MoneyWatch

Hoverboards and their ilk have overheated or caught fire hundreds of times this year, killing at least 19 people and sending more than 20 others to hospital emergency rooms in 39 states, federal officials said this week in urging manufacturers to follow voluntary safety standards.  From the start of January …

Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott said her donations have yielded more than $14 billion in funding for about 1,600 nonprofits since 2019, according to her long-awaited website Yield Giving, unveiled Wednesday night. Scott also announced that she plans to introduce an “open-call process” that allows nonprofits seeking donations from her to send …

The average cost of gasoline in the U.S. has dropped below the price a year ago, the first time that has occurred in 22 months.  The average price for regular gas stood at $3.33 a gallon on December 8, compared with an average of $3.34 on the same date in …

Motorists hitting the road for the busy Thanksgiving holiday weekend can take cheer in slightly lower gasoline prices. Around the U.S., the average price for a gallon of regular on Wednesday was $3.59, according to AAA — down 20 cents from a month ago and well below this year’s peak …

Andy Warhol’s iconic 1960s painting “White Disaster” sold for $85 million at auction Wednesday evening at Sotheby’s in New York. The 1963 work of art was sold after two minutes and a brief duel between two bidders for a total of $74 million, or $85.4 million with all related costs …

The recent deaths of six Americans from carbon monoxide poisoning in two separate incidents is putting a spotlight on the risks of staying in a rental home or hotel that might not have the appropriate safety measures in place.  Three guests staying at an apartment in Mexico City booked through …

Loretta Williams lives in Alabama but drove to Georgia to buy a lottery ticket for a chance at winning the $1.5 billion Powerball jackpot. She was one of many Alabama ticket-buyers flooding across state lines Thursday. The third-largest lottery prize in U.S. history has people around the country clamoring for …

Twitter’s unending fight against spam accounts is now a problem for new owner Elon Musk, who pledged in April to defeat the bot scourge or “die trying!” He later cited bots as a reason to back out of buying the social platform. But now that the billionaire has completed the …

So many investors are rushing online to buy Series I savings bonds and lock in a rate of 9.62% ahead of an October 28 deadline that a U.S. Treasury Department website selling the securities crashed. The bonds are considered a low-risk hedge against inflation.  The TreasuryDirect website froze up on Wednesday, while …

New technology is hitting the streets in California that lets motorists use high-tech digital license plates on their vehicles instead of the old-fashioned metal variety.  The Motor Vehicle Digital Number Plates Bill (AB 984), passed earlier this month, allows California vehicle owners to use the digital plates, made exclusively by …