Scott Horsley

Shares the fintech company Block bucked the downward trend in the market and launched big gains after the company announced plans to lay off about 40 percent of its workforce.

CEO Jack Dorsey says the company, formerly known as Square, will use artificial intelligence to make up for the thousands of laid-off workers.

The AI boom is generating both excitement and anxiety.

OpenAI says it's attracted more than $100 billion worth of investment from Amazon and other tech giants.

Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington.

Wholesale prices in January were up 2.9 percent from a year ago.

They jumped by half a percent between December and January, which is a bigger increase than forecasters were expecting.

Retailers and wholesalers who absorbed some price hikes in the past are now passing more of that cost along to customers.

The fintech company Block is cutting more than 40 percent of its workforce.

CEO Jack Dorsey says the company formerly known as Square can get by without those 4,000 workers.

thanks to efficiency gains from artificial intelligence.

A federal judge has ruled the IRS broke the law more than 42,000 times when it shared confidential taxpayer information with immigration authorities.

The ruling comes in a lawsuit brought by the Center for Taxpayer Rights.

Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington.

The proposed rule change matters because workers who are classified as employees are covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act, meaning they're eligible for overtime pay, unemployment insurance, and other protections, while workers classified as independent contractors are not.

In making that determination, the proposed rule would rely heavily on how much control a worker exercises and whether they have a chance to make a profit or loss.

Critics say the change would cost workers and save employers billions of dollars every year.

The administration says it would protect contractors' entrepreneurial spirit and align more closely with federal court decisions.

The Labor Department will take comments on the proposal for the next 60 days.

Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington.