Business category, Page 73
Economic growth increased last quarter to a healthy 2.8% annual rateVideo
WASHINGTON — The nation’s economy accelerated last quarter at a strong 2.8% annual pace, with consumers and businesses helping drive growth despite the pressure of continually high interest rates. Thursday’s report from the Commerce Department said the gross domestic product — the economy’s total output of goods and services —...
Workers go on strike at 5-star Paris hotel where IOC members are staying for Olympics
Workers went on strike Thursday at the five-star hotel in Paris where members of the International Olympic Committee are staying, walking out just a day before the opening ceremony of the Games. According to the major French union CGT, the IOC paid the hotel where staffers were striking, Hôtel du...
Average rate on a 30-year mortgage inches up to 6.78%, first uptick in 3 weeks
LOS ANGELES — Mortgage rates inched higher this week, keeping the average rate on a 30-year mortgage essentially flat and near the 7% range it’s been in most of this year. The rate rose to 6.78% from 6.77% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. A year ago, the...
Southwest Airlines plans to start assigning seats, breaking with a 50-year tradition
DALLAS — Goodbye, cattle call. Southwest Airlines said Thursday that it plans to drop the open-boarding system it has used for more than 50 years and will start assigning passengers to seats, just like all the other big airlines. The airline said it has been studying seating options, running tests...
Ford’s Q2 net income falls 4.7% as pretax profits drop at combustion engine unit
DETROIT — Ford Motor Co.’s second-quarter net income fell 4.7% from a year ago as the company’s combustion engine unit posted a pretax loss due to higher warranty costs. The Dearborn, Mich., automaker said Wednesday it made $1.83 billion from April through June, compared with $1.92 billion a year ago....
NBA says it has entered deal with Amazon, not accepting Warner Bros. Discovery’s offer
The NBA said Wednesday that it is not accepting Warner Bros. Discovery’s $1.8 billion per year offer to continue its longtime relationship with the league and therefore has entered into a deal with Amazon Prime Video, a move that would mean this coming season would end a nearly four-decade run...
Wall Street wipeout: S&P 500 falls 2% as Big Tech skids
NEW YORK — A wipeout on Wednesday sent U.S. stock indexes to their worst losses since 2022 after profit reports from Tesla and Alphabet helped suck momentum from Wall Street’s frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology. The S&P 500 tumbled 2.3% for its fifth drop in the past six days. The Dow...
Disney reaches tentative agreement with California theme park workers
ANAHEIM, Calif. — Disney has reached a tentative agreement with four unions representing thousands of workers at its California theme parks, including ride operators, candy makers and parking attendants. The coalition of unions said early Wednesday that its 14,000 workers will get to vote on the deal on Monday. No...
Strike at plant that makes truck seats forces production stoppage for Missouri General Motors
Production has halted at a Missouri General Motors plant that manufactures trucks and vans, the result of a strike at the company that supplies seats for the vehicles. About 480 workers at Lear Corp. in Wentzville walked out at midnight Sunday. The strike brought production to a standstill Monday at...
Crowdstrike blames update for letting bad data slip through causing global tech outage
Crowdstrike is blaming a bug in an update that allowed its cybersecurity systems to push bad data out to millions of customer computers, setting off last week’s global tech outage that grounded flights, took TV broadcasts off air and disrupted banks, hospitals and retailers. Crowdstrike also said it would take...
How college sports video games became the entry point to dismantle the NCAA’s amateurism rules
Sonny Vaccaro knew nothing about the law. He did know a lot about college sports and was sure the athletes who were driving millions of dollars in revenue to their schools should be paid. Michael Hausfeld knew nothing about college sports, but it didn’t take long for the attorney who...
Google makes abrupt U-turn by dropping plan to remove ad-tracking cookies on Chrome browser
LONDON — Google is dropping plans to eliminate cookies from its Chrome web browser, making a sudden U-turn on four years of work to phase out a technology that helps businesses tracks users online. The company had been working on retiring third-party cookies, which are snippets of code that log...
With U.S. vehicle prices averaging near $50K, General Motors sees 2nd-quarter profits rise 15%
DETROIT — U.S. customers who bought a new General Motors vehicle last quarter paid an average of just under $49,900, a price that helped push the company’s net income 15% above a year ago. And GM Chief Financial Officer Paul Jacobson said he doesn’t see his company cutting prices very...
