Business category, Page 167

SEATTLE — After rejecting a half-billion-dollar settlement, Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson on Monday took the state’s case against the nation’s three biggest drug distributors to trial, saying they must be held accountable for their role in the nation’s opioid epidemic. The Democrat delivered part of the opening statement in...

Take a step back from the picked-over store shelves, the stalled container ships and the empty auto showrooms, and you’ll find a root cause of the shortages of just about everything. Even as the pandemic has dragged on, U.S. households flush with cash from stimulus checks, booming stock markets and...

Stocks wobbled in midday trading on Wall Street Monday as the market comes off its first weekly loss in six weeks. The S&P 500 fell 0.1% as of 11:56 a.m. Eastern. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 9 points, or less than 0.1%, to 36,109 and the Nasdaq fell 0.3%....

If you haven’t started holiday shopping, you might be falling behind. The culprit is supply chain disruptions. This year, more than any in recent memory, it is imperative to get an early start checking off items for those on your naughty-or-nice list, retail analysts say. “Inventory concerns, combined with constantly...

The National Labor Relations Board has confirmed that a group of Amazon workers in Staten Island, New York has withdrawn its petition to hold a vote to unionize. The move comes less than two weeks before the labor board was expected to hold a hearing to determine whether there was...

Stocks closed higher on Wall Street on Friday, but the market still ended the week lower as inflation worries weighed on investors’ moods earlier in the week. The S&P 500 index added 33.58 points, or 0.7%, to end at 4,682.85. While it closed higher, the benchmark index still ended the...

Johnson & Johnson is splitting into two companies, peeling off the division selling Band-Aids and Listerine from its medical device and prescription drug business. The world’s biggest maker of health care products, founded in 1886, said Friday the move will help improve the focus and speed of each company to...

Spotify on Thursday said it will buy Ohio-based audiobooks distribution company Findaway as the Swedish streaming service continues to expand its audio offerings beyond music and podcasts. “It is Spotify’s ambition to be the destination for all things audio both for listeners and creators,” Gustav Söderström, Spotify’s chief research &...

OMAHA, Neb. — The Kellogg Co. has filed a lawsuit against its local union in Omaha complaining that striking workers are blocking entrances to its cereal plant and intimidating replacement workers as they enter the plant. The company based in Battle Creek, Mich., asked a judge to order the Omaha...

MILAN — The personal luxury market of high-end accessories, leather goods and apparel has snapped back to pre-pandemic levels as U.S. shoppers outspent those in China in pursuit of the latest fashion trends, according to a study released Thursday by the Bain consultancy. Global consumer spending on personal luxury goods,...

Hershey is expanding its salty snack portfolio with the purchase of Dot’s Homestyle Pretzels. The Hershey Co. said Wednesday it will spend $1.2 billion for North Dakota-based Dot’s Pretzels LLC as well as Pretzels Inc., an Indiana-based manufacturer of Dot’s Pretzels that operates three plants. The deal is expected to...

WASHINGTON — Prices for U.S. consumers jumped 6.2% in October compared with a year earlier as surging costs for food, gas and housing left Americans grappling with the highest inflation rate since 1990. The year-over-year increase in the consumer price index exceeded the 5.4% rise in September, the Labor Department...

WASHINGTON — The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell to a new pandemic low 267,000 last week, another sign that the job market is recovering from last year’s sharp coronavirus downturn. Jobless claims fell by 4,000 last week, the Labor Department reported Wednesday. The four-week average of claims,...

A Rostraver couple agreed in federal court to pay $281,029 in back wages, plus $1,762 in civil penalties, for intentionally shortchanging two gas station employees over 30 months. U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn J. Horan in Pittsburgh approved the consent decree between Om Shiva Enterprises Inc. which owns and operates...

Sure, the stock market’s on the expensive side. But some stocks still are selling for less than book value (essentially, corporate net worth). Why should you care? Because, despite skeptics who say book value is an obsolete measure, buying stocks below book value can be a highly profitable strategy. Beginning...

A shuttered bank branch in the Mon Valley has reopened as a nonprofit hub for small businesses and entrepreneurs, thanks to a new partnership fueled by a charitable gift in the form of a hefty real estate discount. The Mon Valley Business Resource Center — now open in the former...

NEW YORK — Wall Street clawed its way to more records on Monday, with stock indexes creeping higher after another listless day of trading. The S&P 500 inched up by 4.17 points, or 0.1%, to 4,701.70 after drifting between a small loss and gain through the day. It’s the eighth...

ATLANTA — Gun maker Remington Firearms will move its headquarters from Ilion, New York, to Georgia, with plans to open a factory and research operation there. The company announced Monday that it would invest $100 million in the operation in LaGrange, Georgia, southwest of Atlanta, hiring 856 people over five...

A federal appeals court on Saturday temporarily halted the Biden administration’s vaccine requirement for businesses with 100 or more workers. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted an emergency stay of the requirement by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration that those workers be vaccinated by Jan. 4...

WASHINGTON — America’s employers stepped up their hiring in October, adding a solid 531,000 jobs, the most since July and a sign that the recovery from the pandemic recession is overcoming a virus-induced slowdown. Friday’s report from the Labor Department also showed that the unemployment rate fell to 4.6% last...

The Pittsburgh region had 10,000 fewer workers in September than a year ago, despite the availability of the covid vaccine, employers offering higher wages and the federal government eliminating extra jobless benefits. The seven-county region saw the labor force decrease to 1.16 million workers in September, a drop of 13,600...