of Industry

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      Looking for a Lower Credit Card Interest Rate? Good Luck.

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      Comparison sites often emphasize the big banks’ offerings even though smaller banks and credit unions typically charge significantly less.Credit card debt is rising, and shopping for a card with a lower interest rate can help you save money. But the challenge is finding one.Smaller banks and credit unions typically charge significantly lower interest rates on credit cards than the largest banks do — even among customers with top-notch credit, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reported last week.But online card comparison tools tend to emphasize cards from larger banks that pay fees to the sites when shoppers apply for cards, said Julie Margetta Morgan, the bureau’s associate director for research, monitoring and regulations. “It’s pretty hard to shop for a good deal on a credit card right now.”For cardholders with “good” credit — a credit score of 620 to 719 — the typical interest rate charged by big banks was about 28 percent, compared with about 18 percent at small banks, the report found.For those with poor credit — reflected by a score of 619 or lower — large banks charged a median rate of more than 28 percent, compared with about 21 percent at small banks. (Basic credit scores range from 300 to 850.)The variation in the rates charged by big banks and smaller ones can mean a difference, on average, of $400 to $500 a year in interest for cardholders with an average balance of $5,000, the bureau found.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      New York Is Failing to Meet Wheelchair-Access Goal for Cabs, Suit Says

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      Officials had committed to making sure that 50 percent of the city’s taxi fleet could accommodate wheelchair users by 2023. A lawsuit says they have fallen short.Advocates for New Yorkers with disabilities have sued taxi regulators for falling short of complying with a legal settlement that required half of the city’s licensed taxis to be wheelchair-accessible.The suit argues that taxi regulators have shown that they have “no intention of even attempting” to meet the goal.On Wednesday, the group of advocates, which includes four nonprofits, filed a motion in U.S. District Court in Manhattan urging a judge to order the city to meet the requirement. Only 42 percent of active taxis can accommodate wheelchair users.“It is so disheartening that the city doesn’t want to be more than 50 percent accessible,” said Dan Brown, an attorney representing the plaintiffs. “The fact that they haven’t met the goal is really beyond disappointing and sad.”Jason Kersten, a spokesman for the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission, said in a statement that the commission is “committed to accessibility.”“When you factor in our entire fleet, we now have almost three times the number of accessible vehicles than we did five years ago,” Mr. Kersten said. “We will keep working to make our fleet even more accessible.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Company Hired 24 Minors to Clean Slaughterhouses, Labor Department Says

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      Fayette Janitorial employed at least 24 children between the ages of 13 and 17 to work overnight shifts cleaning dangerous equipment at plants in Virginia and Iowa, federal regulators said.A Tennessee-based company employed at least two dozen children as young as 13 to work overnight shifts cleaning dangerous equipment in slaughterhouses, including a 14-year-old whose arm was mangled in a piece of machinery, the Labor Department said on Wednesday.The department filed a request on Wednesday for a temporary restraining order and injunction in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa against the company, Fayette Janitorial Service LLC. It provides cleaning services at slaughterhouses in several states, including Iowa and Virginia, where the department said an investigation had found that the company had hired children to clean plants.The Labor Department opened its investigation after an article in The New York Times Magazine reported that Fayette had hired migrant children to work the overnight cleaning shift at a Perdue Farms plant on the Eastern Shore of Virginia.Fayette did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesman told The Times in September that the company was unaware of any minors on its staff and learned of the 14-year-old’s true age only after he was injured.Meat processing is among the nation’s most dangerous industries, and minors are barred under federal law from working in slaughterhouses because of the high risk of injury. But that has not stopped thousands of destitute migrant children from coming to the United States from Mexico and Central America to work dangerous jobs, including in meatpacking plants.The Labor Department found that Fayette had hired at least 24 children between the ages of 13 and 17 to work the overnight shift cleaning dangerous power-driven equipment at a Perdue plant in Accomack County, Va., and at a plant operated by Seaboard Triumph Foods in Sioux City, Iowa. Fifteen children were working at the Virginia plant, and at least nine children were found to be working at the Iowa plant, the department said in its complaint requesting the injunction and restraining order.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      TikTok Is Subject of E.U. Inquiry Over ‘Addictive Design’

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      The European Commission said it would investigate whether the site violated online laws aimed at protecting children from harmful content.European Union regulators on Monday opened an investigation into TikTok over potential breaches of online content rules aimed at protecting children, saying the popular social media platform’s “addictive design” risked exposing young people to harmful content.The move widens a preliminary investigation conducted in recent months into whether TikTok, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, violated a new European law, the Digital Services Act, which requires large social media companies to stop the spread of harmful material. Under the law, companies can be penalized up to 6 percent of their global revenues.TikTok has been under the scrutiny of E.U. regulators for months. The company was fined roughly $370 million in September for having weak safeguards to protect the personal information of children using the platform. Policymakers in the United States have also been wrestling with how to regulate the platform for harmful content and data privacy — concerns amplified by TikTok’s links to China.The European Commission said it was particularly focused on how the company was managing the risk of “negative effects stemming” from the site’s design, including algorithmic systems that it said “may stimulate behavioral addictions” or “create so-called ‘rabbit hole effects,’” where a user is pulled further and further into the site’s content.Those risks could potentially compromise a person’s “physical and mental well-being,” the commission said.“The safety and well-being of online users in Europe is crucial,” Margrethe Vestager, the European Commission’s executive vice president overseeing digital policy, said in a statement. “TikTok needs to take a close look at the services they offer and carefully consider the risks that they pose to their users — young as well as old.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Biden Administration Toughens Limits on Deadly Air Pollution

