The Department of Justice is planning to file a major anti-trust lawsuit against Ticketmaster’s parent company, Live Nation, as soon as next month, according to a report. 

The litigation will accuse the country’s largest concert promoter of leveraging dominance in a way that undermines competition, The Wall Street Journal first reported on Monday, citing sources familiar with the matter. The outlet did not report on the specific allegations to be brought in the suit. 

The DOJ opened its probe into whether Live Nation maintains a monopoly over the industry in 2022 when Ticketmaster crashed while Taylor Swift fans were trying to buy pre-sale tickets for her “Eras Tour,” The New York Times previously reported. 

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The Justice Department approved the merger between Live Nation and Ticketmaster in 2010, with regulators promising then to bring more competition into the ticketing business. Critics at the time said the stipulations would drive-up ticket costs for consumers instead of lowering them, fearing the concert promoter Live Nation, which already owned or ran 135 major concert venues around the world at the time, would pressure those venues into exclusively using its new ticketing arm, the Journal reported. 

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The conditions of the 2010 deal were set to expire in 2019, but anti-trust regulators extended it to 2025, revising the settlement to include an anti-retaliation clause that would subject Live Nation to a $1 million penalty each time should it threaten to withhold shows if a venue sold tickets through a company other than Ticketmaster. 

“Ticketmaster has more competition today than it has ever had, and the deal terms with venues show it has nothing close to monopoly power,” a Ticketmaster spokeswoman told the Journal. 

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In an essay on its company website published last month, Live Nation’s head of corporate affairs Dan Wall pushed back against monopoly allegations, arguing that tickets are actually priced by artists and teams. He said Ticketmaster and other “primary ticketing companies” simply provide “the technology and services that venues need to manage and market shows, sell tickets, and validate tickets for entry.” 

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U.S. employers – both public and private – are increasingly ditching college degrees as a job requirement across an array of roles amid a nationwide shortage of workers, but the opportunities for good-paying jobs can vary greatly depending on where a candidate lives.

That is according to a new study ranking the best and worst job markets in the U.S. for job-seekers that do not hold degrees, indicating some areas are lagging behind in catching up with the trend.

Using data from the U.S. Census Bureau and Indeed, CashNetUSA found that New York is “by far the worst state to look for a job” without a degree, with 21.94 local nondegree holders for every open position. 

New York City was named the worst city in the nation for finding a job without a degree, with 41.48 nondegree holders for each available job.

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California is the second-worst state for finding a job without a college degree, with 13.58 nondegree holders per entry-level position.

The report suggested both states earned their rankings due to stiff competition in their respective job markets, noting that New York City is the most attractive city in the country for younger professionals to work, while California was named the best place to work last year by Oxfam.

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New Jersey was ranked the third-toughest state to find a job without a degree, with 12.59 nondegree holders for every open entry-level position.

On the other end of the spectrum, the state ranked No. 1 for nondegree jobseekers was Maine, with only 3.05 non-graduates per entry-level job, followed by West Virginia (3.37), and South Carolina (3.49).

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Although the competition can be stiff in large cities with highly-educated workforces, the study found many cities in the U.S. where those without a college degree can find well-paying jobs.

The top city in the U.S. for job-seekers without a degree is Fort Myers, Florida, where there are 1.2 nondegree holders per open entry-level role. 

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The second-best city to look for a job without a degree is Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, followed by No. 3 Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, No. 4 Annapolis, Maryland, and No. 5 Scottsdale, Arizona.

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Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and fiancée Lauren Sanchez spent some quality time together over the weekend as they took in music at Coachella.

The festival, held in Indio, California each year, often draws big names as both performers and spectators. The first of two weekends took place April 12-14 this year.

At Coachella, the engaged couple watched artists like Lana Del Rey and Tyler, The Creator, according to the Daily Mail.

Del Rey, known for songs like “Summertime Sadness” and “West Coast,” performed her Coachella set for the first weekend on Friday. Meanwhile, the rapper took the main stage late Saturday night.

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The pair looked slightly more dressed up Saturday for Tyler, The Creator. For his show, the billionaire Amazon founder sported a leather jacket, and Sanchez rocked a reflective dress, according to photos.

The appearances at Coachella came just days after Bezos and Sanchez dressed to the nines for a state dinner held by President Joe Biden at the White House for Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. They also went to an Oscars party in March.

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On Sunday, Sanchez gave her Coachella makeup artist and hair stylist shoutouts on Instagram, writing, “Thank you both.”

Coachella is slated April 19-21 to hold its second weekend. The two-weekend festival and its influx of attendees give the local area a major economic boost each year, according to reports.

