Business category, Page 4
Dollar General ordered to pay $1.5M in penalties for overcharging customers
Discount chain Dollar General will pay $1.5 million in penalties for allegedly overcharging customers, according to Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday. Sunday announced he reached a settlement with Dollar General Corp. and its parent company, Dolgen Corp., after an investigation found customers were being charged higher prices than what was...
Oreo is bringing zero-sugar cookies to the U.S.
Rejoice, New Year’s dieters: Oreos are getting a sugar-free option. Mondelez said Tuesday that Oreo Zero Sugar and Oreo Double Stuf Zero Sugar will go on sale in the U.S. in January. They’re a permanent addition to the company’s Oreo lineup. It’s the first time Mondelez has sold sugar-free Oreos...
U.S. job openings barely budged in October, coming in just below 7.7 million
WASHINGTON — U.S. job openings barely budged in October, coming in at 7.7 million with ongoing uncertainty over the direction of the American economy. The Labor Department reported Tuesday that employers posted 7.67 million vacancies in October, close to September’s 7.66 million. The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS),...
Federal Reserve set to cut rate but may signal a pause to come
WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve faces an unusually contentious meeting this week that will test Chair Jerome Powell’s ability to corral the necessary support from fellow policymakers for a third straight interest rate cut. The Fed’s 19-member rate-setting committee is sharply divided over whether to lower borrowing costs again. The...
Massachusetts court hears arguments in lawsuit alleging Meta designed apps to be addictive to kids
BOSTON — Massachusetts’ highest court heard oral arguments Friday in the state’s lawsuit arguing that Meta designed features on Facebook and Instagram to make them addictive to young users. The lawsuit, filed in 2024 by Attorney General Andrea Campbell, alleges that Meta did this to make a profit and that...
Paramount goes hostile in bid for Warner Bros., challenging a $72 billion offer by Netflix
NEW YORK — Paramount on Monday launched a hostile takeover offer for Warner Bros. Discovery, initiating a potentially bruising battle with rival bidder Netflix to buy the company behind HBO, CNN and a famed movie studio along with the power to reshape much of the nation’s entertainment landscape. Emerging just...
Wall Street flirts with its all-time high
NEW YORK — The U.S. stock market is flirting with its all-time high on Friday. The S&P 500 rose 0.3% and was on track earlier in the day to squeak past its record closing level, which was set in October. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 164 points, or...
Netflix to acquire Warner Bros. studio and streaming business for $72 billion
NEW YORK — Netflix has struck a deal with Warner Bros. Discovery to buy the legacy Hollywood giant’s studio and streaming business for $72 billion. The acquisition, announced Friday, would bring two of the industry’s biggest players in film and TV under one roof. Beyond its namesake television and motion...
EU hits Elon Musk’s X with 120 million euro fine for breaching bloc’s social media law
LONDON — European Union regulators on Friday fined Elon Musk’s social media platform X $140 million for breaches of the bloc’s digital regulations that they said could leave users exposed to scams and manipulation. The European Commission issued its decision following an investigation it opened two years ago into X...
Cloudflare investigates outage that brought down sites including Zoom and LinkedIn
MADRID — Internet infrastructure company Cloudflare on Friday said it was investigating an outage that took place in the morning that brought down several global websites including LinkedIn, Zoom and others, the second such crash to affect the company in less than three weeks. Cloudflare said the issue had been...
Even in digital era, in-person shopping is still a part of the holiday experience
In an era when people can buy gifts with the click of a mouse or push of a button, in-person retail shopping is still an important part of the American holiday shopping experience. A study from JLL, a real estate services company, found that only 16.3% of consumers plan to...
U.S. Steel fined for leaking oil into Monongahela River
U.S. Steel must pay $135,000 and establish stronger pollution controls after environmental regulators found the steelmaker’s West Mifflin facility was leaking oil into the Monongahela River. An agreement announced Tuesday between U.S. Steel and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection requires the company to monitor wastewater from the Irvin Works...
