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GM to cut thousands of jobs in Michigan, Tennessee and Ohio

admin - Latest News - October 29, 2025
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General Motors plans to lay off about 1,200 workers at its Detroit-area all-electric factory and cut 550 jobs at its Ultium battery facility in Ohio.



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Oct. 29, 2025, 4:57 AM EDT / Updated Oct. 29, 2025, 8:53 AM EDTBy Andrew GreifIn 2022, after three minutes of spinning, flipping and skiing down a slopestyle course designed to resemble China’s Great Wall, Alex Hall raised his arms triumphantly while accepting the Olympic gold medal. Hall’s golden moment was met with mostly silence. Standing atop the podium of a Beijing Olympics that played out under China’s strict “zero-Covid” policy, he looked at empty grandstands. He spent his next day being drug tested, seeing a handful of Team USA friends and doing interviews with journalists for hours before flying home to Utah. “Not having the fans in 2022, I think, was definitely a bit of a bummer,” Hall said. When the Winter Olympics open in 100 days with an opening ceremony inside Milan’s famed San Siro soccer stadium, a much different scene will await competitors taking part in the first truly open Winter Games since 2018. As befitting a complex competition featuring 16 different sports and innumerable geopolitical influences, the 2026 Olympics are being carefully watched by athletes, organizers and Olympics observers for a number of reasons. They are the first games since the International Olympic Committee elected its first woman as president, Kirsty Coventry. This is also an extraordinarily far-flung Olympics, with venues spread out between urban Milan and three mountain “clusters,” some a five-hour drive away — Cortina d’Ampezzo, Livigno and Val di Fiemme. And Milan and the surrounding Lombardy region returns to the global spotlight after Covid wracked northern Italy nearly six years ago. Yet in the lead-up to the games, which begin Feb. 4, athletes have expressed excitement that not only are the Olympics returning, but fans are, too — and with them, a sense of competitive normalcy. In one sign of demand from the outside world to attend the first Winter Olympics in Europe since 2006, more than 120,000 people have applied to fill 18,000 volunteer positions, according to organizers.Hilary Knight, the four-time Olympic medalist for the U.S. hockey team who is preparing for her fifth Olympics, said competing in Beijing felt akin to playing in a television studio.“It didn’t feel like the Olympics because we were missing those moments or those touch points with those we hold so dearly that have cheered us on our entire careers and have sacrificed so much to get us to that one, key moment,” Knight said. “Everyone’s just really looking forward to that experience, together. … It’s a shared experience, right? Like you win a medal, you want to share it with as many people as possible.”The Olympics have already faced, and passed, one post-Covid test, when athletes competing at the 2024 Summer Games in Paris often remarked at the size and sound of crowds that packed venues across the city. Organizers from the Milan-Cortina bid were taking notes from inside the closing ceremony, readying for a turn they have been waiting for since 2019, when the IOC selected their bid over a joint bid by Stockholm-Åre in Sweden.That Milan wanted the Olympics, despite the challenges of cost, logistics and infrastructure that have driven many other potential host cities away, did not surprise John Foot, a professor of modern Italian history at Bristol University in the U.K., whose research has included Italian sports. Cortina hosted the 1956 Winter Olympics, and elite skiers have long favored competing in the city. American skier Lindsey Vonn said its inclusion as a venue was partly responsible for bringing her out of retirement to try to make a fifth Olympics.”There’s something special about Cortina that always pulls me back,” Vonn said.Foot said it was likely that organizers in the city of more than a million — which sits in a wide, flat plane — had seen how hosting the 2006 Winter Olympics had helped spur Turin from an industrial to a post-industrial period of growth, in part thanks to a boost in tourism. Milan has a reputation as the economic engine of Italy because of its deep ties to fashion, industry and business, and for hosting six games during soccer’s 1990 World Cup, but it’s not known as being a cold-weather city, Foot said. He could not recall whether Milan had an ice rink during his 20 years living there.“It always has been a crossroads city because it’s very well positioned for Europe,” Foot said. The last time northern Italy attracted such global prominence was in 2020, for far different reasons. More than two weeks after the country’s first Covid-related death in late February, in Lombardy, the region that includes Milan, all sporting events in the country were put on hold. In 2022, one research team estimated that the pandemic was responsible for more than 165,000 excess deaths in Italy. That number had risen to more than 188,000 by 2023.Milan was able to rebound more quickly economically than other major cities in Italy, Foot said. But the spotlight in February won’t be on Milan alone. Milan will host only ice hockey, speed skating, figure skating and short track, a fraction of the 116 medal events during the games. The rest will be spread out