Business category, Page 251
Macy’s to close 125 stores, shed 2,000 corporate jobs
NEW YORK — Macy’s said Tuesday it is closing 125 of its least productive stores and cutting 2,000 corporate jobs as the struggling department store tries to reinvent itself in the age of online shopping. The store closures represent about one fifth of Macy’s current total. They include about 30...
Kennametal quarterly sales drop, company posts loss
Hurt by weak markets, Kennametal Inc. said Monday it lost $6.2 million for its October-through-December quarter, as sales dropped by about 14%. Kennametal, a producer of industrial tools, said it lost seven cents per shares in that quarter on sales of $505.1 million, compared to a gain of 66 cents...
Sales were up during holidays, but 1K more stores about to go under
The 10,800 stores closed by retailers last year wasn’t enough: just one month into 2020, they have announced plans to close 1,000 more. “It’s sad, there are a lot of things closing,” said Patti Maher, 57, of Orland Park, Ill., browsing liquidation sales at Papyrus in Chicago. The greeting card...
HP, Progressive show value and momentum
The stock market in the past couple of years has been a momentum market in which rich stocks get richer and poor stocks get poorer. That may change fairly soon. But for the moment, investors would be smart to look at stocks that possess both value and momentum. Here, folks,...
YouTube: No ‘deepfakes’ or ‘birther’ videos in 2020 election
YouTube is making clear there will be no “birtherism” on its platform during this year’s U.S. presidential election — a belated response to a type of conspiracy theory more prevalent in the 2012 race. The Google-owned video service is also reiterating that it won’t allow election-related “deepfake” videos and anything...
Watch the best and worst of Super Bowl adsVideo
During advertising’s biggest night, Super Bowl Sunday, marketers battled it out to bolster their brands and promote new products. Advertisers paid up to $5.6 million for 30 seconds, and almost 100 million people tuned into the big game. This year, Hyundai and Jeep scored with whimsical humor by poking fun...
Stocks sink on fears virus outbreak will dent the economy
Stocks fell sharply on Wall Street Friday as fears spread through the markets that a virus outbreak emanating from China will dent global growth. The Dow Jones Industrial Average skidded more than 600 points and the S&P 500 index erased its gains for January. Technology companies, which do a lot...
U.S. workers’ compensation growth slowed a bit in 2019
WASHINGTON — Americans’ pay and benefits rose at a solid pace last year, but at a slower rate than in 2018, the Labor Department said Friday. Total salaries and benefits such as health insurance rose 2.7% in 2019, according to the government’s employment cost index, down from 2.9% in the...
Amazon is big … really, really big; workforce hits 500K
NEW YORK — Need more proof that Amazon is big? It came this week. Amazon’s U.S. workforce topped 500,000 for the first time, up 43% from the year before and more than triple what it was five years ago, the company said Friday. It gained 150,000 workers last year, more...
U.S. workers’ compensation growth slowed a bit in 2019
WASHINGTON — Americans’ pay and benefits rose at a solid pace last year, but at a slower rate than in 2018, the Labor Department said Friday. Total salaries and benefits such as health insurance rose 2.7% in 2019, according to the government’s employment cost index, down from 2.9% in the...
Amazon is big … really, really big; workforce hits 500K
NEW YORK — Need more proof that Amazon is big? It came this week. Amazon’s U.S. workforce topped 500,000 for the first time, up 43% from the year before and more than triple what it was five years ago, the company said Friday. It gained 150,000 workers last year, more...
Delta, American and United suspend flights between U.S., China
NEW YORK — Delta Air Lines and American Airlines said Friday they will suspend all flights between the U.S. and China, making them the first U.S.-based airlines to do so and joining several international carriers that have stopped flying to China as the coronavirus outbreak continues to spread. United Airlines...
