Wire stories category, Page 118
China says new law will bar demands for technology handover
BEIJING — China will bar government authorities from demanding overseas companies hand over technology secrets in exchange for market share, a top economic official said Wednesday, addressing a key complaint at the heart of the China-U.S. trade dispute. The provision is contained in a foreign investment law to be debated...
Las Vegas bets on Elon Musk for tunnel transit system
LAS VEGAS — Entrepreneur Elon Musk’s dream of an express tunnel transit system could finally become a reality in Las Vegas after major setbacks in other cities. Las Vegas’ tourism agency announced Wednesday it is recommending that an enterprise backed by the divisive billionaire receive a contract to build and...
GM’s job cuts in Ohio show hot economy leaves parts of America behind
LORDSTOWN, Ohio — Scott Mezzapeso had to do something last month he never imagined: call his ex-wife and warn her that he might not be able to pay child support on time. Mezzapeso has a tattoo of his daughter on his left arm and rarely misses her high school softball...
Major brands avoid Trump even as he promotes them from the White House
In a scene likely worth millions of dollars in free advertising, President Trump displayed a spread of burgers from some of the country’s biggest fast-food chains inside the State Dining Room of the White House on Monday as hungry football players looked on. With cameras rolling, he offered a presidential...
Trader Joe’s customers (91,000 of them) petition store to reduce plastic packaging
Customers love Trader Joe’s for the company’s innovative products and affordable prices. All that plastic encasing cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes and cherries? Not so much. As of Tuesday, more than 91,000 people have signed a Change.org petition urging the Southern California-based chain to reduce its plastic packaging. “Trader Joe’s, I love...
Kraft Heinz keeps 5 test kitchens busy to stay relevant
GLENVIEW, Ill. — Robin Ross, director of culinary at Kraft Heinz, doesn’t need data to know how much consumer tastes have changed since processed food reigned supreme. When she was growing up, dinner often meant heating up a can of something on the stove, and when she was raising kids...
The federal deficit ballooned at start of new fiscal year, up 77 percent from a year before
WASHINGTON — The federal budget deficit ballooned rapidly in the first four months of the fiscal year amid falling tax revenue and higher spending, the Treasury Department said Tuesday, posing a new challenge for the White House and Congress and they prepare for a number of budget battles. The deficit...
Study examines how health consumers respond to surprise medical bills
WASHINGTON — When it comes to having a baby, that bundle of joy may bring an unexpected price tag that can affect parents’ future health care choices. At least that was the finding of a study published this week in Health Affairs. It examined how consumers respond to surprise medical...
Holiday season defines winners, losers in retail
NEW YORK — The 2018 holiday season turned out to be a mixed bag for retailers, with some of them defying a gloomy government report in December that raised concerns that shoppers were hunkering down everywhere. Retailers including Walmart, Target and Best Buy that have been responding faster to a...
Evidence grows that Trump’s trade wars are hitting U.S. economy
WASHINGTON — President Trump regularly declares that he’s winning his trade wars. Yet evidence is growing that the U.S. economy is a net loser so far. In two separate papers published over the weekend, some of the world’s leading trade economists declared Trump’s tariffs to be the most consequential trade...
Cheap prices will be the latest casualty of the trucker shortage
America’s trucker shortage is about to hit consumers right where it hurts: in the kitty litter. McDonald’s long-time distributor Martin-Brower Co. is raising delivery fees, imperiling low menu prices, and Procter & Gamble Co., Church & Dwight Co. and Hasbro Inc. are sounding the alarm that higher freight fees could...
EBay rethinking future of StubHub and classified business
NEW YORK — EBay said Friday that it is considering the sale or spin-off its ticket-reselling site StubHub and its classified ads business after a push from an activist investor. Back in January, Elliott Management said in a letter to the company in that it believed the e-commerce company would...
Martha Stewart partners with Canadian cannabis firm
No, you’re not smoking something. Martha Stewart has entered the fast-growing — but still legally murky — cannabis market. The domestic diva who brought us hemp yarn is now partnering with Canada’s Canopy Growth Corp. to develop new products containing CBD, a compound derived from hemp and marijuana that doesn’t...
