Business category, Page 294
Amazon’s stormy week will blow over, but debris will stay
SAN FRANCISCO — It’s been a complicated few weeks for Amazon, what with its abrupt pullout from a massive New York City development, extortion claims related to intimate photos taken by its founder Jeff Bezos and increasing antitrust scrutiny in Europe . For now, these events seem unlikely to pose...
Economic trends turn downward for farmers
Things are not looking good for the farm economy. On Thursday, the farm belt’s malaise deepened after the Department of Agriculture predicted soybean exports would stay below their pre-trade war levels until the 2026-2027 season. That followed a report that sales of the oilseed in early January had the worst...
Amazon lets amateurs publish custom Alexa apps to reach broad audiences
Amazon is enlisting customers to create voice-controlled games, broadcast lectures and sermons, and turn blogs into audio presentations available to anyone, through its growing universe of Alexa-enabled speaker-and-microphone devices. The move, rolled out this week, represents a potentially significant advancement for voice-first computing and content creation — akin to the...
U.S., Facebook negotiating record multibillion-dollar fine as a result of privacy lapses
The Federal Trade Commission and Facebook are negotiating over a multibillion-dollar fine that would settle the agency’s investigation into the social media giant’s privacy practices, according to two people familiar with the probe. The fine would be the largest the agency has ever imposed on a technology company, but the...
Arch Coal plans to open W.Va. mine, add nearly 600 jobs
CHARLESTON, W.Va.— Arch Coal Inc. says it plans to open a longwall mine in northcentral West Virginia and employ nearly 600 employees when it’s fully operational. The St. Louis-based coal producer announced the plans in a news release Thursday. The Leer South mine in Barbour County is expected to produce...
Warren Buffett’s firm tweaks stock portfolio, adds Suncor, Red Hat
OMAHA, Neb. — Billionaire Warren Buffett’s company has taken a new stake in Canadian firm Suncor Energy and trimmed its huge Apple stake. Berkshire Hathaway Inc. filed a quarterly update on its holdings with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday. The Omaha, Nebraska-based company said it owned 10.76 million...
Growth outlook weakens as a result of disappointing retail data
The surprising plunge in U.S. retail sales undermined the outlook for economic growth and is likely to leave the already-cautious Federal Reserve in an extended holding pattern. A government report out Thursday — delayed four weeks because of the partial federal shutdown — showed retail sales fell in December from...
Mortgage rates dip to their lowest levels in more than a year
After soaring to seven-year highs in November, mortgage rates have been on a steady decline the past 2½ months and this week sank to levels not seen in more than a year. According to the latest data released Thursday by Freddie Mac, the 30-year fixed-rate average dropped to 4.37 percent...
Amazon ditches New York headquarters, won’t seek new location
NEW YORK — Amazon will not be building a new headquarters in New York, a stunning reversal after a yearlong search. The online retailer faced opposition from some New York politicians, who were unhappy with the nearly $3 billion in tax incentives Amazon was promised. The Seattle-based Amazon had planned...
Store that boycotted Nike after Colin Kaepernick ad goes out of business
Colin Kaepernick implored people to believe in something take a stand in his Nike ad last fall. Colorado store owner Stephen Martin took Kaepernick’s advice. Angered by the former NFL quarterback’s message, Martin removed Nike inventory from Prime Time Sports in Colorado Springs — which led to him being forced...
Airbus abandons iconic A380 superjumbo, lacking clients
TOULOUSE, France — European plane maker Airbus said Thursday it will stop making its superjumbo A380 in 2021 for lack of customers, abandoning the world’s biggest passenger jet and one of the aviation industry’s most ambitious and most troubled endeavors. Barely a decade after the double-deck, 500-plus-seat plane started carrying...
Sheetz again makes Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For
A Pennsylvania company that’s open every day of the year has once again ranked as a great place to work. The Altoona-based Sheetz convenience store chain has ranked No. 85 on Fortune magazine’s list of 100 Best Places to Work for in America. That’s down a few notches from last...