Stocks sink on fears virus outbreak will dent the economy
Stocks fell sharply on Wall Street Friday as fears spread through the markets that a virus outbreak emanating from China will dent global growth. The Dow Jones Industrial Average skidded more than 600 points and the S&P 500 index erased its gains for January. Technology companies, which do a lot...
Commerce secretary: China virus could bring jobs back to the United StatesVideo
WASHINGTON — Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross suggested Thursday that the viral outbreak in China might offer an unexpected benefit for the U.S. economy: It could encourage American manufacturers in China to return to the United States. “I think it will help to accelerate the return of jobs to North America....
Dating apps face U.S. inquiry over underage use, sex offenders
SAN FRANCISCO — A House subcommittee is investigating popular dating services such as Tinder and Bumble for allegedly allowing minors and sex offenders to use their services. Bumble, Grindr, The Meet Group and the Match Group, which owns such popular services as Tinder, Match.com and OkCupid, are the current targets...
Chick-Fil-A’s war with Popeyes drains supply of little chickens
CHICAGO — Fast-food titans, embroiled in a chicken-sandwich battle, are trying to beat each other with small weapons. Little chickens, whose quarter-pound breasts fit perfectly inside a bun, are proving essential to the war effort. In the process, they’re getting harder to come by. A shortage of the smaller birds...
NASA chooses company for first habitable commercial space on space station
The International Space Station may soon become a duplex. NASA announced Houston-based Axiom Space has won the contract to begin to build what could become a commercial space station that connects to to the ISS. The first step is letting Axiom Space hook up to the ISS with an initial...
UPS to expand operations in Pennsylvania, hire 1,700 workers
HARRISBURG — Package delivery company United Parcel Service has committed to spending $1.4 billion to expand its operations in Pennsylvania and hire more than 1,700 new full-time employees, Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration said Wednesday. Wolf’s administration said it offered UPS $2.7 million in tax credits and more than $6 million...
Fed leaves key rate alone but sees virus among global risks
WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve kept its key interest rate unchanged at a low level Wednesday amid an economy that looks solid but faces potential global threats, including from China’s viral outbreak. The Fed sketched a mostly bright picture of the U.S. economy in a statement it released after its...
United Way offers free tax prep program to low-income families
United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania is working with local agencies to provide free, in-person tax preparation for low-to-moderate-income individuals and families in the region. The program ensures that low-income residents can maximize their refund, United Way said in a statement. Hundreds of people have volunteered to help prepare taxes this...
In snub to U.S., Britain will allow Huawei in 5G networksVideo
LONDON — Britain decided Tuesday to allow Chinese tech giant Huawei to supply new high-speed network equipment, ignoring the U.S. government’s warnings that it would sever intelligence cooperation if the company was not banned. Britain’s decision is the first by a major U.S. ally in Europe, and follows intense lobbying...
Chipotle fined $1.3M over thousands of child labor abuses
BOSTON — Chipotle was hit with a $1.3 million fine over more than 13,000 child labor violations at its Massachusetts restaurants, the state’s attorney general announced Monday. Attorney General Maura Healey ordered the largest child labor penalty ever issued by the state against the Mexican restaurant chain after finding an...
John Dorfman: Screwy January isn’t going by the book
When I was a boy, my father took me to the race track. I was entranced by the Daily Racing Form, which contained a wealth of information about every horse’s past performance. “There’s one problem,” my father said. “The horses don’t read the form.” As I look at the stock-market...
GM to invest $2.2B in Detroit to build electric vehiclesVideo
DETROIT — General Motors is spending $2.2 billion to refurbish an underused Detroit factory so it can build a series of electric and self-driving vehicles, eventually employing 2,000 people. GM said in a statement Monday that the factory will start building the company’s first electric pickup late in 2021, followed...
The big lesson from the Bezos hack: Anyone can be a target
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — You may not think you’re in the same league as Jeff Bezos when it comes to being a hacking target. Probably not, but you — and just about anyone else, potentially including senior U.S. government figures — could still be vulnerable to an attack similar to...
