Business category, Page 243
Target, Kohl’s, CVS latest to require masks in all stores
Target, Kohl’s and CVS have now added themselves to the list of stores requiring customers to wear a mask while shopping there. Target and CVS joined in on Thursday, while Kohl’s announced their news Wednesday. USA Today reports Target’s mask requirement will go into effect Aug. 1. The policy does...
Stocks open lower on Wall Street; Twitter sinks after hack
NEW YORK — Stocks opened broadly lower on Wall Street on Thursday, extending weakness in overseas markets. The S&P 500 index gave up 0.6% in the early going, led by losses in technology companies. Twitter sank after a breach in its security allowed hackers to break into the accounts of...
U.S. retail sales jump 7.5% in June, but economy still ails
BALTIMORE — U.S. retail sales climbed a solid 7.5% in June, a sign that the economy was healing right before infections from the coronavirus spiked again and dragged down hopes for a steady recovery. The Census Bureau reported Thursday that retail sales are 1.1% higher than their levels from a...
Obama, Biden, Gates Twitter accounts hacked in bitcoin scam
Unidentified hackers broke into the Twitter accounts of technology moguls, politicians, celebrities and major companies Wednesday in an apparent Bitcoin scam. The ruse included bogus tweets from former President Barack Obama, Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden, Mike Bloomberg and a number of tech billionaires including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Microsoft...
Mail could be delayed as new postal head pushes cost-cutting
WASHINGTON — Mail deliveries could be delayed by a day or more under cost-cutting efforts being imposed by the new postmaster general. The plan eliminates overtime for hundreds of thousands of postal workers and says employees must adopt a “different mindset” to ensure the Postal Service’s survival during the coronavirus...
JC Penney cuts 1,000 jobs as it closes stores
JC Penney says it will cut 1,000 jobs as it tries to fight its way out from under bankruptcy protection. The company last month said it had identified just over 150 stores for closure in the first phase of a restructuring in which it will become a smaller operator. The...
Walmart to require customers to wear masks at all its stores
Walmart will require customers to wear face coverings at all of its stores, including Sam’s Club locations, beginning Monday. The move makes it the largest retailer to introduce such a policy that has otherwise proven difficult to enforce without state and federal requirements. The Bentonville, Ark.-based company said that about...
Europe’s shift to electric cars picks up despite recessionVideo
FRANKFURT, Germany — The coronavirus has canceled business plans all over the world but Europe’s push into electric cars isn’t one of them. Sales of battery-powered and hybrid cars have held up better than the overall market amid a deeply painful recession, mainly thanks to the action of governments. The...
Burger King addresses climate change by changing cows’ dietsVideo
Burger King is staging an intervention with its cows. The chain has rebalanced the diet of some of the cows by adding lemon grass in a bid to limit bovine contributions to climate change. By tweaking their diet, Burger King said Tuesday that it believes it can reduce a cow’s...
Demand rises for robot cooks as kitchens combat covid-19
HAYWARD, Calif. — Robots that can cook — from flipping burgers to baking bread — are in growing demand as virus-wary kitchens try to put some distance between workers and customers. Starting this fall, the White Castle burger chain will test a robot arm that can cook french fries and...
Best Buy to require customers to wear masks amid coronavirus spike
NEW YORK — Best Buy, the nation’s largest consumer electronics chain, will require customers to wear face coverings at all of its stores nationwide, even in states or localities that don’t require them to do so. The retailer, based in Richfield, Minn., joins a growing but still short list of...
U.S. budget deficit hits all-time high of $864 billion in June
WASHINGTON — The federal government incurred the biggest monthly budget deficit in history in June as spending on programs to combat the coronavirus recession exploded while millions of job losses cut into tax revenues. The Treasury Department reported Monday that the deficit hit $864 billion last month, an amount of...
Stocks slam into reverse as coronavirus keeps scarring economyVideo
NEW YORK — Wall Street got a painful reminder that the coronavirus pandemic isn’t going away, and a big early gain for stocks suddenly flipped to losses after California showed how it’s still scarring the economy. The S&P 500 fell 0.9%, with all the losses accumulating in the last hour...
