Business category, Page 145
Global food prices in 2022 hit record high amid drought, war
ROME — Global prices for food commodities like grain and vegetable oils were the highest on record last year even after falling for nine months in a row, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said, as Russia’s war in Ukraine, drought and other factors drove up inflation and worsened hunger...
U.S. hiring stays brisk as employers add 223,000 jobs
WASHINGTON — America’s employers added a solid 223,000 jobs in December, evidence that the economy remains healthy even as the Federal Reserve is rapidly raising interest rates to try to slow economic growth and the pace of hiring. With companies continuing to add jobs across the economy, the unemployment rate...
Southwest starts on reputation repair after cancellations
DALLAS — With its flights running on a roughly normal schedule, Southwest Airlines is now turning its attention to repairing its damaged reputation after it canceled 15,000 flights around Christmas and left holiday travelers stranded. CEO Robert Jordan said Thursday that Southwest has processed about 75% of the refund requests...
Highmark Health Plan names president
Tom Doran has been named Highmark Health Plan president, taking the reins of the country’s fourth-largest Blue Cross Blue Shield affiliate with about 6.8 million members. Doran is not new to the Pittsburgh-headquartered health insurer. Most recently, he served as the health plan’s chief operating officer when former health plan...
Southwest starts on reputation repair after cancellations
DALLAS — With its flights running on a roughly normal schedule, Southwest Airlines is now turning its attention to repairing its damaged reputation after it canceled 15,000 flights around Christmas and left holiday travelers stranded. The disruptions started with a winter storm and snowballed when Southwest’s ancient crew-scheduling technology failed....
Pa. gas drilling report criticizes industry for failing to report abandoned gas wells
The Department of Environmental Protection rebuked the conventional oil and gas drilling industry for not complying with state regulations, saying that operators with 11 or more wells failing to report key data “seems to be an industry-wide rule rather than the exception.” “Over the past five years, DEP’s OOGM (Office...
See wireless TV, delivery robots and in-car VR at CES show
LAS VEGAS — Tech companies of all sizes are showing off their latest products at CES, formerly known as the Consumer Electronics show. The show is getting back to normal after going completely virtual in 2021 and seeing a significant drop in 2022 attendance because of the pandemic. On Wednesday,...
Bed Bath & Beyond warns it may go out of business
NEW YORK — Struggling Bed Bath & Beyond warned on Thursday that there’s substantial doubt about the company’s ability to continue as a “going concern” even as the home goods retailer continues to study options like refinancing its debt or restructuring its business in bankruptcy court. The outlook came after...
Amazon layoffs to hit 18,000 people
The wave of layoffs at Amazon will hit thousands more people than originally expected. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said Wednesday evening the company planned to eliminate “just over” 18,000 roles. In November, when news of layoffs first broke, Amazon said the number of impacted roles remained fluid as leaders evaluated...
Post-Gazette owner to buy City Paper from Butler Eagle
A subsidiary of Block Communications, Inc., which owns the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, is buying the Pittsburgh City Paper from the publisher of the Butler Eagle. The Butler Eagle’s publisher, Eagle Media, acquired the alternative weekly paper in March 2016 from Steel City Media. All employees of the City Paper will be...
Salesforce to lay off 8,000 workers in latest tech purge
Business software maker Salesforce is laying off about 8,000 employees, or 10% of its workforce, as major technology companies continue to prune payrolls that rapidly expanded during the pandemic lockdown. The cuts announced Wednesday are by far the largest in the 23-year history of a San Francisco company founded by...
Electric skates, pet tech and AI for birds at CES 2023
LAS VEGAS — Tech companies of all sizes are showing off their latest products at CES, formerly known as the Consumer Electronics show. The show is getting back to normal after going completely virtual in 2021 and seeing a significant drop in 2022 attendance because of the pandemic. Exhibitors range...
