Business category, Page 7
Irwin OKs plans for Chipotle restaurant
Irwin officials gave the green light to a national Mexican food chain’s plan to build one of its 4,000 restaurants along Route 30 in the borough. Borough council on Wednesday unanimously approved the land development plan from Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. for its eatery at 9174 Route 30, the site...
Verizon outage disrupts calling and data services for phone customers across the country
NEW YORK — Many Verizon customers encountered a widespread outage on Wednesday, disrupting calling and other cellular services across the U.S. The New York-based carrier acknowledged that there was an “issue impacting wireless voice and data services.” Verizon didn’t specify what was causing the disruptions, but said in an update...
PNC mandates 5-day office work week for all employees
PNC said today that all employees will return to the office five days a week starting May 4. In a memo sent Wednesday morning, Chairman and CEO Bill Demchak said PNC has “always been an in-office company. “It’s not just how we operate — it’s part of our culture,” he...
Plans for $500M Bakery Square expansion retooled by Walnut Capital
Dwindling demand for office space has forced a developer to rethink a major expansion of its sprawling Bakery Square development in Pittsburgh’s East End and focus on retail and housing instead of office space. Pittsburgh-based developer Walnut Capital for years has been eyeing a 14-acre, $500 million extension of its...
Luxury retailer Saks seeks bankruptcy protection overwhelmed by debt
The owner of Saks Fifth Avenue is seeking bankruptcy protection, buffeted by rising competition and the massive debt it took on to buy its rival in the luxury sector, Neiman Marcus, just over a year ago. Saks Global, which also operates Bergdorf Goodman, has secured roughly $1.75 billion in financing,...
Trump visits Ford plant and defends his tariffs, hoping to counter jitters about the economy
DETROIT — President Donald Trump offered a full-throated defense of his sweeping tariffs on Tuesday, traveling to swing-state Michigan to push the case that he’s boosted domestic manufacturing in hopes of countering fears about a weakening job market and still-rising prices that have squeezed American pocketbooks. Trump visited the factory...
Wall Street executives warn Trump: Stop attacking the Fed, credit card industry
NEW YORK — Up until this week, Wall Street has generally benefited from the Trump administration’s policies and has been supportive of the president. That relationship has suddenly soured. When President Donald Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill into law in July, it pushed another significant round of tax...
Rutter’s opens 1st store in Westmoreland CountyVideo
Rutter’s, the convenience chain founded by members of the Rutter farm family in York, opened its first location in Westmoreland County on Tuesday. The convenience store, gas station and truck stop located at the corner of Interstate 70 and Waltz Mill Road in Sewickley Township also includes a small bar...
Value City Furniture to close all Western Pa. locations
Value City Furniture and American Signature Furniture are going out of business. All retail stores will be permanently closing, including those in Western Pennsylvania. Value City Furniture’s parent company, American Signature Inc., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November. All remaining stores are being liquidated. There are four Value City...
Microsoft’s Brad Smith pushes Big Tech to ‘pay our way’ for AI data centers amid rising opposition
It won’t be easy for Big Tech companies to win the hearts and minds of Americans who are angered about massive artificial intelligence data centers sprouting up in their neighborhoods, straining electricity grids and drawing on local reservoirs. Microsoft is trying anyway. The software giant’s president, Brad Smith, is meeting...
Inflation cooled slightly in December though it remains above Fed’s target
WASHINGTON — Inflation cooled a bit last month as prices for gas and used cars fell, a sign that stubbornly elevated cost pressures are slowly easing. Consumer prices rose 0.3% in December from the prior month, the U.S. Labor Department said Tuesday, the same as in November. Excluding the volatile...
Richland play cafe owner looks to create place where children, parents can make memories together
After her childhood plan of becoming a school teacher didn’t turn out the way she thought it would, Ashley Domenick is pursuing a new dream of opening a play cafe. The Busy Berry Play Cafe is scheduled to open Jan. 19 at the Richland Mall in Richland, near Emiliano’s Mexican...
Apple calls on Google to help smarten up Siri and bring other AI features to iPhone
Apple will rely on Google to help finish its efforts to smarten up its virtual assistant Siri and bring other artificial intelligence features to the iPhone as the trendsetting company plays catch up in technology’s latest craze. The deal allowing Apple to tap into Google’s AI technology was disclosed Monday...
