Wire stories category, Page 29
Gucci’s CEO is stepping down as its French parent shakes up leadership
LONDON — The president and CEO of Gucci is stepping down later this year, the latest shakeup to the luxury fashion brand and coming as part of a series of changes to its parent company, the French conglomerate Kering. Marco Bizzarri will depart the Italian design house in September after...
In-N-Out bans employees from wearing masks
California fast-food institution In-N-Out Burger announced that it will soon ban employees from wearing masks in five of the seven states in which it operates restaurants, according to an internal memo leaked Friday The exceptions? Workers in California and Oregon will still be able to mask, if they choose, to...
Americans bump up spending in June as inflation eases in a strong jobs market
NEW YORK — Americans increased their spending last month as inflation eased in many areas, and the job market remained remarkably strong. Retail sales rose 0.2% from May to June, following a revised 0.5% increase the previous month, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday. The figure matched the pace of consumer...
Base F-150 Lightning electric pickup will cost less than $50,000 as Ford slashes prices across line
The sticker prices for Ford’s F-150 Lightning electric pickup trucks are being lowered by thousands of dollars across the board, the company said Monday, due to increased plant capacity, falling costs for battery raw materials and internal efforts to scale production by the Detroit automaker. The price cuts across the...
Microsoft agrees to keep Call of Duty on Sony Playstation after it buys Activision Blizzard
NEW YORK — Microsoft has signed an agreement with Sony to keep the Call of Duty video game series on the PlayStation console after the tech giant acquires video game maker Activision Blizzard. The announcement was made Sunday in a Twitter post by Phil Spencer, who heads up Microsoft’s Xbox...
Teamsters president says he’s asked the White House not to intervene if UPS workers go on strike
NEW YORK — The head of the Teamsters said Sunday that he has asked the White House not to intervene if unionized UPS workers end up going on strike. Negotiations between the delivery company and the union representing 340,000 of its workers have been at a standstill for more than...
Editorial cartoonists’ firings point to steady decline of opinion pages in newspapers
NEW YORK — Even during a year of sobering economic news for media companies, the layoffs of three Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonists on a single day hit like a gut punch. The firings of the cartoonists employed by the McClatchy newspaper chain last week were a stark reminder of how...
IRS says it collected $38 million from more than 175 high-income tax delinquents
WASHINGTON — The IRS is showcasing its new capability to aggressively audit high-income tax dodgers as it makes the case for sustained funding and tries to avert budget cuts sought by Republicans who want to gut the agency. IRS leaders said they collected $38 million in delinquent taxes from more...
OpenAI’s ChatGPT bot probed by FTC over consumer harms
The Federal Trade Commission has opened an investigation into OpenAI Inc., questioning whether its popular ChatGPT conversational AI bot puts consumers’ reputations and data at risk, according to a person familiar with the matter. The probe into the Microsoft Corp.-backed startup marks the first official inquiry into a technology that...
Kia to invest $200M in Georgia plant to begin building electric SUV there, hiring 200
ATLANTA — Kia Corp. will invest $200 million in its Georgia factory to begin producing an electric-powered SUV, the company announced Wednesday. The South Korean company said it would hire an additional 200 workers to begin producing its large EV9 vehicle in West Point by early 2024. The company said...
Domino’s signs deal with Uber Eats in a bid to make more dough
If you can’t beat them, join them. In a major reversal, Domino’s Pizza said Wednesday it’s partnering with Uber Eats to make deliveries in the U.S. and 27 international markets. While franchisees in a handful of international markets like the Netherlands have been working with third-party apps for years, Domino’s...
Pioneering Anchor Brewing Co. to halt operations after 127 years with beer sales in declineVideo
San Francisco’s 127-year-old Anchor Brewing Co. will shut down and liquidate after years of declining sales, citing tough economic conditions. Anchor was a trailblazer in the United States, brewing craft beers in the 1970s when most Americans were loyal to a handful of major brands. Its unique brewing techniques ignited...
