Normal Motors stated on Wednesday that it earned $6.4 billion in 2020, a modest decline from the yr earlier than, as brisk gross sales of pickup vans and sport-utility autos within the second half of the yr offset the injury on its enterprise attributable to the pandemic within the spring.

The automaker reported that income declined 11 % to $122 billion from $137 billion in 2019, when it reported internet earnings of $6.7 billion.

“G.M.’s 2020 efficiency was exceptional by any measure, and much more so in a yr when a worldwide pandemic induced corporations all over the world — together with G.M. — to briefly droop manufacturing,” Mary Barra, the corporate’s chief government, stated in a letter to shareholders.

The pandemic compelled G.M. and different automakers to shut all of their North American vegetation for about 60 days final spring, and induced a deep drop in gross sales of latest autos.

Automakers additionally struggled within the pandemic with a scarcity of semiconductors wanted for options like contact screens, computerized engine controls and transmissions. New vehicles can have greater than 100 semiconductors.

The scarcity of chips is predicted to final effectively into 2021. This led G.M. to chop its forecast for working revenue this yr by $1.5 billion to $2 billion.

In a convention name with reporters, Ms. Barra stated G.M. was working with suppliers to make sure it had the chips it wanted, and it anticipated to have the ability to make up for any misplaced manufacturing over the course of the yr.

“The semiconductor scarcity received’t gradual our progress plans, and with out mitigation methods we nonetheless count on to see an excellent yr for Normal Motors,” she stated. “Proper now, we received’t lose any manufacturing because it pertains to full-size vans and S.U.V.s all year long.”

Among the many full-size autos the corporate is relying on is an electrical Hummer pickup truck that it’s going to start delivering late this yr. It’s one in every of 30 electrical vehicles G.M. plans to introduce by 2025 as a part of a broader objective it set late final month to promote solely zero-emission autos by 2035.

The corporate presently makes just a few electrical autos, together with the Chevrolet Bolt, however it’s spending closely to extend its choices and compete with Tesla, the main electrical carmaker. This yr, G.M. will spend greater than $7 billion on growing electrical and autonomous autos. By 2025, it plans to spend greater than $27 billion on these two applied sciences.

Ms. Barra stated on Wednesday that she and different G.M. officers had spoken with President Biden and his aides concerning the firm’s plans for electrical and autonomous autos. Mr. Biden has stated he intends to step up the battle in opposition to local weather change and desires the federal government to assist create tens of millions of jobs in renewable vitality and auto manufacturing.

“The Biden administration is more and more aligned across the significance of home manufacturing and the necessity for widespread adoption of E.V.s,” she stated. “We stay up for working with the administration on insurance policies that help protected transportation and nil emissions.”

A simmering rift throughout the Democratic Occasion spilled into public view on Tuesday as Senator Bernie Sanders, the chairman of the Senate Price range Committee, pressed Neera Tanden, President Biden’s nominee to move the Workplace of Administration and Price range, over tens of millions of {dollars} of company donations that the Middle for American Progress obtained underneath her watch.

The robust line of questions was a tough patch for one in every of Mr. Biden’s cupboard picks and underscored the lingering stress between the Democratic Occasion’s progressive and average wings. Ms. Tanden, president of the liberal Middle for American Progress suppose tank, served within the Clinton and Obama administrations and was a high aide to Hillary Clinton through the 2016 presidential marketing campaign.

“Now, Ms. Tanden, at a time when the rich and huge firms have extraordinary affect over the financial and political lifetime of this nation, I have to inform you that I’m involved concerning the company donations the Middle for American Progress has obtained underneath your management,” Mr. Sanders stated in his opening assertion. “Earlier than I vote to substantiate your nomination, it can be crucial for this committee to know that these donations won’t affect your determination making at O.M.B.”

Mr. Sanders cited a report that discovered that the middle obtained no less than $38 million from company America since 2014.

Mr. Sanders additionally questioned Ms. Tanden about her criticism of him and his allies.

“There have been vicious assaults made in opposition to progressives, individuals who I’ve labored with, me personally,” Mr. Sanders stated.

