Business category, Page 187
With chicken prices soaring, Sanderson Farms sold for $4.5B
Sanderson Farms, one of nation’s third largest poultry producer, is being acquired for $4.53 billion as the price of chicken soars. Cargill and privately held Continental Grain formed a joint venture to acquire Sanderson and will pay $203 per share in cash for a company that last year processed more...
Norwegian Cruise Line can require proof of vaccinations, federal judge rules
Norwegian Cruise Lines Holdings can require proof of vaccines for all passengers and crews, a federal judge ruled Sunday night. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams said in her ruling that Norwegian Cruise Line, Oceania Cruises and Regent Seven Seas Cruises can require documentation of vaccines before they leave Florida ports....
Weary U.S. businesses confront new round of mask mandates
Businesses large and small, from McDonald’s and Home Depot to local yoga studios, are reinstituting mask mandates as U.S. coronavirus cases rise. Bars, gyms and restaurants across the country are requiring vaccines to get inside. After a largely mask-free summer, it’s a reversal no one wanted to see, brought on...
ATI moving Pittsburgh headquarters from Downtown to new Strip District building
Allegheny Technologies Inc. will move its Pittsburgh headquarters from Downtown to the Strip District next summer, the company and Burns Scalo Real Estate announced. Burns Scalo said the specialty materials manufacturer is the first tenant to sign a lease for “The Vision on 15th,” an eight-story, mixed-use building under construction...
U.S. probes whether Ford was slow to recall backup cameras
DETROIT — U.S. highway safety regulators are investigating whether Ford acted quickly enough when it recalled more than 620,000 vehicles last year to fix faulty rear-view cameras. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also says it will look into whether the automaker should have recalled more vehicles. Documents posted Friday...
U.S. added 943,000 jobs in July; unemployment rate at 5.4%
WASHINGTON — Hiring surged in July as American employers added 943,000 jobs. The unemployment rate dropped to 5.4% another sign that the U.S. economy continues to bounce back with surprising vigor from last year’s coronavirus shutdown. The July numbers exceeded economists’ forecast for more than 860,000 new jobs. Hotels and...
Huawei revenue sinks as smartphones hurt by U.S. sanctions
BEIJING — Chinese tech giant Huawei’s revenue fell 29.4% from a year earlier in the first half of 2021 as smartphones sales tumbled under U.S. sanctions imposed in a fight with Beijing over technology and security. Revenue declined to $49.6 billion, according to figures released Friday, from $70.2 billion reported...
Add United Airlines to list of companies requiring U.S. employees to be vaccinated
United Airlines will require employees in the U.S. to be vaccinated against covid-19 by late October, perhaps sooner, joining a growing number of big corporations that are responding to a surge in virus cases. Company leaders called it a matter of safety and cited “incredibly compelling” evidence of the effectiveness...
Stocks climb on Wall Street, notching more record highs
A broad rally on Wall Street pushed stocks higher Thursday, nudging the S&P 500 and Nasdaq indexes to record highs. The gains reversed the market’s modest losses from a day earlier. Despite a choppy week of trading, the major indexes are on pace for weekly gains. The S&P 500 rose...
Longtime AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, a Nemacolin native, has died
WASHINGTON — Richard Trumka, the powerful president of the AFL-CIO who rose from the coal mines of Pennsylvania to preside over one of the largest labor organizations in the world, died Thursday. He was 72. The federation confirmed Trumka’s death in a statement. He had been AFL-CIO president since 2009,...
Shipping snags prompt U.S. firms to mull retreat from China
WASHINGTON — Game maker Eric Poses last year created The Worst-Case Scenario Card Game, making a wry reference to the way the coronavirus had upended normal life. He had no idea. In a twist that Poses never could have predicted, his game itself would become caught up in the latest...
Stocks slip on Wall Street, pulling S&P 500 below record
Stocks gave back some of their recent gains Wednesday after a disappointing jobs report stoked worry about the strength of the economic recovery as a highly contagious variant of the coronavirus spreads. The S&P 500 fell 0.5%, easing back from the all-time high the benchmark index set a day earlier....
