Business & Education

Updated at 6:29 p.m. ET

Twitter on Thursday said it has "permanently suspended" conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his InfoWars outlet, citing "new reports of Tweets and videos posted yesterday that violate our abusive behavior policy."

Last month, YouTube, Apple, Facebook and Spotify banned Jones' main platforms over concerns about his content. But Twitter only suspended some of his privileges, a move that drew criticism.

Some two million Ford F-150 pickup trucks are being recalled by the company after more than 20 reports of smoke or fire coming from the seat belts.

The recall, which was announced Thursday, applies to certain Regular Cab and SuperCrew Cab vehicles from model years 2015-18.

Advances in technology have driven eye-popping advances in productivity over the last hundred years. As machines have replaced artisans, individual humans have gone from making a single item every so often to producing hundreds of lamps or chocolate bars or T-shirts every hour.

For many, if not most Americans, the idea of a world in which we don't drive cars is a distant and possibly unlikely future.

I can feel the warmth from the wood-burning oven just over my shoulder and catch myself intermittently gazing off into a heat-induced trance from the blaze.

Despite the place feeling crowded (probably another reason for the heat), it's eerily quiet inside: My table of five occasionally lowers our voices as if we were in the library. But a library this is not: Mozzeria is one of the most talked-about pizzerias in the heart of a vibrant San Francisco neighborhood, where wait times on Saturday nights can extend as long as two hours.

Sometimes IV bags are hard for hospitals to come by. Other times it's injectable folic acid to treat anemias. Right now, the tissue-numbing agent lidocaine is in short supply.

Shortages of commonplace generic drugs have plagued hospitals in recent years. And with short supplies and fewer suppliers for key drugs, there have been price increases.

If you've checked any economic news lately, there's a decent chance you've heard a pretty scary word, and there's a decent chance you've heard it a lot: contagion.

To be clear, economists have not been discussing an epidemic the past few weeks — at least, not the kind that directly concerns physical health. They're talking about the economic health of emerging markets around the world. And the diagnosis doesn't look great.

Toyota announced a voluntary recall of certain hybrid models, including certain Prius cars, Wednesday. The manufacturer cited a risk of vehicle fires as the reason for the announcement.

Cardiff just got back from vacation, and a lot's been happening with the North American Free Trade Agreement while he's been away. There was an agreement between Mexico and the U.S. Canada was in talks at one point, then out, then back in again. Officials flew back and forth. There were lots of headlines. And a deadline. Which was blown.

Phew!

A lot has happened, and we're all pretty confused about what's been going on. So Cardiff thought he'd call Soumaya Keynes of the Economist for a catch-up.

Updated at 6:34 p.m. ET

Members of Congress clashed on Wednesday with giants of the Internet world — including, in one case, a personal confrontation in the hallway.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey faced questions Wednesday afternoon from a House committee amid criticism from Republicans that Big Tech suppresses conservatives online.

Theranos — the Silicon Valley blood-testing startup whose former top executives are accused of carrying out a massive, years-long fraud — is shutting down.

The billionaire head of one of China's top e-commerce sites who was arrested over the weekend in Minnesota is under investigation following an accusation of felony rape in the Midwestern state, according to a Minneapolis Police report.

No charges have been filed against Liu Qiangdong, also known as Richard Liu, who is the founder of the Beijing-based online shopping platform JD.com, a rival to Alibaba.com. The Minneapolis police report did not provide details of the alleged incident leading to Friday's arrest.

Updated at 12:59 p.m. ET

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China has been at the center of a months-long debate about tariffs this year. The U.S. has erected trade barriers in two phases so far. Fifty billion dollars of Chinese goods are currently affected. The U.S. trade representative is talking about tariffs on a further $200 billion of imports, which could apply as soon as this week.

The New Yorker has disinvited Steve Bannon from the magazine's upcoming annual festival, after several high-profile celebrities balked at the idea of appearing alongside the man credited with many of the divisive strategies that propelled Donald Trump's presidential campaign.

Explaining the decision, New Yorker editor David Remnick said that "to interview Bannon is not to endorse him." But less than 12 hours after announcing Bannon as a headliner for the Oct. 5-7 festival, Remnick canceled his plan to interview Bannon.

Amazon's stock value briefly topped $1 trillion on Tuesday, a little over a month after Apple crossed the same milestone.

The tech and retail behemoth, founded as an online bookstore by CEO Jeff Bezos in 1994, has been consistently profitable only since 2015. In fact, Amazon profits have averaged $2 billion in each of the first two quarters of this year.

Updated at 11:13 a.m. ET

The combined newsrooms of the Virginia papers for the controversy-scarred Tronc newspaper company are following the path to unionization taken by counterparts at much larger Tronc papers in Los Angeles and Chicago, NPR has learned.

Consumers who buy insurance through the Affordable Care Act markets may be pleasantly surprised this fall as average premiums are forecast to rise much less than in recent years.

The price of a 2019 policy sold on the ACA exchanges will increase less than 4 percent, according to an analysis of preliminary filings from insurers in all 50 states by ACASignups.net, a website and blog run by analyst Charles Gaba that tracks ACA enrollment and insurer participation.

And those insurers are expanding their offerings.

The only high school in my hometown — Campbell, Ohio — was built on a hilltop just east of Youngstown.

Behind our football field, the earth sloped away, down to the Mahoning River valley where the Youngstown Sheet & Tube steel mills stretched out for miles.

Our school, our small town, the gritty air we breathed — they were inseparable from those blast furnaces.

For three generations of Campbell guys, seeking work at the mill was almost automatic. And smart: You were guaranteed great pay and union benefits.