Ms. Tanden and Mr. Sanders have clashed because the 2016 election, with Mr. Sanders accusing Ms. Tanden in 2019 of “maligning my employees and supporters and belittling progressive concepts” after ThinkProgress, an unbiased editorial department of Ms. Tanden’s suppose tank, criticized Mr. Sanders for the dimensions of his earnings from writing a e book.

On Tuesday, throughout her first affirmation listening to earlier than the Senate homeland safety committee, Ms. Tanden confronted related criticism — solely from Republicans, who spent the primary hour grilling her over her Twitter posts and asking why she deleted greater than 1,000 posts shortly after the November election.

Senator Rob Portman of Ohio learn aloud posts wherein she known as Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority chief, “Moscow Mitch,” and stated that “vampires have extra coronary heart than Ted Cruz,” a Republican senator from Texas.

Ms. Tanden apologized to that committee and stated that she deleted a few of her tweets as a result of she regretted her tone.

On the Wednesday listening to, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the highest Republican on the committee, stated that he was not overly involved with the donations that Ms. Tanden oversaw however introduced up her criticism of each Republicans and Democrats.

“Her scorn was not restricted to Republicans,” Mr. Graham stated. “This isn’t the unifying choose that I used to be in search of on this place.”

Mr. Graham additionally leaned into the tensions between Ms. Tanden and Mr. Sanders, dusting off earlier criticism that she leveled on the Democratic Socialist from Vermont, together with feedback suggesting that Russia tried to assist the Sanders marketing campaign in 2016.

In her opening assertion on Wednesday, Ms. Tanden insisted that she would work in a bipartisan vogue if confirmed. She famous that a few of her abrasive language prior to now was due to her function as a political activist and he or she apologized for offending individuals together with her feedback on social media.

“I apologize to individuals both on the left or proper who’re harm by what I stated,” Ms. Tanden stated.

Michelle Obama would be the star of a youngsters’s cooking present.

Netflix introduced this week that Mrs. Obama can be featured alongside a pair of puppets in a collection known as “Waffles + Mochi.” The ten-episode collection makes its debut March 16.

The collection is the most recent challenge from Mrs. Obama and Barack Obama’s manufacturing firm, Larger Floor Productions. The Obamas, who signed a take care of Netflix in 2018, have up to now produced three documentary movies for the streaming service. Mrs. Obama was the centerpiece of “Changing into,” a 2020 documentary that adopted her on her e book tour after her memoir of the identical title was revealed.

Final week, the Obamas introduced that that they had a number of scripted tasks in improvement for Netflix, together with an adaptation of “Exit West,” a critically adored 2017 novel about refugees, and an animated collection primarily based on a Michael Lewis e book.

Within the cooking present, Mrs. Obama will play a grocery store proprietor who helps two puppet friends, Waffles and Mochi, fulfill their dream of changing into cooks. Mrs. Obama has lengthy promoted well being and diet, and the Obamas stated after they signed with Netflix that they’d create a youngsters’s present.

“Waffles + Mochi” has been in improvement for practically two years. In 2019, Netflix introduced an earlier model of the present, “Hear To Your Greens & Eat Your Mother and father.” The manufacturing crew for “Waffles + Mochi” contains Erika Thormahlen, a author and actress, and Jeremy Konner, a producer of Comedy Central’s “Drunk Historical past.”

United Airways plans to put money into and purchase as many as 200 plane from Archer Aviation, an electrical air taxi start-up that introduced plans on Wednesday to go public, in a deal that Archer stated valued it at about $3.8 billion.

“A part of how United will fight world warming is embracing rising applied sciences that decarbonize air journey,” United’s chief government, Scott Kirby, stated in an announcement on Wednesday. “By working with Archer, United is displaying the aviation trade that now’s the time to embrace cleaner, extra environment friendly modes of transportation.”

United is investing about $20 million in Archer, and a further $5 million will come from Mesa Airways, which operates regional flights for United and others. The airline’s tentative plane order is valued at as much as $1 billion, Archer stated in an announcement. United stated it might solely buy the plane as soon as they have been obtainable and had met its working and enterprise necessities.

