Business category, Page 178

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 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...

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 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 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...

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...

NEW JOHNSONVILLE, Tenn. — The Tennessee Valley Authority has demolished a shuttered coal plant that began generating electricity in the 1950s. The implosion early Saturday destroyed a 600-foot smokestack and 10 boilers at the former Johnsonville Fossil Plant. The TVA is clearing the site for possible new energy technologies. The...

SEATTLE — The covid-19 pandemic, coupled with record sales of firearms, has fueled a shortage of ammunition in the United States that’s impacting law enforcement agencies, people seeking personal protection, recreational shooters and hunters — and could deny new gun owners the practice they need to handle their weapons safely....

Coffee lovers may have to dig deeper into their pockets as the cost of coffee beans has shot up due largely to a July 20 frost in Brazil that has destroyed crops. Andrew Oakes, owner of Fresh Roasted Coffee in Sunbury, said the price of green, unroasted beans has risen...

Stocks fell in morning trading on Wall Street Friday with internet retail giant Amazon weighing down major indexes following a weak sales report and forecast. The S&P 500 index fell 0.4% as of 10:20 a.m. Eastern and is on pace for a weekly loss, though still poised to finish out...

Stocks on Wall Street bounced back from a two-day slide Thursday, placing the S&P 500 on pace for its second straight weekly gain. The S&P 500 index rose 0.4%, powered by broad gains. About 77% of the stocks in the benchmark index closed higher. Technology stocks and banks made some...

A German federal court ruled Thursday that the golden shade of the foil wrap on Lindt & Spruengli’s Gold Bunny, a popular chocolate Easter bunny, enjoys protected status. The Federal Court of Justice delivered its verdict in a battle between Switzerland’s Lindt and a German company, Heilemann, which in 2018...

Robinhood made its own leap into the stock market Thursday, the one it helped reshape by bringing millions of new investors to Wall Street, and its shares were falling in their first day of trading. Robinhood Markets’ stock was at $36.16, as of 1 p.m. Eastern time, down 4.7% from...

HARRISBURG — A transportation funding commission set up by Gov. Tom Wolf to find ways to end Pennsylvania’s reliance on its gas tax will issue a $15.6 billion package of recommendations, which lean heavily on shifting to a vehicle-miles-traveled fee that numerous states are exploring. The Transportation Revenue Options Commission...

NEW YORK — Masks, which had started to disappear from store shelves, may be front and center again. A spot check of businesses and other data sources are showing that mask sales have been rising in recent weeks as Americans worry about the surging cases of the delta variant of...

WASHINGTON — Fueled by vaccinations and government aid, the U.S. economy grew at a solid 6.5% annual rate last quarter in another sign that the nation has achieved a sustained recovery from the pandemic recession. Thursday’s report from the Commerce Department estimated that the nation’s gross domestic product — its...

WASHINGTON — Even with production glitches, transportation bottlenecks and labor shortages, the U.S. economy grew in the second quarter at one of the fastest rates in decades, lifting the nation’s total output above where it was before covid-19 hit, according to government data released Thursday. “That we were able to...

SAN RAMON, Calif. — Google is postponing a return to the office for most workers until mid-October and rolling out a policy that will eventually require everyone to be vaccinated once its sprawling campuses are fully reopened. The announcement Wednesday came as the more highly contagious delta variant is driving...

Stock indexes capped a wobbly day of trading on Wall Street with mixed results Wednesday after the Federal Reserve said it was seeing improvement in the economy, but not enough to start dialing down its support measures. The S&P 500 slipped less than 0.1% after giving up a brief afternoon...

Forward motion is the ultimate goal for Leslie Davis as she takes over as chief executive of health care giant UPMC, whether it be in patient services, insurance or academics. Davis, 62, becomes the first woman to head the multibillion-dollar operation. She takes over officially on Sunday, though outgoing CEO...

Contour Airlines will begin nonstop flights from Pittsburgh to Indianapolis and Milwaukee on Oct. 12, the airline announced Wednesday. “Pittsburgh is a new market for us,” said Matt Chaifetz, CEO of the Smyrna, Tenn.-based airline. Contour had been in talks with Indianapolis Economic Development Corp. about adding flights to certain...

Jeffrey Romoff, the architect of UPMC’s vast empire of hospitals in Western Pennsylvania and beyond, is set to retire Aug. 1, officials announced Wednesday. Romoff will be succeeded by Leslie C. Davis, who most recently served as executive vice president of UPMC and president of the health services division, where...

LOS ANGELES — Robinhood is disrupting another stock market norm — and taking a big risk — by giving ordinary investors access to a huge slice of its initial public offering. The popular online brokerage is taking the unusual step of allowing users of its trading app to buy up...

The signs and banners are dotted along suburban commercial strips and hanging in shop windows and restaurants, evidence of a new desperation among America’s service-industry employers: “Now Hiring, $15 an hour.” It is hardly the official federal minimum wage — at $7.25, that level hasn’t been raised since 2009 —...

The Pittsburgh region’s economy continued to show signs of a slow recovery, adding 9,300 jobs in June, most of which were in the leisure and hospitality sector. “We are scuffling along, jobs wise. There’s still some of the labor force that’s deciding not to go back to work,” said Frank...