Wire stories category, Page 118
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...
Another ceasefire: Can the U.S. and China end their trade war?
WASHINGTON — Relief swept across world financial markets Monday after President Donald Trump pushed back a March 2 deadline in a trade dispute with China. But the respite might not last. The world’s two biggest economies have squared off over Beijing’s aggressive campaign to turn Chinese companies into world leaders...
Your phone could soon recognize you based on how you move or walk
Within 18 months, your phone may be able to identify you based on the gait of your walk, the tension in your hand or the way your thumb moves across the touch screen. That’s the Pentagon’s plan: It’s in the final phase of testing technology that will reduce smartphone users’...
SEC wants Tesla CEO Elon Musk held in contempt for tweeting
SAN FRANCISCO — Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s tweeting habits have triggered another legal challenge from stock market regulators worried about him using his Twitter account to mislead investors. The latest dust-up emerged late Monday when the Securities and Exchange Commission asked a federal court in New York to hold Musk...
Stocks rise broadly after Trump postpones tariff increase
NEW YORK — Stocks moved broadly higher on Wall Street after President Donald Trump agreed to hold off on raising tariffs on Chinese goods, which would have escalated a damaging trade war between the world’s two largest economies. Investors had been growing increasingly optimistic over the last two weeks that...
Warren Buffett praises potential successors, but he has no plans to retire
OMAHA, Neb. — Billionaire Warren Buffett says the economy continues growing although the rate of improvement has slowed, and the ongoing U.S. trade dispute remains a concern. Buffett appeared on CNBC Monday after releasing his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders over the weekend. “Right now things look fine,” said...
China’s Huawei unveils 5G phone with folding screen
BARCELONA, Spain — China’s Huawei unveiled a new folding-screen phone on Sunday, joining the latest trend for bendable devices as it challenges the global smartphone market’s dominant players, Apple and Samsung. Huawei revealed its Mate X phone on the eve of MWC Barcelona, a four-day showcase of mobile devices, as...
Ground-breaking electric Chevrolet Volt runs out of juice
DETROIT — As their company was swirling around the financial drain in the early 2000s, General Motors executives came up with an idea to counter its gas-guzzling image and point the way to transportation of the future: an electric car with a gas-engine backup that could travel anywhere. At Detroit’s...
Stocks climb, giving S&P 500 its 4th straight weekly gain
Technology and health care companies led U.S. stocks higher Friday, erasing some of the market’s losses from a day earlier and giving the benchmark S&P 500 its fourth straight weekly gain. The broad rally came as investors grew hopeful that the latest round of talks between the U.S. and China...
Kraft Heinz plunges near record low on $15.4 billion writedown
Kraft Heinz Co. recorded a $15.4 billion non-cash charge to write down assets including some of its most well-known brands, a striking acknowledgment that changing consumer tastes have destroyed the value of some of the company’s most iconic products. The packaged food giant’s charge to reduce the goodwill value of...
‘Ugly produce’ trend may have limits, as grocers end tests
URBANDALE, Iowa — Is the “ugly produce’” trend already reaching the end of its shelf life in supermarkets? Walmart and Whole Foods in recent years tried selling some blemished fruits and vegetables at a discount, produce they said might otherwise be trashed because it’s not quite the right size, shape...