Elon Musk’s long-promised $35,000 Model 3 has finally arrived, Tesla says
A Tesla electric car that mainstream drivers can afford has finally arrived, Elon Musk’s automaker said Thursday, finally achieving a long-delayed promise that could help propel the upstart automaker into the American middle-class garage. Tesla’s Model 3 sedan, already the country’s best-selling electric car, will now be offered at a...
Working parents are an endangered species. That’s why Democrats are talking child care.
Democrats’ child-care proposals, such as the plan put forward by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., last week, target an increasingly rare breed: the working parent. Parents make up a smaller share of the U.S. labor force now than at any other time in at least a century, according to our analysis...
Gap to create 2 independently publicly traded companies
NEW YORK — Gap Inc. is splitting into two. The retailer said Thursday that it’s creating two independent publicly traded companies — low-priced Old Navy and a yet-to-be named company, which will consist of the iconic Gap brand, Athleta, Banana Republic, Intermix and Hill City. The San Francisco-based company said...
J.C. Penney closes more stores as sales deteriorate
NEW YORK — J.C. Penney is closing more stores after a weak holiday sales season. Net income tumbled nearly 70 percent and revenue slid 8 percent in the fourth-quarter, the most crucial period of the year for retailers who bank on a surge in holiday sales. The company did beat...
Taxed and confused? Here’s where to get tax filing help
It’s tough to know all the answers at tax time, particularly in a year with massive tax law changes. Sometimes people need help, but where should they turn? Here are a few options: IRS The IRS has answers to most tax questions online. Its website also has a number of...
Coal official allegedly cheated on safety tests, putting miners at risk of black lung
LEXINGTON, Ky. — A coal company manager took part in cheating on tests designed to protect miners from contracting deadly black lung disease, a federal grand jury has charged. The grand jury issued a new indictment adding Glendal “Buddy” Hardison to a group of mine officials charged with conspiring to...
Race for shareholder profits has left workers in the dust, according to new research
A relentless focus on maximizing shareholder value has contributed to stagnant middle-class wages in the United States and fueled the rise of a society increasingly divided between haves and have-nots, according to a new working paper published by the Roosevelt Institute, a progressive economic think tank. “Nearly fifty years of...
Stair-climbing robot is hitting streets in FedEx delivery test
Call it R2-D2 without the attitude. FedEx Corp. envisions a not-too-distant future in which it relies on Star Wars-style robots for more deliveries, as portrayed in a company video. Imagine a box-shaped bot that can roll out of a neighborhood pharmacy and drop off prescription medicine at a nearby house....
A very merry Christmas at Best Buy with sales booming
NEW YORK — Best Buy put up some big holiday sales numbers Wednesday, more evidence that Americans are willing and able to spend on gadgets and big TVs. The nation’s consumer electronics chain delivered a better-than-expected 3 percent increase in sales at established stores for the fiscal fourth quarter. The...
Bayer vows strong defense in Roundup cancer cases
BERLIN — Germany’s Bayer AG, which bought Monsanto Co. last year, has underlined its determination to fight cases involving the Roundup weed-killer in the face of more than 11,000 lawsuits so far. In August, a San Francisco jury awarded a man $289 million after determining Roundup, part of the Monsanto...
Workers at ex-GE Transportation plant go on strike
ERIE — Workers at the former GE Transportation plant in northwestern Pennsylvania have gone on strike for the first time in a half-century, and a day after completion of a merger between GE Transportation and Wabtec. Employees at the plant now owned by Wabtec (the former Westinghouse Airbrakes Technologies Corp.)...
Stocks inch up on conflicting U.S. economic data, Fed remarks
U.S. stock indexes edged higher in afternoon trading Tuesday as investors weighed conflicting reports on how the U.S. economy is doing and remarks by the head of the Federal Reserve. Gains in technology and communications companies helped lift the market after a mid-afternoon slide, outweighing losses in health care and...