U.S. filings for jobless benefits fall to 191,000, lowest since September of 2022
WASHINGTON — U.S. applications for unemployment benefits fell to their lowest level in more than three years last week, potentially complicating the Federal Reserve’s upcoming decision on interest rates. The number of Americans applying for jobless benefits for the week ending Nov. 29 fell to 191,000 from the previous week’s...
Pa. Amazon warehouse worker sues company, saying she was fired for being pregnant
A Dauphin County woman who worked at the Amazon warehouse in Carlisle is suing the company for discrimination, saying she was illegally fired for being pregnant. Malissa Saintus-Trammel, of Hummelstown, says the online shopping giant forced her to take unpaid leave due to her pregnancy when she didn’t require accommodations....
Trump proposal would weaken vehicle mileage rules that limit air pollution
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced a proposal to weaken vehicle mileage rules for the auto industry, loosening regulatory pressure on automakers to control pollution from gasoline-powered cars and trucks. The plan, if finalized next year, would significantly reduce fuel economy requirements, which set rules on how far...
John Dorfman: Insiders buy at Carrier, Hershey and T-Mobile
A few corporate chieftains bought their own company’s stock in November. Numerous studies, most notably at the University of Michigan, have shown insiders do better, on average, than regular investors. Trades by chief executive officers generally do better than those of other insiders. Let’s glance at a quintet of insider...
Costco becomes biggest company yet to demand refund of Trump tariffs
WASHINGTON — Costco is joining other companies that aren’t waiting to see whether the Supreme Court strikes down President Donald Trump’s most sweeping import taxes. They’re going to court to demand refunds on the tariffs they’ve paid. The U.S. Court of International Trade and the U.S. Court of Appeals for...
Wall Street holds steadier as bond yields and bitcoin stabilize
NEW YORK — The U.S. stock market is holding relatively steady on Tuesday as both bond yields and bitcoin stabilize. The S&P 500 rose 0.2%, coming off its first loss in six days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 116 points, or 0.2%, as of 11:50 a.m. Eastern time,...
Netflix offers mostly cash for Warner Bros. in new bid round
Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. was fielding a second round of bids on Monday, including a mostly cash offer from Netflix Inc., in an auction that could wrap up in the coming days or weeks, according to people familiar with the discussions. Bankers for Paramount Skydance Corp., Comcast Corp. and Netflix...
Decline in alcohol consumption leads to rare sales drop at Pa. liquor stores
Pennsylvania’s wine and spirits sales dipped last fiscal year for only the second time in the past three decades. According to the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, sales for the 2024-25 fiscal year totaled nearly $3.2 billion. That was down almost $21 million, or 0.6%, compared to the previous year. Net...
Bitcoin dips below $85,000 briefly in crypto rout
Bitcoin and companies tied to cryptocurrencies extended a nearly two-month swoon Monday, tracking with a broader market sell-off in technology companies that many see as overvalued. Bitcoin slid 5.6% after being down nearly 12% earlier in the day, settling in just above $85,000. The most-traded cryptocurrency is down about 33%...
Pennsylvania loses hundreds of pharmacies after a law promised help
Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit newsroom producing investigative and public-service journalism that holds power to account and drives positive change in Pennsylvania. Sign up for our free newsletters. HARRISBURG — As pharmacy closures have continued across the state, a bipartisan group of lawmakers has questioned how the...
Why Cyber Monday could break spending records despite economic uncertainty
NEW YORK — Deals promoted as some of the best of the holiday season are expected to keep people across the United States glued to their computers and smartphones as the post-Thanksgiving shopping marathon wraps up on Cyber Monday. It’s no secret that buying things online is now a staple...
Trump says he has made his choice to lead the Federal Reserve
President Donald Trump said Sunday he has decided on his pick for the next Federal Reserve chair after making clear he expects his nominee to deliver interest-rate cuts. “I know who I am going to pick, yeah,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on his way back to Washington,...
AI-assisted shopping is the talk of the holiday shopping season
NEW YORK — Major retail chains and tech companies are offering new or updated artificial intelligence tools in time for the holiday shopping season, hoping to give consumers an easier gift-buying experience and themselves an augmented share of online spending. Although AI-powered purchases are in early stages, the shopping assistants...