Futures inch higher ahead of the release of Fed notes
Wall Street pointed modestly higher Wednesday ahead of the release of notes from the most recent Federal Reserve meeting, which investors hope might hint at a less aggressive stance on interest rates, a tool that the Fed has used to tame inflation. Futures for the benchmark S&P 500 index and...
John Dorfman: Robot Portfolio chugs on, up 915% in 24 years
Give that Robot some new polish! The Robot Portfolio is a hypothetical collection of 10 stocks I have compiled each year beginning in 1999. In 24 years, it has achieved a cumulative 915% return, compared with 373% for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. The 10 stocks are picked by...
Southwest Airlines sending vouchers to passengers disrupted by holiday meltdown
Southwest Airlines is sending out vouchers worth as much as $300 to clean up the reputational damage from canceling more than 17,100 flights in eight days around Christmas. Dallas-based Southwest Airlines is trying to untangle a mess it made after winter weather swept across the country in the days before...
Wall Street slips in 2023 open after ending dismal year
Stocks gave up an early gain and ended lower Tuesday, a lackluster first trading day of 2023 for Wall Street just days after it closed the books on its worst year since 2008. The S&P 500 shed a 1% gain and finished 0.4% lower. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped...
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried pleads not guilty in New York
NEW YORK — FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty in Manhattan federal court Tuesday to charges that he cheated investors and looted customer deposits on his cryptocurrency trading platform. Bankman-Fried, 30, is accused of illegally diverting massive sums of customer money from FTX to make lavish real estate purchases,...
At Southwest Airlines, a day of recovery after week of chaos
Southwest Airlines returned to a relatively normal flight schedule Friday, as the focus shifts to making things right with what could be well more than a million passengers who missed family connections or flights home during the holidays, and many of whom are still missing luggage. The Dallas carrier, which...
Ringing in the new year means staying on the clock for many workers
It’s a night of high expectations for people who want their celebrations to be memorable. But, for those providing service, New Year’s Eve can be a nonstop, thankless grind. The host of servers, bartenders, drivers and others behind the scenes generally make the party possible for revelers. Alcohol flows in...
Explainer: 2023 tax credits for EVs will boost their appeal
WASHINGTON — Starting Jan. 1, many Americans will qualify for a tax credit of up to $7,500 for buying an electric vehicle. The credit, part of changes enacted in the Inflation Reduction Act, is designed to spur EV sales and reduce greenhouse emissions. But a complex web of requirements, including...
Southwest hopes to return to full schedule Friday after canceling thousands of flights
The nightmare may be over soon for Southwest Airlines flyers whose holiday travels have been anything but smooth sailing. After canceling thousands of flights because of winter weather and a major technology meltdown, company leaders at Southwest told employees Wednesday that they hope to have a full schedule restored by...
Policy, climate, war make 2022 ‘pivot year’ for clean energy
BENGALURU, India — For renewable energy companies in India, it’s a good time to be in business. One of India’s largest renewable energy firms, Renew Power, will be among the corporations big and small hoping for a piece of a $2.6 billion government scheme that encourages the domestic manufacturing of...
Starbucks refused union contract talks at 21 cafes, NLRB says
Starbucks Corp. has illegally refused to negotiate at 21 recently unionized cafes in Washington state and Oregon, U.S. labor board prosecutors alleged in a complaint. In a Tuesday filing on behalf of the National Labor Relations Board’s general counsel, the agency’s Seattle regional director wrote that Starbucks “has been failing...
Rocky ride: Tesla stock on pace for worst year ever
LOS ANGELES — Owning Tesla stock this year has been anything but a smooth ride for investors. Shares in the electric vehicle maker are down nearly 70% since the start of the year, on pace to finish in the bottom five biggest decliners among S&P 500 stocks. By comparison, the...
Pain, few gains for investors as markets slumped in 2022
Investors found few, if any, places to safely put their money in 2022, as central banks in the U.S. and around the globe raised interest rates for the first time in years to fight surging inflation, stoking fear of a global recession. Uncertainty about how far the Federal Reserve and...
