Business category, Page 105

After more than two decades as America’s best-selling beer, Bud Light has slipped into second place. Modelo Especial, a Mexican lager, overtook Bud Light in U.S. retail dollar sales in the month ending June 3, according to Nielsen data analyzed by Bump Williams Consulting. Modelo controlled 8.4% of U.S. grocery,...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Wednesday it hopes to weed out false or misleading animal-welfare claims on meat and poultry packaging with new guidance and testing. The claims — such as “pasture-raised,” “humanely raised,” and “raised without antibiotics” — are increasingly popular with consumers and allow producers to charge...

NEW YORK — After three years, the pandemic-era freeze on student loan payments will end in late August. It might seem tempting to just keep not making payments, but the consequences can be severe, including a hit to your credit score and exclusion from future aid and benefits. More than...

SEATTLE — Amazon’s cloud computing unit Amazon Web Services experienced an outage on Tuesday, affecting publishers that suddenly found themselves unable to operate their sites. The company said on its website that the root cause of the issue was tied to a service called AWS Lambda, which lets customers run...

Pittsburgh City Council voted Tuesday to cap zoning fees at $40,000 for large developments. Council previously approved a new zoning fee schedule that includes a fee of 0.1% of a project’s cost for residential developments and a 0.3% fee for commercial developments. The $40,000 cap council approved Tuesday is meant...

A contractor for UPMC said it discovered a data breach that could have impacted customer and patient information. Tennessee-based Intellihartx LLC said it found that its secure file transfer service provider, Fortra, “experienced a data security incident.” The company undertook an investigation to figure out the scope of the incident....

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — China on Tuesday criticized new sanctions imposed by the U.S. on companies believed to be involved in training Chinese military pilots and aiding weapons development. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin urged Washington to “stop abusing export control measures” to hobble Chinese companies. “The United States has...

NEW YORK — Check fraud is back in a big way, fueled by a rise in organized crime that is forcing small businesses and individuals to take additional safety measures or to avoid sending checks through the mail altogether. Banks issued roughly 680,000 reports of check fraud to the Financial...

James Goldscheitter’s prayers were answered. The rain finally arrived. Now he and other local farmers are hoping the modest amount — and a forecast with a chance of rain Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday — is enough to boost their floundering crops. Rain that fell Sunday evening and continued into Monday...

A University of Pittsburgh trustees’ committee voted Monday to approve the $120 million construction of the core and shell of a planned cell and gene therapy manufacturing facility in Hazelwood. In a separate vote, the trustees’ Property and Facilities Committee authorized leasing space within the facility. Officials hope it will...

Some people want to shop where everybody knows their name. “I see some people three or four times a week,” said Gene Tommasi, who runs Golden Dawn grocery store in New Kensington. “It’s a little like ‘Cheers,’ ” he said, referring to the TV show about regulars at a bar...

Tia Muscarella is already leaning into the Taylor Swift phenomenon, and The Eras Tour is still a week away from its Pittsburgh stop. The North Shore Tavern, where Muscarella is the bar manager, has been featuring the specialty cocktail Lavender Haze, a concoction of butterfly pea blossom gin laced with...

For Diane Lang, the big push to focus on her health and weight came from her grandchildren. “I was exhausted,” she said. “When they would visit, I would just try to keep up with them. I want to run with them and play with them. I want to be here...

The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits last week rose to its highest level since October 2021, but the labor market remains one of the healthiest parts of the U.S. economy. The Labor Department reported Thursday that U.S. applications for jobless claims were 261,000 for the week ending June...

Merck is suing the federal government over a plan to negotiate Medicare drug prices, calling the program a sham equivalent to extortion. The drugmaker is seeking to halt the program, which was laid out in the Inflation Reduction Act and is expected to save taxpayers billions of dollars in the...

Maine’s many wonders, including Acadia National Park and lobster shacks along the Atlantic coastline, just got easier to reach for Pittsburghers. Low-cost carrier Breeze Airways announced last week that it has begun offering direct, nonstop flights between Pittsburgh International Airport and Portland, Maine. Round-trip flights will run twice a week,...

Your neighbors have really made you angry. You fire off a text to a friend using some salty language and the friend responds with a laughing emoji. You didn’t mean to tell her that your neighbors are making you “ducking” mad. There are no mallards in your yard. Coming this...

The closure of the Homer City Generating Station — the largest coal-fired power plant in the state — will not adversely impact the power grid serving Pennsylvania and 12 other states, a regional electricity transmission organization said Tuesday. The Indiana County facility is scheduled to be decommissioned as of July...

The cooling towers at another closed coal-fired power plant in Southwestern Pennsylvania will be demolished Thursday morning. Two concrete hyperbolic cooling towers — one 500 feet tall and the other 550 feet tall — will be imploded at FirstEnergy Corp.’s former Hatfield’s Ferry Power Station along the Monongahela River in...

OMAHA, Neb. — With the rail industry relying on longer and longer trains to cut costs, the Biden administration is handing out $570 million in grants to help eliminate many railroad crossings in 32 states. The grants announced Monday will contribute to building bridges or underpasses at the sites of...

Monday’s petition by the United Steelworkers for a state-supervised election to unionize thousands of University of Pittsburgh staff is rooted in years of preparation, said Jesse Dubin, a program evaluator in Pitt’s school of pharmacy. Though the path to a vote could be complex and prolonged staff will benefit from...