The plane, which might journey at speeds of as much as 150 miles an hour for as much as 60 miles, could be used throughout the subsequent 5 years to let United’s clients commute in dense city areas or rapidly attain the airline’s airport hubs, United stated. The plane are set to debut this yr, in keeping with Archer, which is predicated in California.

The information follows United’s announcement late final yr that it plans to turn into carbon-neutral by 2050, partly by investing in a “direct air seize” plant in Texas that can take away carbon dioxide from the sky and inject it underground.

Archer stated it deliberate to go public through a sale to a blank-check firm, often known as a particular objective acquisition firm. The automobile, Atlas Crest Funding, is an affiliate of the funding financial institution Moelis & Firm. Ken Moelis, the financial institution’s founder, is investing within the deal alongside different senior bankers and Walmart’s former e-commerce chief, Marc Lore, by contributing to the $600 million “non-public funding in public fairness.” Different buyers embrace the newly shaped carmaker Stellantis.

Moelis leaned on its bankers, shopper relationships and exterior consultants to conduct the due diligence required for investing in new airline know-how and SPACs, Mr. Moelis stated in an interview.

“We had 35, 40 individuals on this — and we attacked this like enterprise progress would or anyone else,” Mr Moelis stated. “And we did it quick, too.”

United Airways is a shopper of Moelis, and the financial institution expects that Archer can be as effectively.

The corporate expects to be listed on the New York Inventory Alternate underneath the ticker ACHR.

U.S. markets

• The S&P 500 rose lower than half a % on Wednesday, rebounding from a small decline the day earlier than.

• Normal Motors on Wednesday reported $6.4 billion revenue for 2020, as brisk gross sales of pickup vans and sport-utility autos within the fall offset the pandemic disruptions within the spring. Its shares fell about 5 %, nevertheless.

• Twitter’s shares rose 14 % in early buying and selling after the corporate stated on Tuesday that its income rose 28 % within the fourth quarter in contrast with the earlier yr.

• Lyft jumped about 9 % after the corporate’s fourth-quarter income — though down sharply from a yr in the past — was greater than the earlier interval.

Commodities

• Commodities costs rose to multiyear highs as merchants anticipated stronger demand for uncooked supplies to help the financial restoration. West Texas Intermediate futures, the U.S. crude benchmark, gained 0.5 % to $58.67 a barrel, the very best degree since April 2019. Brent costs climbed to $61.50 a barrel, the very best since July 2019.

• Copper costs, which have been climbing for 10 straight months, approached an eight-year excessive in London buying and selling. The steel is seen nearly as good predictor for the path of the worldwide financial system given its broad utilization, particularly for the wiring for energy transmission.

Europe

• The Stoxx Europe 600 index gained 0.3 %, helped by advances amongst banking corporations. Features have been led by Adyen, a Dutch funds firm that handles transactions for corporations together with eBay, after it raised its progress expectations. Adyen’s shares have been at a report excessive, having greater than doubled over the previous yr.

Asia

Salesforce, the enterprise software program large and San Francisco’s largest employer, stated on Tuesday that it might enable most of its staff to completely work remotely on a full- or part-time foundation.

The corporate, which has 54,000 staff, stated most staff would go to the workplace one to a few days every week for conferences and collaborative work. A small inhabitants will work from the workplace 4 or 5 days every week, and different Salesforce staff who don’t stay close by or want an workplace can be totally distant.

Tech corporations have been on the forefront of everlasting work-from-home insurance policies. In Could, Fb was one of many first to announce that it might enable many staff to work remotely even after the pandemic. Twitter, Coinbase, Shopify and Microsoft have adopted go well with.

Salesforce stated in December it might purchase the office chat app Slack. Over the summer time, as Salesforce and different corporations toyed with the concept of returning to the workplace, Marc Benioff, Salesforce’s chief government, appeared to acknowledge that workplace work could be completely modified.

“I simply really feel very strongly that we have now the power to do one thing very powerfully right here and to encourage this new office, identical to we did within the prior office,” Mr. Benioff stated on the time. “Know-how is definitely going to turn into a crucial a part of managing our office, the place earlier than it was not a part of our tradition.”