across a wide area requiring a five-hour drive between Livigno, just across the Swiss border, to Cortina. It takes approximately four hours to drive from Milan to Livigno, and an hour longer to go from Milan to Cortina. Even the venues that will open the games (San Siro) and close them (Verona) are a nearly two-hour drive apart. U.S. officials repeatedly have asked fans to be patient, and realistic, if thinking of traveling between venues.The U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee is “doing their best to make it feel like just a normal Olympic experience, even if athletes are separated by a few hours or multiple hours, and we’re not necessarily able to have that same close-knit village experience with all different sports,” Knight said. “That was definitely a high-priority item when we were talking with them and different athlete reps, is to feel that Team USA is really important, and to feel that energy from other athletes competing, to feel connected.”Winter Games are often spread out because of the need for both mountain venues and cities big enough to host a large amount of visitors, but the sheer distance in Italy could pose security risks, said Jules Boykoff, a political scientist at Pacific University and former member of the U.S. under-23 national soccer team who has written extensively about the Olympics. Nicole Deal, the chief of security for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, said the “decentralized” geography has led the committee to work with the State Department to ensure there is enough security around U.S. athletes. Armin Zöggeler, who earned medals in luge while representing Italy in six consecutive Olympics from 1994 through 2014, and assisted in the Milan-Cortina bid, acknowledged that the distance was “definitely a logistical challenge.” But he called it “a small price to pay when you think about what it means for the future of these locations.” “The athletes are really excited to finally experience ‘normal’ Olympic Games again after what happened in 2022,” Zöggeler said. “Back then, it was sad to see so many restrictions and empty venues. Northern Italy has such a rich winter sports tradition, and I know all the athletes will feel that energy during the Games. For the Italian team, having the Olympics at home is one of the greatest opportunities you can get in your career. I still remember Torino 2006 very well and I hope the athletes in 2026 can feel something similar. The support from the Italian fans, the ‘Tifosi,’ is something truly special. “I’m excited for the world, but especially the athletes, to see that passion again.”If the upcoming Olympics feel like the first “normal” Winter Games since 2018, then some of the issues facing them also feel typical to Boykoff, who called concerns over overspending, gentrification and environmental impacts typical for Olympic host cities.In the spring, Milan organizers announced a budget of about $1.9 billion, more than $100 million more than previously estimated, though that total did not take into account the cost of building a new hockey arena in Milan or rebuilding a sliding center in Cortina that had been used in the 1956 games. Rebuilding the sliding track required felling around 800 trees, which drew protests from environmental groups, and also concern from competitors that it would not open in time. When tests of the sliding track began this fall, however, it drew strong reviews.What remains concerningly unresolved, however, is whether a new hockey arena in Milan will be ready to host a competition that will see NHL players take part for the first time since 2014. The chief executive of Milan’s local organizing committee, Andrea Varnier, said the “timeline is very tight,” according to The Associated Press.In July, prosecutors in Milan alleged that corruption was behind the city’s soaring real estate values, including the construction of an Olympic village. The mayor denied wrongdoing to the city’s council. A court dismissed the accusations in September. But others have apparently viewed the Olympics as a chance to exploit; two men were arrested this month on charges of trying to illegally obtain public works contract and control nightlife and drug dealing in Cortina, according to prosecutors in Venice.The Olympics could very well be a “17-day party” in Italy, Boykoff said. If it does, it will be a strong opening act for the tenure of Coventry, a former Olympic swimmer from Zimbabwe who is only months into running the IOC.“There are real prickly issues and controversial issues around the exclusion of trans athletes, the handing of the Olympics to dictatorships with principles that absolutely don’t chime with the principles enshrined in the Olympic Charter, so I don’t envy her at all,” Boykoff said. “I think she’s walking into a very difficult situation, and Italy and the Milano-Cortina Olympics is her first chance to really put her own original stamp on the Olympic Games.”Hall, the freestyle skier, donned a sweatshirt bearing the Italian and U.S. flags Tuesday as he described his excitement in defending his gold medal in locale he knows well. Before he moved to Utah when he was 16, Hall, whose mother is Italian, grew up skiing the Alps. In 100 days, he expects to see a large number of aunts, uncles and cousins who live in Italy cheering him on in Livigno, up close. “She’s got a huge Italian fam,” Hall, now 27, said of his mother. “So they’re all pulling up.”Andrew GreifAndrew Greif is a sports reporter for NBC News Digital. 