Ford F-150 recalls 1.48 million pickups due to crash concern
DETROIT — Ford Motor Co. is aware of at least five accidents involving the best-selling F-150 pickup caused by unintended downshifting into first gear, which can lead to loss of control and crashes. Ford issued a recall Wednesday for 1.48 million F-150s in North America for model years 2011-13, along...
Couples learn how to be romantic and business partners
Debbie and Gary Douglas sometimes need to remind each other, this is your business partner talking. In business together for 16 years, the Douglases have found that being co-owners of a public relations firm requires them to be more direct with each other than they once were as spouses. Like...
Levi Strauss plans to raise $100M in initial public offering
SAN FRANCISCO — Well-known jeans company Levi Strauss & Co. says it plans to raise about $100 million through an initial public offering. The number of shares to be offered and the price range has yet to be determined. The total amount raised may change based on investor demand and...
Activision to lay off 800 workers as video game sales drop
SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Video game maker Activision Blizzard is laying off nearly 800 workers as the company braces for a steep downturn in revenue following the best year in its history. The cutbacks announced Tuesday illustrate the boom-and-bust cycles in an industry whose fortunes are tied to video games...
Fed Chairman Powell says prosperity not felt in all areas
ITTA BENA, Miss. — Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell traveled Tuesday to a historically black university in the Mississippi Delta to deliver a message that the nation’s prosperity has not been felt in many such areas around the country. Powell said that many rural areas had been left out and...
Stocks surge on U.S.-China trade deal optimism
U.S. stocks finished broadly higher Tuesday as investors grew more optimistic about the prospects for a resolution to the costly trade dispute between the United States and China. Technology, financial and health care stocks powered much of the rally, which gave the benchmark S&P 500 index its biggest gain this...
40 countries agree new cars must have automatic braking; U.S. skips deal
GENEVA — Forty countries led by Japan and the European Union — but not the U.S. or China — have agreed to require new cars and light commercial vehicles to be equipped with automated braking systems starting as soon as next year, a U.N. agency said Tuesday. The regulation will...
U.S. job openings jump to record high of 7.3 million
WASHINGTON — U.S. employers posted the most open jobs in December in the nearly two decades that records have been kept, evidence that the job market is strong despite several challenges facing the economy. The Labor Department said Tuesday that job openings jumped 2.4 percent in December to 7.3 million....
Record 7 million Americans are 3 months behind on car payments, a red flag for economy
A record 7 million Americans are 90 days or more behind on their auto loan payments, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported Tuesday, even more than during the wake of the financial crisis era. Economists warn this is a red flag. Despite the strong economy and low unemployment...
Toys R Us plans second act by holiday season
NEW YORK — Toys R Us fans in the United States should see the iconic brand re-emerge in some form by this holiday season. Richard Barry, a former Toys R Us executive and now CEO of the new company called Tru Kids Brands, told The Associated Press he and his...
U.S. Steel cites Trump in resuming construction project
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — U.S. Steel Corp. says it’s restarting construction on an idled manufacturing facility in Alabama, and it’s giving some of the credit to President Donald Trump’s trade policies. The Pittsburgh-based company says Trump’s “strong trade actions” are partly responsible for the resumption of work on an advanced plant...
Millions of Americans could be surprised as their tax refunds shrink
Millions of Americans filling out their 2018 taxes are likely to be surprised that their refund is smaller than expected or that they owe money to the Internal Revenue Service after years of receiving refunds. People are already taking to social media to vent their anger, and many are blaming...
Retail woes revealed in numbers
Until this month, it seemed as though U.S. retail employment had recovered from its apocalypse — the wave of store closures headlined by last year’s implosion of Toys R Us — and was nearing another record high. Then came the latest jobs report. Upon further review, the Labor Department revealed...