Stocks up as market faces down latest hurdle: dismal profitsVideo
TOKYO — Here comes the latest hurdle for the pandemic-defying stock market to leap with ease, investors hope: the worst quarter for profit growth in more than a decade. Stocks climbed worldwide Monday, adding to their stellar gains of recent months, as CEOs across the country prepare to tell their...
Hedge fund announces plan to buy newspaper publisher McClatchy
NEW YORK — Hedge fund Chatham Asset Management plans to buy newspaper publisher McClatchy out of bankruptcy, ending 163 years of family control. The companies did not put a price on the deal in an announcement Sunday. The agreement still needs the approval of a bankruptcy judge; a hearing is...
Shipbuilder files complaint over union threats during strike
Navy shipbuilder Bath Iron Works on Friday filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, accusing its largest union of threatening workers who cross the picket line during an ongoing strike in Maine. The company accused leaders of Machinists’ Local S6 of threatening so-called scabs with fines and loss...
Reports: Amazon bars video app TikTok on workers’ phones
Amazon has told employees to delete the popular video app TikTok from phones on which they use Amazon email, citing security risks from the China-owned app, according to reports and posts by Twitter users who said they were Amazon employees. The notice said employees must delete the app by Friday...
Wall Street rallies as optimism returns to cap erratic week
NEW YORK — Optimism returned to Wall Street on Friday, and stocks rallied to cap a shaky week dogged by worries that rising coronavirus counts may halt the economy’s recent upswing. The S&P 500 climbed 1%, and the biggest gains came from cruise ship operators, airlines, banks and other companies...
Ban on evictions, foreclosures in Pa. extended until Aug. 31
Gov. Tom Wolf on Thursday extended a moratorium on evictions amid the covid-19 pandemic until Aug. 31, protecting renters and homeowners who are unable to pay their rent or mortgage from losing their homes. Wolf originally signed an executive order pausing evictions earlier this year as millions of Pennsylvanians lost...
WCCC casino dealer courses to begin in August
Westmoreland County Community College is set to offer training courses for table games dealers beginning in August. The Dealer School courses are sponsored by Live! Casino, which expects to open its new casino late this year at the former Bon-Ton location at Westmoreland Mall in Hempfield. Instruction is slated to...
Wall Street’s rally gets back on track as tech leads the wayVideo
NEW YORK — Wall Street’s rally got back on track Wednesday after more gains for big technology stocks helped pull the S&P 500 to its sixth gain in seven days. The S&P 500 drifted up and down for most of the day, before a last-hour lift sent it to a...
United will warn 36,000 workers they could be laid off
United Airlines is warning 36,000 employees - nearly half its U.S. staff - they could be furloughed in October, the clearest signal yet of how deeply the virus pandemic is hurting the airline industry. The outlook for a recovery in air travel has dimmed in just the past two weeks,...
Famed clothier Brooks Brothers files for bankruptcy
NEW YORK — The storied Manhattan clothier Brooks Brothers is filing for bankruptcy protection. The company that says it’s put 40 U.S. presidents in its suits survived two world wars and navigated through casual Fridays and a loosening of dress standards even on Wall Street, but the coronavirus pandemic pushed...
Duolingo co-founder threatens to move jobs from Pittsburgh to Toronto over immigration policies
A founder of Pittsburgh’s prized tech startup, Duolingo, indicated Monday that harsh immigration policies could force him to move the company – and its jobs – to Canada. Luis von Ahn wrote on Twitter that the Trump administration’s moves could cost Pittsburgh. “I’m proud that Duolingo, the most valuable startup...
Markets surge around the world; Nasdaq sets another recordVideo
NEW YORK — Stocks rallied worldwide Monday as investors bet that the economy can continue its dramatic turnaround despite all the challenges ahead. The S&P 500 rose 1.6%, following up on similar gains in Europe and Asia, and clawed back to within 6.1% of its record set in February. The...