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Nov. 29, 2025, 7:15 AM ESTBy Kevin CollierIdentity thieves have in recent years narrowed in on a particularly lucrative target: athletes on the verge of going pro.A report from the fraud detection company SentiLink found that NBA and NFL draft picks from a recent five-year period were far likelier than the average American to be victims of attempted financial fraud such as fake loans and credit cards taken out in their names.The figures have risen dramatically from 2020 through 2025. Of the NBA draft picks from that period, 20% saw suspicious credit activity such as credit card applications, and attempted auto and consumer lending loan applications. For NFL picks in the period, the figure was 15.2%. The national average is usually between 2-3%, the report found.The data only flags suspicious attempts to take out loans and does not track confirmed instances of identity theft.window.addEventListener(“message”,function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var t in a.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data[“datawrapper-height”][t]+”px”;r.style.height=d}}});“Most draft prospects are young adults, typically 18–23 years old. This demographic often has limited credit histories, fewer active financial accounts, and inconsistent digital footprints,” the report found.“These characteristics make them ideal targets because fraudulent applications are less likely to trigger alerts associated with established credit behavior, and there is often less public information available to contradict a fraudulent application,” it said.The rise in identity fraud efforts around young athletes coincides with a national trend. While there are no comprehensive figures on how many Americans become victims each year, complaints to the Federal Trade Commission have risen nearly every year since it started tracking them in 2001, culminating in a record 6.5 million last year..James Lee, the president of the Identity Theft Resource Center, a nonprofit that helps Americans deal with identity theft, said young athletes make sense as targets.“Professional athletes who are early in their careers make for easy targets because they are highly visible, are suddenly wealthy, but may not have the same level of personal protection and life skills to avoid being taken advantage of by professional criminals,” said Lee, who was not involved in the study. Trying to open a credit card or take out a bank loan in another person’s name often require little more than some basic information about that person, such as their name, current address, birthday and family. It usually also requires a Social Security Number, but those are hacked and traded by cybercriminals so frequently that they’re relatively easy to acquire.Athletes competing to go pro are heavily scrutinized and generally see little expectation of privacy. Their names, ages and basic biographical and family information are widely plastered across sports websites, and they often publicly advertise on social media. And the fact that they are likely to frequently move among their home, college, training camps and the city where they’re drafted means they may be less likely to see mailed credit alerts.The attempts also echo a spate of home burglaries that have plagued both leagues in recent years, particularly targeting them while they’re playing in high-profile away games. Victims include NFL stars such as Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce and Shedeur Sanders and NBA stars such as Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Luka Doncic. The FBI is helping investigate the break-ins for potential ties to international crime rings, NBC News reported last week. The agency did not respond when asked if it was also tracking identity thieves who target athletes.SentiLink works with banks and other financial services to flag suspicious transactions and has a massive database of credit activity. Researchers at the company looked at the 1,292 NFL players drafted from 2020 to 2024, as well as the 288 NBA players drafted in that same period, and compared them to national averages.David Maimon, SentiLink’s head of fraud insight and the lead researcher on the study told NBC News that the data does not indicate a widespread organized criminal conspiracy and seems more like a phenomenon of more amateur criminals trying to take advantage of newly famous young men. He declined to share the names of which players have been particularly targeted, citing confidentiality agreements.Most identity theft attempts are not made public. But they can be amateur and brazen, while others can use modern technology and manipulation techniques.Some loan applications ask for a person to record a live video and move their head to prove their identity. But that can be easily fooled, Maimon said. Athletes’ pictures are easy to find online and there are plenty of AI tools that can convincingly deepfake their heads turning, he noted. Jason Rivarde, the commander of public affairs at the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office in Louisiana, said his office had arrested two people earlier this year for allegedly attempting to take out loans by posing as Cam Ward, Tennessee Titans quarterback and 2025 first overall draft pick, as well as his father. The pair were caught when an employee at a Jefferson County financial institution who had served them before recognized them trying to take out a loan in a third name, Rivarde said.The Wards and the Titans did not respond to requests for comment.The NBA and the NFL players unions both provide rookies with basic financial literacy training and recommend vetted financial advisers, spokespeople for the unions told NBC News.But it’s particularly hard for newly famous people to fully protect themselves from dogged identity thieves, especially if they have not yet hired advisers to handle their finances and closely watch their credit reports. Experts like Maimon say one of the best defenses is for everyone to keep their credit frozen, but that’s a tall order for an athlete who signs a major contract and is inclined to buy items that require a credit check, such as vehicles and property.Kevin CollierKevin Collier is a reporter covering cybersecurity, privacy and technology policy for NBC News.
