Business category, Page 232
Greensburg to launch grant program for local businesses hurt by coronavirus
Lisa Hegedus can’t wait to apply for a grant from the Greensburg Community Development Corporation’s new Covid-19 Relief Main Street Jump-Start Program. The new program, funded through a $150,000 grant from the Richard King Mellon Foundation, is targeting small businesses in Greensburg that have suffered a financial hit from the...
American, 4 other airlines reach loan agreements with U.S.
DALLAS — American Airlines and four smaller carriers have reached agreement with the government for billions more in federal loans, a sign of the industry’s desperate fight to survive a downturn in air travel caused by the virus pandemic. The Treasury Department said Thursday that it had finalized terms of...
Massachusetts tells fireworks seller to stop ads in stateVideo
BOSTON — The Massachusetts attorney general is demanding that a fireworks retailer with stores in New Hampshire stop targeting its advertising to residents of Massachusetts, where fireworks are illegal. Attorney General Maura Healey in a cease-and-desist letter sent Wednesday to Phantom Fireworks alleges the company is violating state consumer protection...
U.S. adds 4.8 million jobs as unemployment falls to 11.1%Video
WASHINGTON — U.S. employers added a substantial 4.8 million jobs in June, and the unemployment rate fell to 11.1%, as the job market improved for a second straight month yet still remained far short of regaining the colossal losses it suffered this spring. The nation has now recovered roughly one-third...
Black-owned businesses see sales surge amid racism reckoningVideo
BOSTON — When Mahdi Hashemian was looking for a bicycle for his 7-year-old daughter Zeynab last week, the Cambridge, Mass., resident decided to skip his local cycle shops in favor of a Black-owned one a few miles away in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood. At Spokehouse, a bike shop with “Black Lives...
Mt. Pleasant Lenox outlet to close after company cites pandemic-related struggles
The Lenox Factory Outlet store in Mt. Pleasant Township is shuttering, putting an end to a long history at the glass plant. Lenox, which sells tabletop and giftware items, announced Tuesday all outlet and warehouse stores will permanently close, citing difficulties caused by the coronavirus pandemic. A closing date was...
Stocks rise as Wall Street heads for a 3rd straight gain
Communication companies helped lift U.S. stock indexes mostly higher Wednesday afternoon, placing the market on track for its third gain in a row. The S&P 500 was up 0.6%, coming off the heels of a whiplash start to the year where its worst quarterly performance since 2008 gave way to...
U.S. manufacturing bounces back in June on reopenings
SILVER SPRING, Md. — U.S. manufacturing rebounded in June as major parts of the country opened back up, ending three months of contraction in the sector caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The Institute for Supply Management, an association of purchasing managers, said Wednesday that its manufacturing index rose to 52.6...
U.S. construction spending fell 2.1% in May
WASHINGTON — U.S. construction spending fell 2.1% in May with both home building and nonresidential activity declining. The Commerce Department said on Wednesday the May decline followed an even larger 3.5% fall in April. Construction spending was also down in March, falling 0.3%. The construction industry has been rocked by...
U.K. regulator urges reforms to curb Google, Facebook ad power
LONDON — British regulators want new rules to foster competition in digital advertising markets and rein in the industry’s dominant players, Google and Facebook. The Competition and Markets Authority took aim at the U.S. tech giants in a report Wednesday that recommends the British government adopt a new regulatory approach...
China takes measures against 4 U.S. media companiesVideo
BEIJING — China has demanded staff and business information from four U.S. media companies including the Associated Press in what it called a necessary response to similar demands by Washington on Chinese state-controlled news outlets. Foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian announced Wednesday that the AP, United Press International, CBS and...
Facebook bans violent ‘boogaloo’ groups, not the term itself
OAKLAND, Calif. — Facebook has banned an extremist anti-government network loosely associated with the broader “boogaloo” movement, a slang term supporters use to refer to a second Civil War or a collapse of civilization. But the platform didn’t try to name the group, underscoring the difficulty of grappling with an...