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Bezos proposed to Sanchez in May of last year. In December, she told Vogue that she was “looking forward to being Mrs. Bezos.”

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American taxpayers will on average see larger tax refunds compared to a year ago, and most plan to use that money to either pay down debt or save, though more plan to invest it or go shopping compared to a year ago, according to a new report from the Bank of America Institute.

Internal data from Bank of America showed that for average tax refunds received via direct deposit through March 31, 2024, taxpayers earning less than $50,000 a year saw their refunds grow by nearly 9% from a year ago. That outpaced the almost 6% growth in refunds for taxpayers in the $50,000 to $125,000 range, as well as the roughly 4% larger refunds received by those above the $125,000 threshold.

“It looks like the average refund is going to be about 5% larger this year than last,” David Tinsley, senior economist at the Bank of America Institute, told FOX Business. “That means in terms of dollars you’re looking at a refund of around $3,000 or so.”

Data from a survey conducted by CivicScience for the Institute’s report asked tax fund recipients about their plans for spending their tax refund, with most saying they plan to use it to pay down debt or save it.

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CivicScience found that about 25% said they will pay down their debt, a decrease from just under 30% a year ago. Roughly 23% said they will save their tax refund this year after a little more than 25% said they would save their 2023 tax refund. 

About 13% of tax refund recipients surveyed said they plan to invest their refund this year – up from roughly 9% last year. The percentage who plan to go shopping with their refund roughly doubled to 8% from 4% a year ago. 

Other tax refund spending plans, including home improvement projects and vacations, were largely unchanged from a year ago at roughly 8% and 6%, respectively.

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“By and large, about half the people say it’s going to pay down debt or they’ll save it. So I wouldn’t, on that basis, expect it to be a big boost to consumer spending,” Tinsley explained. 

“But there was, in the survey, a small increase in the proportion of people who say they’re going to go to the shops when they get the money. So there may be a mild tailwind to the consumer from the tax refunds.”

Tinsley noted that the Bank of America Institute’s research has found that child care costs are up about 30% from 2019 and insurance costs for cars and homes are up as well, so U.S. households are feeling the financial squeeze as those tax refunds arrive.

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“There’s a whole kind of barrage of costs that are hitting the household, so I guess in that context this is quite a useful increase to have this tax refund,” he added. “These are big increases, and they’re not insubstantial chunks of a household budget.”

Rental housing price growth has cooled off from the near double-digit increases seen in major metro areas in 2022 and early 2023 to roughly 4% now.

“Rent inflation has moderated quite a lot,” Tinsley said. “As long as the labor market remains in good shape, that should be useful for renters because as long as they keep seeing reasonable wage growth, the increase in the rent payments is coming down.”

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“That’s another useful tailwind to spending in the same sort of way that tax refunds are. Neither of them are like massive great shakes on their own, but they’re useful tailwinds to the consumer overall,” he added.

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Tesla confirmed its laying off more than 10% of its global workforce following weak first quarter deliveries and increasing competition in the electric vehicle (EV) market, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. 

This followed a leaked internal email from CEO Elon Musk saying that the automaker is looking to cut costs and increase productivity after years of rapid growth that have led to duplication in some roles and functions in certain areas of the company, tech publication Electrek reported on Monday.

The world’s most valuable automaker employs about 140,473 workers worldwide, Reuters reported, citing Tesla’s latest annual report. The reported staffing reduction will affect about 15,000 employees.

Tesla did not immediately respond to FOX Business Digital’s request for comment.

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The lay-offs come after Electrek reported that Tesla had told managers to identify critical team members, paused some stock rewards, canceled some worker’s annual reviews and reduced production at Gigafactory Shanghai.

Earlier this month, it was reported that Tesla’s quarterly deliveries declined for the first time in nearly four years and fell short of Wall Street analysts’ estimates. Tesla announced at the time that it delivered roughly 387,000 vehicles in the first quarter – well below expectations of about 443,000 and an 8.5% decrease compared to the first quarter of last year. 

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The automaker has also faced an escalating price war in China, a key market for the EV maker, as low-cost competitors like BYD forced it to reduce prices and cut into its margins. 

Reuters also reported earlier this month that Tesla was abandoning its long-touted plans to produce a budget-friendly starter car, purportedly called Model 2, that was expected to start at $25,000. 

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Musk at the time accused Reuters of “lying,” though the outlet responded that he didn’t identify any specific inaccuracies in its reporting.

Shares of Tesla has dropped over 30% this year. 

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