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      The E.P.A. says the new rule will prevent 4,500 premature deaths annually. Industry leaders are expected to challenge the regulation, saying it will harm the economy.The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday tightened limits on fine industrial particles, one of the most common and deadliest forms of air pollution, for the first time in a decade.Business groups immediately objected, saying the new regulation could raise costs and hurt manufacturing jobs across the country. Public health organizations said the pollution rules would save lives and strengthen the economy by reducing hospitalizations and lost workdays.Fine particulate matter, which can include soot, can come from factories, power plants and other industrial facilities. It can penetrate the lungs and bloodstream and has been linked to serious health effects like asthma and heart and lung disease. Long-term exposure has been associated with premature deaths.The new rule lowers the annual standard for fine particulate matter to nine micrograms per cubic meter of air, down from the current standard of 12 micrograms. Over the next two years, the E.P.A. will use air sampling to identify areas that do not meet the new standard. States would then have 18 months to develop compliance plans for those areas. By 2032, any that exceed the new standard could face penalties.“Soot pollution is one of the most dangerous forms of air pollution,” Michael S. Regan, the E.P.A. administrator, said in a call with reporters on Tuesday. “This is truly a game changer for the health and well-being of communities in our country.”Mr. Regan estimated that the rule would prevent 4,500 premature deaths every year and 290,000 lost workdays because of illness. The E.P.A. maintained that the rule also would deliver as much as $46 billion in net health benefits in the first year that the standards would be fully implemented.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Banks Face a Growing Real Estate Crisis

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      A year after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, investors are fearing for regional lenders saddled with a mountain of souring commercial mortgages.Concerns about New York Community Bancorp deepened on Wednesday after the lender was hit by a credit downgrade, and its stock fell further.Bing Guan/BloombergBanking crisis déjà vu? The sell-off in regional bank stocks looks set to worsen on Wednesday, after Moody’s cut New York Community Bancorp’s credit rating to junk status.Fears are now rising among investors over the United States’ distressed commercial real estate sector. This comes as a crucial lifeline created during last year’s banking crisis is set to expire.N.Y.C.B.’s shares plunged as much as 15 percent in premarket trading after the downgrade, before rebounding. The stock has plummeted roughly 60 percent in the past week after the lender reported dismal results, especially stemming from its exposure to souring commercial real estate loans.Last year, N.Y.C.B. won the bidding for assets tied to Signature Bank, which failed shortly after the demise of Silicon Valley Bank. That pushed its assets above $100 billion, putting it into a new regulatory category, and subjecting it to more stringent capital requirements.Bank jitters are spreading. The KBW Nasdaq Regional Banking Index, a collection of midsize bank stocks, has fallen nearly 12 percent in the past week as investors worry about lenders’ exposure to commercial real estate loan portfolios.Plunging office occupancy rates and high interest rates are a big reason. The shift in working practices after the height of the coronavirus pandemic has roiled the commercial real estate market and lenders could face a “maturity wall” of as much as $1.5 trillion in commercial real estate loans set to come this year and next. (U.S. regional banks provide the bulk of such loans, putting them at particular risk.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Tech CEOs Got Grilled, but New Rules Are Still a Question

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      Tech leaders faced a grilling in the Senate, and one offered an apology. But skeptics fear little will change this time.Five tech C.E.O.s faced a grilling yesterday, but it’s unclear whether new laws to impose more safeguards for online children’s safety will pass.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesA lot of heat, but will there be regulation?Five technology C.E.O.s endured hours of grilling by senators on both sides of the aisle about their apparent failures to make their platforms safer for children, with some lawmakers accusing them of having “blood” on their hands.But for all of the drama, including Mark Zuckerberg of Meta apologizing to relatives of online child sex abuse victims, few observers believe that there’s much chance of concrete action.“Your product is killing people,” Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, flatly told Zuckerberg at Wednesday’s hearing. Over 3.5 hours, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee laid into the Meta chief and the heads of Discord, Snap, TikTok and X over their policies. (Before the hearing began, senators released internal Meta documents that showed that executives had rejected efforts to devote more resources to safeguard children.)But tech C.E.O.s offered only qualified support for legislative efforts. Those include the Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA, which would require tech platforms to take “reasonable measures” to prevent harm, and STOP CSAM and EARN IT, two bills that would curtail some of the liability shield given to those companies by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.Both Evan Spiegel of Snap and Linda Yaccarino of X backed KOSA, and Yaccarino also became the first tech C.E.O. to back the STOP CSAM Act. But neither endorsed EARN IT.Zuckerberg called for legislation to force Apple and Google — neither of which was asked to testify — to be held responsible for verifying app users’ ages. But he otherwise emphasized that Meta had already offered resources to keep children safe.Shou Chew of TikTok noted only that his company expected to invest over $2 billion in trust and safety measures this year.Jason Citron of Discord allowed that Section 230 “needs to be updated,” and his company later said that it supports “elements” of STOP CSAM.Experts worry that we’ve seen this play out before. Tech companies have zealously sought to defend Section 230, which protects them from liability for content users post on their platforms. Some lawmakers say altering it would be crucial to holding online platforms to account.Meanwhile, tech groups have fought efforts by states to tighten the use of their services by children. Such laws would lead to a patchwork of regulations that should instead be addressed by Congress, the industry has argued.Congress has failed to move meaningfully on such legislation. Absent a sea change in congressional will, Wednesday’s drama may have been just that.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More