Business

In better times than these, Hollywood’s charities were a lifeline for thousands of industry workers in need of a little help just to get by. In 2020, that need exploded exponentially as the Covid-19 pandemic ravaged lives, livelihoods and life savings. Mary Pickford, who co-founded the Motion Picture & Television Fund nearly 100 years ago

The pound has made strong gains against the dollar over hopes of a breakthrough in Brexit talks. Sterling has been further buoyed by France lifting a border blockade aimed at stopping the spread of a fast-spreading new COVID-19 strain. Live coronavirus updates from the UK and around the world Please use Chrome browser for a

It wasn’t a great night for reigning champs the LA Lakers or past champs the Golden State Warriors, but the opening of the 2020-2021 season last night was great for the NBA and TNT. Played under Covid-19 safety protocols in the City of Angels and the Republic of Brooklyn, the tip-off doubleheader snagged 2.9 million

More businesses face “insurmountable pressure” after a further 50,000 were forced to shut due to the extension of local lockdowns in England, it has been warned. Moving more areas into the toughest Tier 4 restrictions from Boxing Day to combat a fast-spreading mutant coronavirus strain will take the total number of non-essential shops, hairdressers and

Editors note: Rachel Feldman is a Los Angeles-based film and television director whose credits include over 75 hours of longform movies and recent series including ABC’s The Rookie, CBS’ Blue Bloods and Criminal Minds, and MGM’s The Baxters. A former chair of the DGA Women’s Steering Committee, she is working on a political thriller based

The British Retail Consortium has warned that there could be supply issues for some fresh goods until the backlog of trucks at Dover is cleared. Thousands of trucks have been stranded in Dover after France closed its borders earlier this week in reaction to a new highly-infectious coronavrius variant confirmed in the UK. The closure

As the number of Covid-19 hospitalizations continued its record ascent in Los Angeles County on Tuesday, 30% of the respondents to a recent survey indicated they had visited a friend, neighbor or relative or had visitors at their residence. The survey was conducted by the University of Southern California’s Center for Social and Economic Research,

Furniture retailer DFS has apologised for delays due to congestion at ports, warning that this problem is “likely to persist”. The business has been one of many hit, as ports struggle to handle a global supply chain crisis exacerbated by normal Christmas demand and stockpiling issues ahead of the Brexit deadline at the end of

It was quite the marketing gimmick. To commemorate one of its customers winning the €88.5m (£80.9m) EuroMillions jackpot with a ticket bought at one of its service stations, on the M1 Northbound at Lusk in County Dublin, Applegreen cut fuel prices at the station to 88.5 cents (80p) per litre. In January 2017, with a

Public sector net borrowing is estimated to have been £31.6bn in November – the third-highest for any month since records began in 1993. It means borrowing in the first eight months of the financial year (April to November) is estimated at £240.9bn. This is £188.6bn more than the same point last year, and the highest

A deal has been reached between Royal Mail and the workers’ union following a two-year dispute over job security, pay, and hours. The settlement includes a two-year pay deal backdated to April, worth 3.7%, and a one-hour reduction in the working week, according to the Communication Workers Union. The CWU said there will be no

The pound ended down again as the UK faced isolation over a mutant coronavirus strain, although hopes of progress in Brexit trade talks helped take some pressure off the currency. At the close of markets, sterling had fallen 0.76% against the dollar to $1.336 and 0.26% against the euro to €1.097. However, this was still

The government has made ”good progress” in talks with France over reopening the country’s UK border, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has announced. More than 2,800 lorries have been left trapped in Kent after France shut its border to UK travellers on Sunday night, following fears over the spread of a new coronavirus variant. France’s transport minister, Jean-Baptiste

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo — spooked like much of the nation at a more infectious Covid-19 strain identified in the UK – asked the federal government to require that airlines test all passengers on U.S.-bound flights. He clinched an unusual private arrangement with three of them, Delta, British Air and Virgin Atlantic, which agreed

EXCLUSIVE: Disney’s flagship streaming service, Disney+, and its established sibling Hulu lead the list of streamers in total TV advertising impressions in 2020, according to ad tracking firm iSpot. The rankings (see them in full below) define an impression as a verified playing of an ad on a TV screen for at least three seconds.

Discovery has upped its stake in OWN to 95% with the network’s founder and namesake Oprah Winfrey receiving $35 million worth of Discovery stock in exchange, according to an SEC filing Tuesday. Discovery and Winfrey launched OWN in 2008 and the David Zaslav-led media company has periodically raised its stake in the joint venture. It

President-elect Joe Biden gave a sobering year-end message, particularly about the challenges remaining in the Covid-19 crisis and in the impact of the massive cyberattack on U.S. government agencies. Biden said that there was hope with a new vaccine, which he received on Monday, but that the virus is still raging out of control, with

Shares in digital conglomerate Interactive Corp. are up 14% today after the company announced that its video subsidiary Vimeo will be spun off into its own company in 2021. In the quarter ending in September, Vimeo had 1.46 million subscribers, a gain of 21% from the same period a year ago, with revenue of $75.1

Almost exactly two weeks after California Governor Gavin Newsom announced what became a new lockdown for most of the state’s population, the daily number of new cases has fallen for five successive days. Granted, those numbers are dropping from an all-time new daily case high for the state — or any state, for that matter