Business category, Page 129
Pennsylvania gambling revenue hit another record high in 2022
Pennsylvania’s legalized gambling industry raked in another record haul in 2022 with revenue nearly half a billion dollars higher than the previous year. In 2022, the combined revenue of slot machine, table games, sports wagering, iGaming, video gaming terminals and fantasy contests totaled $5.21 billion compared to $4.73 billion in...
Senators grill Ticketmaster after Taylor Swift fiascoVideo
Senators grilled Ticketmaster Tuesday, questioning whether the company’s dominance in the ticketing industry led to its spectacular breakdown last year during a sale of Taylor Swift concert tickets. Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee also debated possible action, including making tickets non-transferable to cut down on scalping and...
Water technology company Evoqua to be acquired in $7.5 billion deal
Pittsburgh-based water technology company Evoqua is being acquired by a Washington, D.C., company in a deal valued at about $7.5 billion. Evoqua’s technology has been used in the life sciences, microelectronics, power and food and beverage sectors. It also has been used in the remediation of pollutants including “forever chemicals”...
Elon Musk defends his tweets about taking Tesla private
SAN FRANCISCO — Elon Musk returned to federal court Monday in San Francisco, testifying that he believed he had locked up financial backing to take Tesla private during 2018 meetings with representatives from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund — although no specific funding amount or price was discussed. The billionaire...
Spotify latest tech name to cut jobs, axes 6% of workforce
LONDON — Music streaming service Spotify said Monday it’s cutting 6% of its global workforce, or about 600 jobs, becoming yet another tech company forced to rethink its pandemic-era expansion as the economic outlook weakens. CEO Daniel Ek announced the restructuring in a message to employees that was also posted...
Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes
NEW YORK — Across the country, there’s a silent frustration brewing about an age-old practice that many say is getting out of hand: tipping. Some fed-up consumers are posting rants on social media complaining about tip requests at drive-thrus, while others say they’re tired of being asked to leave a...
Gyms that survived pandemic steadily get back in shape
NEW YORK — One day in January, a once-regular customer at Fuel Training Studio in Newburyport, Massachusetts, stopped in to take a “shred” class. She hadn’t stepped foot in the gym since before the pandemic. The customer told owners Julie Bokat and Jeanne Carter that she had been working out...
U.S. ends probe into Ford SUV exhaust issues without a recall
DETROIT — The U.S. government’s road safety agency has closed a more than six-year investigation into exhaust odors in Ford Explorer passenger cabins, determining that the SUVs don’t have high levels of carbon monoxide and don’t need to be recalled. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says it reviewed more...
Justice Department investigating Abbott baby formula plant
NEW YORK — The U.S. Justice Department is investigating the Abbott Laboratories infant formula plant in Michigan that was shut down for months last year due to contamination, the company confirmed. The factory’s closure in February 2022 was a key cause of a nationwide baby formula shortage that forced parents...
2022 was slowest year for U.S. home sales in nearly a decade
LOS ANGELES — U.S. home sales tumbled to the slowest pace in nearly a decade as soaring mortgage rates and sky high prices in 2022 pushed homeownership out of reach for many Americans. The National Association of Realtors said Friday that existing U.S. home sales totaled 5.03 million last year,...
GM to sink over $900M into 4 plants, Flint to get new engine
FLINT, Mich. — General Motors says it will spend more than $900 million to update four factories, with the bulk going to an engine plant in Flint, Michigan, to build the next-generation V8 for big pickup trucks and SUVs. Factories in Rochester, New York; Defiance, Ohio; and Bay City, Michigan;...
Google parent company to lay off 12K workers, unclear how that will affect Pittsburgh office
Google’s parent company announced Friday that the tech giant plans to lay off about 12,000 employees across its workforce. Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, reported in October that it employed nearly 187,000 people globally. Pittsburgh is home to a Google office in Pittsburgh’s Larimer neighborhood. It’s unclear how the broad-based...
