Business category, Page 8
PepsiCo plans price cuts as demand for its drinks and snacks slip
PURCHASE, N.Y. — PepsiCo is cutting prices on Lay’s, Doritos, Cheetos and Tostitos chips this year to win back customers exasperated by years of price hikes. PepsiCo has leaned on price increases as the cost of packaging, ingredients and transportation rose, but it’s cost the Purchase, N.Y., company in volume....
India’s Modi praised for U.S. trade deal as opposition questions impact on agricultureVideo
NEW DELHI — Indian lawmakers from the ruling coalition praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday for striking a deal with the U.S. that seeks to reduce tariffs on Indian goods, while the opposition raised questions on the impact on sensitive sectors such as agriculture. President Donald Trump on Monday...
Paris prosecutors raid X offices as part of investigation into child abuse images and deepfakes
PARIS — French prosecutors raided the offices of social media platform X on Tuesday as part of a preliminary investigation into allegations including spreading child sexual abuse images and deepfakes. They have also summoned billionaire owner Elon Musk for questioning. X and Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI also face intensifying...
Robotaxi pioneer Waymo gets $16 billion injection to accelerate expansion plans
Robotaxi pioneer Waymo has raised another $16 billion to help fuel its ambition for its fleet of self-driving cars to provide rides throughout the world while other deep-pocketed rival services backed by Tesla and Amazon try to catch up. The fundraising announced Monday values Waymo at $126 billion. The appraisal...
Musk joins his rocket and AI businesses into single company before expected IPO this year
NEW YORK — Elon Musk is joining his space exploration and artificial intelligence ventures into a single company before a massive planned initial public offering for the business later this year. His rocket venture, SpaceX, announced on Monday that it had bought xAI in an effort to help the world’s...
Some companies tie AI to layoffs, but the reality is more complicated
The one thing N. Lee Plumb knows for sure about being laid off from Amazon last week is that it wasn’t a failure to get on board with the company’s artificial intelligence plans. Plumb, his team’s head of “AI enablement,” says he was so prolific in his use of Amazon’s...
Abu Dhabi royal bought stake in Trump’s Crypto venture, WSJ reports
An Abu Dhabi royal signed a secret deal with the Trump family to buy a stake in their cryptocurrency venture, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing company documents and people familiar with the matter. Emissaries of Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan inked a deal with Eric Trump to purchase...
Trump threatens Canada with 50% tariff on aircraft sold in U.S., expanding trade war
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened Canada with a 50% tariff on any aircraft sold in the U.S., the latest salvo in his trade war with America’s northern neighbor as his feud with Prime Minister Mark Carney expands. Trump’s threat posted on social media came after he threatened...
Venezuela’s acting president signs oil industry overhaul, easing state control to lure investors
CARACAS — Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez on Thursday signed a law that will open the nation’s oil sector to privatization, reversing a tenet of the self-proclaimed socialist movement that has ruled the country for more than two decades. Lawmakers in the country’s National Assembly approved the overhaul of the...
Back to business: Local shops, restaurants come back to life after snowstorm
Small business owners say they’ve weathered a storm that left 10 or more inches of snow on downtown streets this week. It took a mix of snow shovel handiwork, municipal plow trucks and private contractors with backhoes and tri-axle dump trucks to bring business districts back to life. “This storm...
U.S. stocks drift as gold’s price keeps ripping higher
NEW YORK — The U.S. stock market is drifting around its record heights Thursday following mixed profit reports from Microsoft and some other of Wall Street’s most influential companies. The action was strongest again in the gold market, where the metal’s price keeps ripping higher in its astounding run. The...
Former Wholey’s cold storage site in Strip District could become parking lotVideo
Demolishing the former Wholey’s cold storage warehouse in the Strip District was supposed to make way for a state-of-the-art office complex. But four years after the building came down, developer Acram Group has yet to break ground on the roughly 20-floor project. A sluggish commercial real estate market means the...
Breeze adds seasonal Pittsburgh-Louisville nonstop service
Breeze Airways is launching nonstop seasonal service between Pittsburgh International Airport and Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport, the airline announced Wednesday. Flights will operate on Thursdays and Sundays from May 7 to Sept. 13. Round-trip tickets are available at an introductory rate of $39. Breeze will use 137-seat, single-aisle Airbus...
