23andMe (NASDAQ: ME) appointed three new independent directors to its board on Tuesday, following the resignation of several directors in September. The new members are Andre Fernandez, former CFO of WeWork; Jim Frankola, former CFO of Cloudera; and Mark Jensen, former managing partner at Deloitte, according to a release, with co-founder and CEO Anne Wojcicki being the only other board member. Jenson will be the lead independent director and Chair of the compensations committee, the company said, while Fernandez will chair the audit committee. The genetic-testing company has struggled since it went public in 2021, with its shares trading below $1 before the company issued a 1-for-20 reverse stock split of its Class A and Class B common stock earlier this month. 23andMe is currently trading down nearly 73% year-to-date.

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) accused Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG) of conducting a "shadow campaign" to influence cloud regulation in Europe. Microsoft deputy general counsel Rima Alaily argued in a blog post that Google's new lobby group called the Open Cloud Coalition is "designed to discredit Microsoft with competition authorities, and policymakers and mislead the public. Google has gone through great lengths to obfuscate its involvement, funding, and control, most notably by recruiting a handful of European cloud providers, to serve as the public face of the new organization." This claim comes as Google faces antitrust regulatory pressure in Europe as well as the United States, and builds on the companies' ongoing rivalry on cloud infrastructure, online advertising and productivity software.

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) announced Friday plans to extend trading hours on it's all-electronic exchange to 22 hours per day. Under the new plan, trading on the NYSE Arca electronic exchange would open at 1:30 a.m. and close at 11:30 p.m. ET on weekdays, subject to regulatory approval. Current extended hours start at 4 a.m. to 8 p.m. ET, while normal trading hours are held between 9:30 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. "As the steward of the U.S. capital markets, the NYSE is pleased to lead the way in enabling exchange-based trading for our U.S.-listed companies and funds to investors in time zones across the globe," said Kevin Tyrrell, head of markets at the NYSE, in a statement. The exchange plans to file updated rules for extended trading with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Boeing (NYSE: BA) factory workers voted to reject the company's latest contract offer and to remain on strike, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers announced late Wednesday. The offer, which was rejected by 64% of voters, included a 35% increase in wages over the next four years, increased 401(k) contributions and a $7,000 bonus, among other improvements, for the 33,000 workers on strike, but did not restore pension benefits. The six-week strike has halted the production of the company's 737, 767 and 777 jetliners, and is estimated to cost the aerospace manufacturer about $1 billion a month, according to S&P Global Ratings. "The rejection raises the risk of a protracted strike if the obstacle is reinstatement of a pension," said Ben Tsocanos, aerospace director at S&P Global Ratings, in a statement, adding that a pension deal is likely off the table due to the cost.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned Wednesday that global public debt will rise above $100 trillion by the end of 2024 in its annual Fiscal Monitor report. Moreover, by 2030, the IMF forecasts that worldwide public debt could total 100% of world GDP. The IMF said in a the report that governments are facing a "fiscal policy trilemma," needing to spend more for growth and security while facing resistance to higher taxation as public debt becomes less sustainable. The United States and China account for a significant share of the rising debt level; if the two countries were excluded from the report, the ratio of global public debt to GDP would decline about 20%, the IMF said. The U.S. Treasury Department announced earlier in October that its national decision topped $1.8 trillion, its highest level outside of the pandemic era.

McDonald's (NYSE: MCD) has been linked to an E.coli outbreak in the United States, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced Tuesday. The fast-food chain's Quarter Pounder burger has been connected to 49 E.coli cases (including 10 hospitalizations and one death) in 10 states from Sept. 27 to Oct. 11, with most illnesses occurring in Colorado and Nebraska. In a statement on Tuesday, McDonald's said it is taking "swift and decisive action," with its initial investigation showing that some of the illnesses may be linked to the onions used on the burgers that are sourced from a single supplier. The company has instructed all restaurants using that supplier to remove onions from their supply and has paused distribution of that ingredient in impacted states. The burgers will also be temporarily unavailable in several states, including Colorado, Kansas, Utah and Wyoming, McDonald's said. The CDC said the number of people affected by the outbreak is "likely much higher" than what has been reported.

28% of holiday shoppers that used credit cards have not paid off their debt from last season, according to a recent holiday spending report by NerdWallet, which polled more than 1,700 adults in September. "Between buying gifts and booking peak-season travel, the holidays are an expensive time of year," said Sara Rathner, credit card expert at NerdWallet, in the report. "Not only are consumers at risk of getting into credit card debt, but that debt can stock around long after the decorations come down." Moreover, collective credit card debt has climbed to $1.4 trillion so far this year, according to a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, with delinquency rates increasing among young adults between the ages of 18 to 29 and 30 to 39. This holiday season, the National Retail Federation expects spending to total a record $979.5 billion to $989 billion between Nov. 1 and Dec. 31.