Wayfair announces layoffs, including 1,200 corporate employees
Online retailer Wayfair announced Friday that it will lay off 10% of its workforce, with most of the jobs lost being at the corporate level. Wayfair said the reduction of 1,750 employees — including 1,200 in corporate positions — will save about $750 million a year. “These changes reflect efforts...
Those huge, stone Wabash piers on the Mon are up for sale
Someone out there can own an unusual piece of Pittsburgh history — not to mention an unusual piece of real estate. The Wabash piers, those hulking stone towers standing about 45 feet above the Monongahela River, Downtown, are up for sale. “The fascinating thing about these piers — they were...
4 Western Pa. Standard Bank branches consolidating to Dollar Bank branches
Beginning Monday, four Standard Bank locations in Western Pennsylvania will consolidate to nearby Dollar Bank offices. The affected Standard Bank offices are located on Route 30 in Hempfield, Old William Penn Highway in Murrysville, Forbes Avenue in Pittsburgh and Greentree Road in Green Tree. They will be consolidated to Dollar...
Union membership rate hits all-time low despite campaigns
The U.S. union membership rate reached an all-time low last year despite high-profile unionization campaigns at Starbucks, Amazon and other companies. Union members fell to 10.1% of the overall U.S. workforce, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That was down slightly from 10.3% in 2021. The number of workers...
U.S. Treasury buys time for Biden, GOP on debt limit deal
WASHINGTON — The countdown toward a possible U.S. government default began Thursday with Treasury implementing accounting measures to buy time as frictions between President Joe Biden and House Republicans raise alarms about whether the United States can sidestep a potential economic crisis. The Treasury Department said in a letter to...
Fewer Americans file for jobless benefits last week
WASHINGTON — The number of people seeking unemployment benefits in the U.S. reached a four-month low last week, a sign that employers are holding on to their workers despite the Federal Reserve’s efforts to slow the economy and tamp down inflation. U.S. jobless aid applications for the week ending Jan....
December retail sales fall 1.1% as inflation takes a tollVideo
NEW YORK — Americans cut back on spending in December, the second consecutive month they’ve done so, underscoring how inflation and the rising cost of using credit cards slowed consumer activity over the crucial holiday shopping season. Retail sales fell a worse-than-expected 1.1% in December, following a revised 1% drop...
The price of a stamp is going up again, starting Sunday
It’s going to be more expensive to send that birthday card, letter or bill in the mail, starting Sunday. The United States Postal Service will raise the price of a first-class Forever stamp from 60 cents to 63 cents in a move announced in October. This will be the third...
Party City, amid rising prices, seeks bankruptcy protection
NEW YORK — Party City has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after struggling with rising prices and a pullback in customer spending. The company, based in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey, said that its franchise stores, subsidiaries outside of the U.S. and its foil balloons Anagram business are not part...
Wall Street has biggest pullback of the year, led by techVideo
NEW YORK — Wall Street had its biggest pullback of the year Wednesday after a broad slide for stocks wiped out much of the benchmark S&P 500 index’s gains from last week. The S&P 500 fell 1.6% after having been up as much as 0.6% in the early going. The...
Microsoft cuts 10,000 jobs, about 5% of global workforce
Microsoft is cutting 10,000 workers, almost 5% of its workforce, joining other tech companies that have scaled back their pandemic-era expansions. The company said in a regulatory filing Wednesday that the layoffs were a response to “macroeconomic conditions and changing customer priorities.” The Redmond, Washington-based software giant said it will...
U.S., Chinese officials discuss climate, economy, relationship
ZURICH — U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen met Wednesday with her Chinese counterpart and pledged an effort to manage differences and “prevent competition from becoming anything ever near conflict” as the two nations try to thaw relations. Yellen’s first face-to-face meeting with Vice Premier Liu He in Zurich is the...
Wholesale inflation in U.S. slowed further in December to 6.2%
WASHINGTON — Wholesale prices in the U.S. rose 6.2% in December from a year earlier, a sixth straight monthly slowdown and a hopeful sign that inflation pressures will continue to cool. The latest year-over-year figure was down from 7.3% in November and from a recent peak of 11.7% in March....