3 tax prep firms shared ‘extraordinarily sensitive’ data about taxpayers with Meta, lawmakers say
WASHINGTON — Three large tax preparation firms sent “extraordinarily sensitive” information on tens of millions of taxpayers to Facebook parent company Meta over the course of at least two years, a group of congressional Democrats reported on Wednesday. They say some of that data was then used by Meta to...
BofA hit with $250 million in fines and customer refunds for ‘double-dipping’ fees, fake accounts
NEW YORK — Bank of America will reimburse customers more than $100 million and pay $150 million in fines for “double-dipping” on overdraft fees, withholding reward bonuses on credit cards and opening accounts without customer consent. Combined, it is one of the highest financial penalties in years against Bank of...
Amazon Prime Day isn’t the catalyst it used to be
Amazon.com Inc.’s annual Prime Day shows that e-commerce isn’t the driver it once was for the stock, as investor focus shifts to the company’s faster-growing and profitable cloud-computing unit. In the past four years, the stock has fallen in the week of the two-day sale in which the retail giant...
New York Times disbands sports department, will rely on coverage from The Athletic
The New York Times is disbanding its sports department and will rely on coverage from The Athletic, a website it acquired last year for $550 million. The decision impacts more than 35 people in the sports department, according to The New York Times. Journalists on the sports desk will move...
TikTok, 5 content creators ask federal judge to block Montana from banning appVideo
TikTok Inc. and a group of five content creators who are suing the state of Montana over its first-in-the-nation law to ban the video sharing app are now asking a federal judge to block implementation of the law while the case moves through the courts and before it takes effect...
No more free coffee on your birthday? Companies rein in customer rewards programs — here’s why
WASHINGTON — Reward programs, including birthday freebies and discounts, have long been a way for brands to build loyalty and incentivize spending. But now some companies are becoming a bit more stingy — and customers are taking notice. Last fall, for example, many balked at Dunkin’s decision to stop offering...
U.S. job openings dip to 9.8 million but remain high, showing resilience in labor market
WASHINGTON — U.S. job openings slipped in May but remained at levels high enough to illustrate that the American labor market remains resilient in the face of sharply higher interest rates. Employers posted 9.8 million job vacancies, down from 10.3 million in April, the Labor Department said Thursday. But layoffs...
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen visits China as part of efforts to soothe strained relations
BEIJING — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen plans to tell Chinese officials that Washington wants healthy economic competition but will defend trade curbs imposed by the U.S. on security grounds and express concern about Beijing’s export controls on metals used in semiconductors and solar panels, a senior Treasury official said Thursday....
Strong demand drives U.S. new vehicle sales higher in 1st half of year
Demand for new SUVs, trucks and cars in the U.S. picked up steam in the second quarter, but the stronger sales kept prices high for consumers. Auto sales rose a healthy 16.8% from April through June to just over 4.1 million, fueled by pent-up demand from nearly two years of...
Stalemate: UPS, Teamsters contract talks break down with each side blaming the other
Contract negotiations between UPS and the union representing 340,000 of the company’s workers broke down early Wednesday with each side blaming the other for walking away from talks. The Teamsters have imposed several deadlines for United Parcel Service negotiators to make their “last, best and final” offer to its unionized...
Meta takes aim at Twitter with the launch of rival app Threads
LONDON — Meta unveiled an app to rival Twitter on Thursday, appearing to target users looking for an alternative to the social media platform owned — and frequently changed — by Elon Musk. Called Threads, the new offering is billed as a text-based version of Meta’s photo-sharing app Instagram that...
Price of a stamp rises to 66 cents, the second hike this year and the 5th increase since 2019
NEW YORK — Stamps prices are on the rise, again — one of several changes the U.S. Postal Service is rolling out this month. Starting Sunday, the cost of the first-class “forever” stamps will jump from 63 to 66 cents. The latest price comes just months after forever stamps climbed...
North American trade pact on 3rd anniversary: Optimism rising for U.S., Mexican workers
WASHINGTON — To President Donald Trump, America’s trade relationship with Mexico was intolerable. He seethed over the U.S. trade deficit and the shuttered factories in America’s heartland. “No longer,” he vowed six years ago, “are we going to allow other countries to break the rules, to steal our jobs and...
