Wire stories category, Page 30
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...
Elon Musk imposes daily limits on reading posts on Twitter
SAN FRANCISCO — Twitter owner Elon Musk has limited the number of tweets that users can view each day — restrictions he described as an attempt to prevent unauthorized scraping of potentially valuable data from the social media platform. The site is now requiring people to log on to view...
Saying strike is ‘imminent,’ UPS gets a deadline from union to come up with a better contract
Frustrated by an “appalling counterproposal” earlier this week, the head of the union representing 340,000 UPS workers said a strike is imminent and gave the shipping giant a deadline on Friday to improve its offer. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters walked away from negotiations Wednesday, demanding that UPS give its...
What is Bidenomics? President embraces moniker as campaign theme
Forty years ago, we had Reaganomics. Today, we’re hearing more and more about Bidenomics, a moniker that brands President Joe Biden’s efforts to grow the economy and jobs and fight inflation. Biden is leaning into the name as an early campaign theme of his reelection bid. But what exactly is...
National Geographic lays off all of its staff writers
National Geographic has laid off all its staff writers, leaving the venerable, award-winning magazine to be pieced together by editors and freelancers. In all, 19 editorial staffers were cut, including the small audio department at the magazine. They had been notified in April that the ax would fall, The Washington...
Home prices recover further as buyers battle for tight supply of listings
Home prices in the U.S. rose for a third straight month, pushed up by growing buyer demand for a tight supply of listings. A national gauge of prices increased 0.5% in April from March, according to seasonally adjusted data from S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller. The U.S. is in what’s traditionally its...
Truck startup Lordstown files for bankruptcy after Foxconn deal falls through
Lordstown Motors Corp. shares plummeted after the electric-vehicle maker once hailed by former President Donald Trump for saving automaking jobs filed for bankruptcy. The move to seek Chapter 11 protection from creditors follows a protracted dispute with iPhone maker Foxconn Technology Group over a deal to make pickup trucks for...
Lordstown Motors files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection
Commercial electric vehicle startup Lordstown Motors Corp. has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection nearly two months after it warned that it was in danger of failing. In early May electronics company Foxconn wavered on a $170 million investment in Lordstown. The Ohio company said in a regulatory filing at...
Amazon is investing another $7.8B in Ohio-based cloud computing operations
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Amazon’s profitable cloud business will invest roughly $7.8 billion by the end of 2029 to expand its data center operations in central Ohio, state leaders announced Monday, further advancing the state’s efforts to establish itself as the Midwest’s technology hub. The new investments by Amazon Web Services,...
Honda recalls nearly 1.2M vehicles because of faulty rear camera image
DETROIT — Honda is recalling nearly 1.2 million vehicles in the U.S. because the rear view camera image may not appear on the dashboard screen. The recall covers certain Odyssey minivans from 2018 to 2023, as well as Pilot SUVs from 2019 to 2022 and Passport SUVs from 2019 to...
Amazon is accused of enrolling consumers into Prime without consent
NEW YORK — Amazon was sued Wednesday by Federal Trade Commission for what it called a years-long effort to enroll consumers without consent into its Prime program and making it difficult for them to cancel their subscriptions. In a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District...
West Virginia cash-for-worker program adds 5th destination
CHARLESTON — A program offering cash and free outdoor adventures to remote workers to move to West Virginia with the hope of offsetting population losses has added a fifth destination where out-of-state workers can apply to live. The public-private program Ascend West Virginia said Tuesday that applications are being accepted...
Millennial Money: Should you financially support adult kids?
Some parents will tell you firsthand there’s no expiration date on this raising kids gig. For some, that means they extend financial help to their kids into adulthood. When I was 21 and got into a master’s program at a college of my dreams, my mom swooped in to help...
Gannett sues Google, Alphabet claiming they have a monopoly on digital advertising
Gannett has filed a civil lawsuit against Google and its parent company Alphabet, claiming that they unlawfully hold monopolies in the advertising technology tools that publishers and advertisers use to buy and sell online ad space. The largest U.S. newspaper publisher by total daily circulation alleges in the suit that...