Judge orders Comprehensive Healthcare to pay nearly $36M for labor violations
A federal judge on Monday ordered an embattled nursing home corporation to pay nearly $36 million in back wages and penalties after finding that Comprehensive Healthcare Management Services violated U.S. labor laws. U.S. District Judge William Stickman IV ordered the company, which operated 15 nursing homes in Western Pennsylvania, to...
Warner Bros. Discovery informs NBA it will match Amazon Prime Video’s offer to carry games
Turner Sports intends to continue its longtime relationship with the NBA. Warner Bros. Discovery informed the league Monday that it will match the $1.8 billion per year offer by Amazon Prime Video. Turner has had an NBA package since 1984 and games have been on TNT since the network launched...
Cleveland-Cliffs will make electrical transformers at shuttered West Virginia tin plant
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Cleveland-Cliffs announced Monday it will produce electrical transformers in a $150 million investment at a West Virginia facility that closed earlier this year. The company hopes to reopen the Weirton facility in early 2026 and “address the critical shortage of distribution transformers that is stifling economic growth...
CrowdStrike CEO called to testify to Congress over cybersecurity’s firm role in global tech outage
AUSTIN, Tex. — U.S. House leaders are calling on CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz to testify to Congress about the cybersecurity company’s role in sparking the widespread tech outage that grounded flights, knocked banks and hospital systems offline and affected services around the world. CrowdStrike said this week a “significant number”...
U.S. investigates some Jeep and Ram vehicles after getting complaints of abrupt engine stalling
DETROIT — U.S. auto safety regulators are investigating complaints that some Ram pickup trucks and Jeep Wagoneer SUVs can lose power, shift into park and apply the emergency brake. The probe announced Monday by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration covers about 150,000 vehicles made by Stellantis from the 2022...
Delta Air Lines says cancellations continue as it tries to restore operations after tech outage
NEW YORK — Airlines, including Delta Air Lines, continued to struggle to restore operations two days after a faulty software update caused technological havoc worldwide and resulted in several carriers grounding flights. According to the latest data from FlightAware, there were 1,461 total cancellations within, into, or out of the...
Tropical Bungalow celebrates 2 years of connecting kids, customers
When visitors at Tropical Bungalow pick up their burgers, fries and ice cream, the employees who serve them are getting more than just a paycheck. At least, that’s owner Sydney Papinchak’s goal. The restaurant along Route 30 in Hempfield has been home to 12 employees. For most of them, working...
Rivers Casino workers, fearful of gambling on health, rally behind effort to ban smoking
Alicia Monahan blames secondhand smoke for two fainting episodes she experienced while working at Rivers Casino on Pittsburgh’s North Shore. The table games dealer said she’s otherwise healthy but sometimes feels the effects of the smoke getting to her. Since she started working at the casino in 2019, she collapsed...
All in the family: 4th-generation employee retires after more than 4 decades working at Peoples Natural Gas
Craig Wyke’s first job at Peoples Natural Gas was in the delinquent accounts department. “I had to inform people their gas was about to be turned off,” said Wyke, who grew up in Penn Hills and lives in West Deer, as he recalled his more than 40-year career with the...
Amazon says this year’s Prime Day was its biggest ever
NEW YORK — Amazon saw record sales for Prime Day this week as Prime members purchased more items than ever before, the company announced Thursday. The Seattle e-commerce giant, which does not disclose how much it earns during the popular discount event, also said “millions” of customers joined Prime in...
More Americans apply for jobless benefits as layoffs settle at higher levels in recent weeks
U.S. filings for unemployment benefits rose again last week and appear to be settling consistently at a slightly higher though still healthy level that the Federal Reserve has been aiming for. Jobless claims for the week ending July 13 rose by 20,000 to 243,000 from 223,000 the previous week, the...
The last cards have been dealt as the iconic Mirage closes its doors on the Las Vegas Strip
LAS VEGAS — A final blast from The Mirage’s signature volcano marked the passage Wednesday of an aging Las Vegas resort that wowed crowds when it opened in 1989 and went on to revolutionize the casino resort industry and reshape Las Vegas as a tourist destination. “What would The Mirage...