Delta variant forces cancellation of New York auto show
The New York International Auto Show has become a casualty of the fast-spreading coronavirus delta variant. Show organizers said Wednesday that they’ve decided to cancel it this year, a little over two weeks before the scheduled start. The reasons are the growing spread of the variant and recent restrictions announced...
Despite chip shortage, GM posts $2.8B profit, ups guidance
DETROIT — Despite a computer chip shortage that temporarily closed some of its factories, General Motors made a healthy $2.8 billion net profit in the second quarter. The earnings came even though GM plants cranked out 200,000 fewer vehicles than they did during the same period in 2019, the last...
Stocks shake off a wobbly start, end higher on Wall Street
Technology and health care companies led a broad rally on Wall Street Tuesday that helped stocks overcome a wobbly start and recoup their losses from a day earlier. The S&P 500 rose 0.8% after having been down 0.3% in the early going. The gain inched the benchmark index to an...
Tyson Foods, Microsoft to require vaccination for U.S. workers
ARLINGTON, Va. — Meat processer Tyson Foods said Tuesday it will require all of its U.S. employees to get vaccinated against covid-19, becoming one of the first major employers of frontline workers to do so amid a resurgence of the virus. Microsoft also announced Tuesday that it will require proof...
Florida takes Ben & Jerry’s divestment step over Israel
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Florida has taken a step to halt investment of state resources in the parent company of Ben & Jerry’s over its decision to stop selling ice cream in contested parts of Israel. Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday that the State Board of Administration added London-based Unilever...
Reese Witherspoon sells Hello Sunshine, joins new company
It’s a perfect day for Reese Witherspoon as the actress and producer is selling the media company she founded to a newly formed company backed by private equity firm Blackstone Group. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed but The Wall Street Journal reported that the deal was worth about...
John Dorfman: Allstate, PulteGroup show value plus growth
In a romantic partner, would you prefer good looks or intelligence? Silly question. Of course, you’d like both. Yet in the stock market, investors often feel they can go for value or growth but not both. Sometimes you can find both in a single stock. And once a year, I...
Treasury Department’s borrowing plans assume debt-limit deal
WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department has unveiled plans to borrow $673 billion in the current quarter while employing emergency measures to keep the government from an unprecedented default on the national debt. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Monday announced a new round of measures to keep the government under the...
Air travel hits another pandemic high, flight delays grow
Air travel in the U.S. is hitting new pandemic-era highs, and airlines are scrambling to keep up with the summer-vacation crowds. Despite rising numbers of coronavirus infections fueled by the delta variant, the U.S. set another recent high mark for air travel Sunday, with more than 2.2 million people going...
U.S. employers ratchet up the pressure on the unvaccinated
NEW YORK — Employers are losing patience with unvaccinated workers. For months, most employers relied on information campaigns, bonuses and other incentives to encourage their workforces to get the covid-19 shot. Now, a growing number are imposing rules to make it more onerous for employees to refuse, from outright mandates...
Pennsylvania Lottery sets record for sales, profit
Pennsylvania Lottery officials on Monday announced that the Lottery generated a record profit of more than $1.3 billion during the 2020-21 fiscal year. Officials said this is the tenth consecutive year that it has generated more than $1 billion for senior programs, which include property tax and rent rebates, free...
Stocks end mixed after starting August off on a choppy note
Stocks gave back some of their recent gains Monday after a day of choppy trading on Wall Street led the major indexes to a mixed finish. The S&P 500 slipped 0.2% in the final hour of trading after holding a slight gain for much of the afternoon. The benchmark index...
Square to buy installment payment firm Afterpay in $29B deal
Digital payments company Square Inc. says it has agreed to acquire Afterpay, which provides a “buy now, pay later” option for merchants, in an all-stock deal valued at about $29 billion. Square said Sunday it has agreed to buy all of the Australian company’s shares, and that the transaction’s estimated...
