Is Slate Auto’s Electric Truck the Answer to Expensive Cars?

Is Slate Auto’s Electric Truck the Answer to Expensive Cars?

When Slate Auto, a start-up, unveiled a roughly $25,000 electric pickup truck last month, social media lit up with comments. Many people saw the no-frills vehicle, with an easy-to-repair body and nostalgic hand crank windows, as a refreshing antidote to today’s overstuffed and increasingly unaffordable cars. How unaffordable? Average monthly …

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A Toxic Pit Could Be a Gold Mine for Rare-Earth Elements

A Toxic Pit Could Be a Gold Mine for Rare-Earth Elements

There’s a tale told about a miner who found copper cans in his garbage dump in the early days of mining. Wastewater from copper mining had flowed through his land, he said, and turned steel cans into copper. The story might be apocryphal, but the process is real, and it’s …

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A CEO’s Guide to Surviving Trump’s Trade War

A CEO’s Guide to Surviving Trump’s Trade War

Randy Carr watched the news on his laptop the way you look at a doctor about to administer a shot — nervously and braced for pain. It was April 2, and President Trump was in the Rose Garden about to unveil new tariffs. An upbeat, slightly jacked 52-year-old, Mr. Carr …

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In Mexico, Turning Agricultural Crops Into Furniture

In Mexico, Turning Agricultural Crops Into Furniture

This article is part of our Design special section about how food inspires designers to make and do surprising things. Many people look at avocados and see guacamole. An agave plant is little more than a future shot of tequila, a corn stalk the raw material for a warm tortilla. …

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Trump Signs Executive Order Walking Back Some Auto Tariffs

Trump Signs Executive Order Walking Back Some Auto Tariffs

President Trump signed a pair of executive orders on Tuesday that walked back some tariffs for carmakers, removing some levies that Ford, General Motors and others have complained would backfire on U.S. manufacturing by raising the cost of production and squeezing their profits. The changes will modify Mr. Trump’s tariffs …

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Tariffs on China Aren’t Likely to Rescue U.S. Medical Gear Industry

Tariffs on China Aren’t Likely to Rescue U.S. Medical Gear Industry

Few domestic industries have been as devastated by the flood of cheap Chinese imports as manufacturers of face masks, exam gloves and other disposable medical gear that protects health care workers from infectious pathogens. The industry’s demise had calamitous consequences during the Covid pandemic, when Beijing halted exports and American …

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