Salesforce stated it deliberate to revamp places of work to create extra areas that foster collaboration, together with “café-style seating, open-air convention areas and personal nooks, with an emphasis on clear desks and social distancing,” the corporate stated in an announcement.

Riot Video games, the online game writer that produced the favored title League of Legends, stated Tuesday it was investigating claims of sexual harassment and gender discrimination in opposition to its chief government, Nicolo Laurent.

Mr. Laurent and Riot have been sued in Los Angeles County Superior Court docket in January by Sharon O’Donnell, a former government assistant to Mr. Laurent. In courtroom paperwork, Ms. O’Donnell stated Mr. Laurent repeatedly made sexually suggestive remarks to her, requested her to work at his home when his spouse was not residence, and advised girls who labored for Riot that the best way to deal with stress associated to the coronavirus pandemic was to “have youngsters.”

“Riot Video games is a male-dominated tradition,” the lawsuit stated. Feminine staff like Ms. O’Donnell have been “discriminated in opposition to, harassed and handled as second-class residents,” it stated.

When she refused Mr. Laurent’s advances, Ms. O’Donnell stated within the lawsuit, he yelled at her, grew hostile, took away a few of her duties and ultimately fired her in July.

Ms. O’Donnell “believes that this was as a result of she refused to have intercourse or an affair with the defendant,” in keeping with the lawsuit, which was first reported on Tuesday by Day by day Esports.

Riot disputed Ms. O’Donnell’s declare in an announcement, saying she “was dismissed from the corporate over seven months in the past primarily based on a number of well-documented complaints from a wide range of individuals.”

Riot stated an outdoor regulation agency was conducting the investigation into Mr. Laurent and was being overseen by a committee of the corporate’s board of administrators. Riot stated Mr. Laurent was cooperating with the investigation.

Riot, which is owned by the Chinese language web large Tencent, has grown into one of many world’s most distinguished online game corporations.

Its flagship League of Legends sport, launched in 2009, introduced in additional than $1.8 billion in income final yr, in keeping with an estimate from the analysis agency SuperData. And the collection {of professional} competitions Riot has constructed across the sport has attracted tens of tens of millions of followers and turned star avid gamers into e-sports celebrities who could make tens of millions of {dollars}.

However Riot has additionally been underneath fireplace for what staff have stated is a sexist, poisonous office. In 2019, it agreed to pay $10 million to the 1,000 girls who had labored on the firm since 2014 to settle a class-action lawsuit claiming gender discrimination and unequal pay.

California’s Division of Truthful Employment and Housing, which has been investigating Riot since 2018, stated final yr that the ladies may very well be entitled to as a lot as $400 million, which Riot disputed. It stated earlier this month that it was transferring ahead in courtroom with an effort to hunt “class-wide reduction” for the ladies who labored at Riot.

• Aunt Jemima formally rebranded itself on Tuesday because the Pearl Milling Firm, transferring one step nearer to completely abandoning the breakfast product line’s likeness that critics had lengthy stated perpetuated a racist stereotype for greater than a century. The brand new title comes from the milling firm in St. Joseph, Mo., that pioneered the self-rising pancake combine that turned generally known as Aunt Jemima.

• Heineken, the massive brewer primarily based in Amsterdam, stated on Wednesday it might lay off 8,000 staff, or virtually 10 % of its work power, because it confronts a steep fall in beer gross sales to eating places and bars closed due to the pandemic. The corporate reported an 18 % drop in internet income for 2020, and a 79 % fall in working revenue. Dolf van den Brink, the chief government, known as it a “yr of unprecedented disruption and transition.”

• Lyft stated on Tuesday that income for the fourth quarter of 2020 was $570 million, a 44 % decline from the yr earlier than however according to Wall Road expectations. Losses elevated 22 %, to $458.2 million. Income for 2020 was down 35 %, to $2.4 billion.

• Twitter stated on Tuesday that its income within the fourth quarter final yr was $1.29 billion, a 28 % enhance from the earlier yr and barely above Wall Road expectations. Revenue for the quarter was $222 million, bolstered by a turnaround in earnings after a big drop in advert spending earlier in 2020. The corporate misplaced $1.14 billion for the yr.