Holidays and a viral bear cup drive strong quarterly sales at Starbucks
Starbucks reported strong fiscal first quarter as holiday drinks and a viral bear cup helped drive sales. Same-store sales — or sales at locations open at least a year — rose 4% for the October-December period. That was higher than the 2.3% that Wall Street was expecting, according to analysts...
Federal Reserve keeps interest rates unchanged even as Trump continues to insist they be lowered
WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve pushed the pause button on its interest rate cuts Wednesday, leaving its key rate unchanged at about 3.6% after lowering it three times last year. Chair Jerome Powell said at a news conference that the economy’s outlook “has clearly improved since the last meeting” in...
Amazon cuts about 16,000 corporate jobs in the latest round of layoffs
Amazon is slashing about 16,000 corporate jobs in the second round of mass layoffs for the ecommerce company in three months. The tech giant has said it plans to use generative artificial intelligence to replace corporate workers. It has also been reducing a workforce that swelled during the pandemic. Beth...
Gold buyers and local jewelers adapt to market’s historic price increase
Gold prices hit a record high, but John Henne, owner of Henne Jewelers in Pittsburgh’s Shadyside neighborhood, said he does not feel worried about the jump impacting his family’s business. “The customer is very resilient,” Henne said to TribLive on Tuesday. He joined other local jewelers and gold buyers who...
UPS to cut another 30,000 jobs in sweeping cost-savings push
United Parcel Service Inc. expects to cut as many as 30,000 positions this year, part of an ongoing effort by the package-delivery giant to rein in costs and boost profitability. The reductions to its operational workforce — a group that includes drivers and package handlers — will be achieved largely...
UPS retires fleet of MD-11 aircraft involved in deadly Kentucky crash
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — UPS announced Tuesday that it has retired its fleet of McDonnell Douglas MD-11 cargo planes just months after one crashed during takeoff, causing 15 deaths in Louisville. CEO Carol Tome said during a fourth-quarter earnings call that UPS decided to “accelerate our plans and retire all MD-11...
TikTok settles as social media giants face landmark trial over youth addiction claims
LOS ANGELES — TikTok agreed to settle a landmark social media addiction lawsuit just before the trial kicked off, the plaintiff’s attorneys confirmed. The social video platform was one of three companies — along with Meta’s Instagram and Google’s YouTube — facing claims that their platforms deliberately addict and harm...
Design Within Reach opens luxury furniture showroom in Strip District
Luxury furniture retailer Design Within Reach arrived in Pittsburgh on Tuesday with the opening of its Strip District showroom. The roughly 8,000-square-foot store is at 1600 Smallman St., a converted warehouse that also houses the headquarters of autonomous trucking company Aurora Innovation, Orr’s Jewelers and Argentine restaurant Balvanera. Connecticut-based Design...
Not ready for robots in homes? The maker of a friendly new humanoid thinks it might change your mind
NEW YORK — As the new robot called Sprout walks around a Manhattan office, nodding its rectangular head, lifting its windshield wiper-like “eyebrows” and offering to shake your hand with its grippers, it looks nothing like the sleek and intimidating humanoids built by companies like Tesla. Sprout’s charm is the...
Americans’ confidence in the U.S. economy falls sharply in January to lowest level since 2014
WASHINGTON — U.S. consumer confidence declined sharply in January, hitting the lowest level since 2014 as Americans grow increasingly concerned about their financial prospects. The Conference Board said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index cratered 9.7 points to 84.5 in January, falling below even the lowest readings during the covid-19...
8 tips to stop worrying about running out of money in retirement
The greatest financial danger in retirement isn’t always the stock market. It’s the constant, nagging fear of running out of money. This anxiety causes many people to underspend and worry, even when their finances are sound. Here are eight ways to replace that worry with lasting security. 1. Determine your...
Paralyzing winter storms put a big chill on the economy, but how much?
HOUSTON — The deadly and widespread winter storm paralyzing much of the American East with ice, snow and cold is also taking a multi-billion dollar bite out of the U.S. economy, experts figure. But how much? Economists and meteorologists are trying to get a handle on the disruption costs of...