Wall Street tacks more onto its best quarter since 1998
Wall Street capped its best quarter since 1998 Tuesday with more gains, a fitting end to a stunning three months for investors as the market screamed back toward its record heights after a torrid plunge. The S&P 500 climbed 1.5%, bringing its gain for the quarter to nearly 20%. That...
John Dorfman: Biogen and Southwest are on the Casualty List
Texas opened its bars and then closed them again. Apple Inc. opened its stores and then re-shut 32 of them. Walt Disney Co. has postponed the reopening of its theme parks. These are just some of the hundreds of ripple effects from the pandemic. In a climate of rampant uncertainty,...
Reddit, Twitch clamp down Trumpist forums for hate speech
Reddit, an online comment forum that is one of the internet’s most popular websites, on Monday banned a forum that supported President-Donald Trump as part of a crackdown on hate speech. The Trump forum, called The_Donald, was banned because it encouraged violence, regularly broke other Reddit rules, and defiantly “antagonized”...
Billions of dollars in aid for small businesses go unclaimed
NEW YORK — Billions of dollars offered by Congress as a lifeline to small businesses struggling to survive the pandemic are about to be left on the table when a key government program stops accepting applications for loans. Business owners and advocacy groups complain that the money in the Paycheck...
Ford lets buyers return vehicles if they lose their job
Have you bought a new Ford and then lost your job? You can return it under a new program. On Monday the car company launched the Ford Promise program, which lets buyers who purchased or leased a vehicle through Ford’s finance arm to return the vehicle within the first year...
Gilead’s $2,340 price for coronavirus drug draws criticismVideo
The maker of a drug shown to shorten recovery time for severely ill covid-19 patients says it will charge $2,340 for a typical treatment course for people covered by government health programs in the United States and other developed countries. Gilead Sciences announced the price Monday for remdesivir, and said...
Starbucks latest to say it will pause social media ads
Starbucks is the latest company to say it will pause social media ads after a campaign led by civil rights organizations called for an ad boycott of Facebook, saying it doesn’t do enough to stop racist and violent content. Starbucks said Sunday that its actions were not part of the...
Fracking pioneer Chesapeake files for bankruptcy protection
NEW YORK — Chesapeake Energy, a shale drilling pioneer that helped to turn the United States into a global energy powerhouse, has filed for bankruptcy protection. The Oklahoma City-based company said Sunday that it was a necessary decision given its debt. Its debt load is currently nearing $9 billion. It...
Businesses weigh reopening — or closing again — as cases rise
It’s not the reopening businesses were hoping for. After months of shutdown, restaurants, stores and even amusement parks announced their reopening with fanfare. But now that states like Texas and Arizona are seeing alarming surges in reported cases of covid-19, businesses large and small must decide whether to keep their...
Facebook to label all rule-breaking posts – even Trump’s
OAKLAND, Calif. — Facebook said Friday that it will flag all “newsworthy” posts from politicians that break its rules, including those from President Donald Trump. Separately, Facebook’s stock dropped more than 8%, erasing roughly $50 billion from its market valuation, after the European company behind brands such as Ben &...
U.S. consumer spending up 8.2%, partly erasing record plunge
WASHINGTON — American consumers increased their spending by a record 8.2% in May, partly erasing record plunges the previous two months, against the backdrop of an economy that’s likely shrinking by its steepest pace on record this quarter. Last month’s rebound in consumer spending followed spending drops of 6.6% in...
Building at Jeannette Industrial Park to be renovated with $657K state grant
A $657,000 project to renovate an unoccupied building at Jeannette Industrial Park was approved Thursday by the Westmoreland County Industrial Development Corp. TBI Contracting of McKeesport was awarded the contract, according to an announcement. Workers will install energy-efficient interior lighting, add insulation, replace the floor and doors, add a women’s...
Stocks sink as virus cases jump, forcing states to backtrack
Stocks fell sharply on Wall Street Friday as the number of confirmed new coronavirus cases in the U.S. hit an all-time high, stoking worries among investors that the reopening of businesses they are banking on to revive the economy will be derailed. The S&P 500 slid 2%, giving up all...