Allegheny Health Network promotes West Penn Hospital head to run regional doctors group
Allegheny Health Network tapped West Penn Hospital’s top official Monday to lead a regional affiliation of doctors and their practices. Dr. Brian Johnson, who’s been president of West Penn Hospital since 2020, was named medical director and chief population health officer at Physician Partners of Western PA. He succeeds Dr....
Dina Powell McCormick, wife of U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick, named Meta president
Dina Powell McCormick, a close ally of the Trump administration and the wife of U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick, is Meta’s new president and vice chairman. The Facebook parent company announced her appointment Monday, making a figure with Southwestern Pennsylvania ties a central decision-maker for one of the world’s largest tech...
China and the EU agree on steps to resolve their dispute over EV imports
HONG KONG — China and the European Union said Monday they have agreed on steps toward resolving their dispute over the bloc’s imports of Chinese-made electric vehicles. A “guidance document” released by the EU on Monday gives instructions for Chinese EV manufacturers on making price offers for EV exports, including...
Waiting game: More than 5 years after plans OK’d, Menards yet to arrive in Hempfield
Even though Menards didn’t have the decorative wood paneling Karl Doerk was looking for, he didn’t leave empty-handed. He settled on railroad toys instead. Doerk and his wife usually make the drive to the Menards near Morgantown, W.Va., once or twice a month from their home in Cumberland, Md., a...
Trump ‘inclined’ to keep ExxonMobil out of Venezuela after CEO response at White House meeting
ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE — President Donald Trump said Sunday that he is “inclined” to keep ExxonMobil out of Venezuela after its top executive was skeptical about oil investment efforts in the country after the toppling of former President Nicolás Maduro. “I didn’t like Exxon’s response,” Trump said to reporters...
Federal Reserve Chair Powell says DOJ has subpoenaed central bank, threatens criminal indictmentVideo
WASHINGTON — Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Sunday the Department of Justice has served the central bank with subpoenas and threatened it with a criminal indictment over his testimony this summer about the Fed’s building renovations. The move represents an unprecedented escalation in President Donald Trump’s battle with the...
Google teams up with Walmart and other retailers to enable shopping within Gemini AI chatbot
NEW YORK — Google said Sunday that it is expanding the shopping features in its AI chatbot by teaming up with Walmart, Shopify, Wayfair and other big retailers to turn the Gemini app into a virtual merchant as well as an assistant. An instant checkout function will allow customers to...
A $400,000 payout after Maduro’s capture is putting prediction markets in the spotlight
Prediction markets let people wager on anything from a basketball game to the outcome of a presidential election — and recently, the downfall of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The latter is drawing renewed scrutiny into this murky world of speculative, 24/7 transactions. Last week, an anonymous trader pocketed more...
Trump pushes a 1-year, 10% cap on credit card interest rates and banks balk
NEW YORK — Reviving a campaign pledge, President Donald Trump wants a one-year, 10% cap on credit card interest rates, a move that could save Americans tens of billions of dollars but drew immediate opposition from an industry that has been in his corner. Trump was not clear in his...
Hemingway’s Cafe closure prompted by family matters, changing drinking habits, owner says
When John Elavsky took over Hemingway’s Cafe in the early 1990s, one of the building’s owners — a mentor of his — imparted wisdom that stuck with him. “John, you better be here,” Elavsky, 68, remembers Leo Xyftis telling him. In other words, absentee ownership wasn’t going to cut it....
A high-risk, potentially high-reward way to pick stocks
“There are simple answers, just not easy ones,” Ronald Reagan once said. In stock investing, a simple, risky but surprisingly effective technique is to buy the cheapest stocks out there. That’s the point of my Robot Portfolio, a hypothetical portfolio in which the stocks are chosen by a computer, not...
Sluggish hiring closes out a frustrating year for job seekers though unemployment slips to 4.4%
WASHINGTON — Sluggish December hiring concluded a year of weak employment gains that have frustrated job seekers even though layoffs and unemployment remained low. Employers added just 50,000 jobs last month, nearly unchanged from a downwardly revised figure of 56,000 in November, the Labor Department said Friday. The unemployment rate...