The U.S. deficit topped $1.8 trillion in fiscal 2024, the U.S. Treasury Department reported Friday, rising 8% annually and marking the third highest total on record -- the only years that federal government saw a greater deficit were in 2020 and 2021, when the U.S. was spending trillions to support the economy amid the coronavirus pandemic. Beneath the headline, government debt rose to $35.7 trillion, rising by $2.3 trillion from the end of fiscal 2023, while interest expense totaled $1.16 trillion (the first time topping the trillion-dollar level). As a share of the total U.S. economy, the deficit ran above 6%, which is unusual for a period of expansion historically and well above the 3.7% avage over the past 50 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced Thursday SVP of Search, Assistant, Geo Ads, Commerce and Payments Prabhakar Raghavan will be transitioning to the role of Chief Technologist at the tech giant, with veteran Nick Fox replacing him. "Prabhakar has decided it's time to make a big leap in his own career," CEO Sundar Pichai wrote in a blog post. "In this role, he'll partner closely with me and Google leads to provide technical direction and leadership and grow our culture of tech excellence." Fox will lead Google's Knowledge and Information division, Pichai wrote, which includes the company's search, ads and commerce segments. Additionally, Pichai announced that the team behind its Gemini app will join Google DeepMind under the leadership of Demis Hassabis. "Bringing the teams closer together will improve feedback loops, enable fast deployment of our new models in the Gemini app," Pichai added.

Amazon's (NASDAQ: AMZN) cloud-computing division, Amazon Web Services, announced Wednesday it is investing more than $500 million in nuclear power to meet to projected energy needs for generative AI. AWS has signed an agreement with Dominion Energy (NYSE: D) to explore the development of a small modular reactor (SMR) in Virginia, as well as a new agreement with Energy Northwest to fund the development, licensing and construction of four SMRs in Washington state. "We see the need for gigawatts of power in the coming years, and there's not going to be enough wind and solar projects to be able to meet the needs, and so nuclear is a great opportunity," said AWS CEO Matthew Garman in a statement. "Also, the technology is really advancing to a place with SMRs where there's going to be a new technology that's going to be safe and that's going to be easy to manufacture in a much smaller form."

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) announced a new iPad mini on Tuesday, updating the 8.3-inch tablet for the tech giant's new Apple Intelligence software. The next gen device is powered by Apple's A17 Pro processor, the same chip that runs on the iPhone 15 Pro, which has a six-core CPU (two performance and four efficiency cores) and a five-core GPU. The new iPad mini also supports the latest Apple Pencil Pro, which was introduced earlier this year. The new iPad starts at $499 for 128GB of storage, while the iPad mini with cellular connectivity starts at $649. The tablet is available for preorder on Tuesday, with shipping starting on October 23. Apple Intelligence, the company's rival to OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Gemini, currently offers a range of writing tools and an enhanced Siri, with other features expected to launch in the coming months.

Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ: AMD) launched a new artificial intelligence chip, called Instinct MI325X, at its Advancing AI event held in San Francisco on Thursday, aims to directly compete with Nvidia's (NASDAQ: NVDA) Blackwell data center GPUs. MI325X will begin production before the end of the year, with the chop being the successor to the M1300X, which stated shipping to customers late last year. "AI demand has actually continued to take off and actually exceed expectations," CEO Lisa Su said at the event. "It's clear that the rate of investment is continuing to grow everywhere." Su also announced that the company plans to release its next-gen M1350 series chips in the second half of 2025, with improvements including increased memory and performance compared to its prior MI300X and MI250X generations.

Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) announced Wednesday plans to expand its same-day prescription delivery to 20 more cities in 2025, which will make the service available to nearly half the United States. The company said the new pharmacies will be embedded in Amazon Same-Day Delivery sites, with the new cities including Boston, Dallas, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, San Diego and other metropolitan areas. Amazon Pharmacy -- which offers digital ordering, 24/7 pharmacist access, and many discount options -- customers already receive their prescriptions in two days or less on average, according to Amazon. Post expansion, 45% of U.S. customers are expected to be eligible for Same-Day medications, with customers being able to order their prescriptions by 4 p.m and have them delivered at home by 10 p.m. in most cases. "In health care, speed and accessibility are critical for positive patient outcomes," said Dr. Vin Gupta, chief medical officer of Amazon Pharmacy, in a statement.

The travel industry is preparing for disruptions stemming from Hurricane Milton's potential impact, as the Category 4 storm is expected to make landfall on Florida's west coast on Wednesday, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Tampa International Airport suspended operations Tuesday morning, and Orlando International Airport expected to close early Wednesday; more than 750 Orlando flights (over 85% of Wednesday's schedule) were canceled, according to FlightAware, impacting Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV) the most as the carrier holds about a fifth of Orlando's market share. American Airlines (NASDAQ: AAL) and United Airlines (NASDAQ: UAL) have also waived fees and fare differences for affected customers changing their flights in response to the coming storm. Disney (NYSE: DIS), Universal (NYSE: UVV) and United Parks (NYSE: PRKS) also announced the closure of their respective Orlando theme parks through Thursday.

U.S. District Judge James Donato issued his final ruling in Epic Games V. Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG) on Monday, ordering the tech giant to offer alternatives to its Google Play store for downloading apps on Android devices. Moreover, Google will be restricted from: paying companies to launch apps exclusively or first on, to not compete with, or to pre-install Google Play on devices; requiring app developers to use Google Play Billing, as the lawsuit ruled that Google had illegally connected its payment systems to its app store; prohibiting app makers from using competing Android app stores and will require Google to carry third-party app stores on Google Play. Google is also prohibited from sharing app revenue "with any person or entity that distributes Android apps." The new requirements will begin Nov. 1 2024 through Nov. 1 2027, according to the ruling. Google said in a blog post it will appeal the court's decision.