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Nov. 12, 2025, 11:40 AM ESTBy Rebecca CohenFor the second day, the Federal Aviation Administration will continue to enforce its mandate to cancel 6% of flights at 40 high-traffic airports, as the U.S. House of Representatives is set to vote on a Senate-passed bill to end the government shutdown.As of Wednesday morning, 890 flights within the U.S. had been canceled and more than 750 had been delayed, according to flight tracking website FlightAware.United Airlines announced that it had already canceled 300 flights on Wednesday alone. Up to 8% of flights, or approximately 1,600 trips, could be cut on Thursday at the country’s busiest airports, including those in the New York area and in cities including Chicago, Atlanta, Denver, Phoenix, Dallas and L.A.The FAA began reducing flights from major airports by 4% on Friday and has gradually increased that percentage throughout the week. By this coming Friday, the FAA said, the reduction in flights is supposed to reach 10%.Delta CEO Ed Bastian said in an interview on CNBC on Wednesday that the airline cut 2,500 flights last week, which “is going to cost Delta a significant amount.”Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy spoke to reporters from Chicago O’Hare International Airport on Tuesday, warning that more trouble with air traffic could be on the way if the government does not reopen.“If the House does its work tomorrow, we’re well on our way” to getting air travel back to normal, Duffy said Tuesday.He noted, however, that if a bill is not passed quickly, disruptions to flight schedules will likely get worse before one of the busiest travel weeks of the year — Thanksgiving, when 31 million Americans are expected to fly. Some airlines are already talking about “grounding their planes” if the government doesn’t reopen soon, he said.Travelers walk though the terminal Wednesday at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago.Nam Y. Huh / APIt remains unclear how quickly the system can be righted once the government reopens, as flight schedules are typically laid out in advance. The FAA did not respond to a request for comment on this matter sent Tuesday afternoon.The airlines have said they think it could take a few days, once the government reopens and the FAA gives the green light to return to their normal cadence.David Seymour, the chief operating officer of American Airlines, told NBC News that the quick return to normal operations will depend on “working with the FAA to ensure that we maintain the safety of the system.”He added that “with Thanksgiving just around the corner, it’s going to be super important that we’re there, able to deliver to our customers.”Duffy said that aviation safety is at risk, and labor shortages are to blame for the flight cancellations and delays. If there are not enough employees to man the skies, the FAA must adjust the schedule to ensure planes in flight reach their destinations safely.But staffing at air traffic control towers improved on Tuesday — even though these essential government employees have now been working without pay for more than a month. These controllers will receive back pay when the shutdown ends and are expected to get about 70% of their missed pay within 48 hours of the government reopening, with the remaining 30% coming within that week.Still, travelers are increasingly frustrated that their plans are being thwarted.“I don’t trust any airports. I don’t trust any of this stuff anymore. I have totally lost faith,” one traveler told NBC News.Some airlines, like United, are doing what they can to alleviate customer stress.In a letter to the company, United CEO Scott Kirby wrote that the airline has given “our customers as much notice and flexibility as possible knowing the circumstances were ever-changing,” like publishing the list of cancellations on a dedicated website, using the app to alert customers of alternative flights to get them to their destinations and offering refunds to all customers — even if their flights had not been canceled.Also complicating matters is inclement weather this week.Freezing temperatures across two-thirds of the country and lake-effect snow are to blame for a cold, messy start to the week, and a heavy storm will bring rain and wind to the West Coast starting Wednesday. It is not clear how many of the flight cancellations and delays are the result of weather instead of the FAA mandate.Rebecca CohenRebecca Cohen is a breaking news reporter for NBC News Digital.Tom Costello and Kathryn Prociv contributed.
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