Wire stories category, Page 41
Global economy is at risk of recession
WASHINGTON — The global economy will come “perilously close” to a recession this year, led by weaker growth in all the world’s top economies — the United States, Europe and China — the World Bank warned Tuesday. In an annual report, the World Bank, which lends money to poorer countries...
Bill Gates considers West Virginia to expand nuclear energy efforts
GLASGOW, W.Va. — Bill Gates is looking to West Virginia as he plans for the next phase of his effort to reboot U.S. nuclear energy technology: powering the east coast. Microsoft co-founder Gates, who visited a closed down coal-fired plant Monday in Glasgow, W.Va., said he needs to see how...
Top leader departs Rite Aid; company names interim CEO
Rite Aid announced a change at the top on Monday. The company’s president and CEO, Heyward Donigan has departed Rite Aid, the company announced. “It has been a privilege to lead Rite Aid and its exceptional team,”Donigan said in a news release. “I am proud of all that we have...
Feds reviewing Musk tweet about disabling driver monitoring
DETROIT — A tweet from Elon Musk indicating that Tesla might allow some owners who are testing a “Full Self-Driving” system to disable an alert that reminds them to keep their hands on the steering wheel has drawn attention from U.S. safety regulators. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says...
Companies tout environmental tech innovations at CES 2023
LAS VEGAS — The mottled bright green leaves of a pothos plant stood out against the flashy expanse of electric vehicles and smart products at the CES tech show in Las Vegas this year. This particular version of the familiar houseplant was bioengineered to remove 30 times the amount of...
Global food prices in 2022 hit record high amid drought, war
ROME — Global prices for food commodities like grain and vegetable oils were the highest on record last year even after falling for nine months in a row, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said, as Russia’s war in Ukraine, drought and other factors drove up inflation and worsened hunger...
U.S. hiring stays brisk as employers add 223,000 jobs
WASHINGTON — America’s employers added a solid 223,000 jobs in December, evidence that the economy remains healthy even as the Federal Reserve is rapidly raising interest rates to try to slow economic growth and the pace of hiring. With companies continuing to add jobs across the economy, the unemployment rate...
Southwest starts on reputation repair after cancellations
DALLAS — With its flights running on a roughly normal schedule, Southwest Airlines is now turning its attention to repairing its damaged reputation after it canceled 15,000 flights around Christmas and left holiday travelers stranded. The disruptions started with a winter storm and snowballed when Southwest’s ancient crew-scheduling technology failed....
Bed Bath & Beyond warns it may go out of business
NEW YORK — Struggling Bed Bath & Beyond warned on Thursday that there’s substantial doubt about the company’s ability to continue as a “going concern” even as the home goods retailer continues to study options like refinancing its debt or restructuring its business in bankruptcy court. The outlook came after...
Southwest Airlines’ meltdown loss could run $500 million to $700 million
When Southwest Airlines’ had an operational meltdown in October 2021, it cost the airline $75 million in lost revenue. The Columbus Day weekend debacle involved the cancellation of some 2,000 flights. So what kind of hit is the Dallas-based company looking at from its Christmas fiasco that led to more...
Futures inch higher ahead of the release of Fed notes
Wall Street pointed modestly higher Wednesday ahead of the release of notes from the most recent Federal Reserve meeting, which investors hope might hint at a less aggressive stance on interest rates, a tool that the Fed has used to tame inflation. Futures for the benchmark S&P 500 index and...
Southwest Airlines sending vouchers to passengers disrupted by holiday meltdown
Southwest Airlines is sending out vouchers worth as much as $300 to clean up the reputational damage from canceling more than 17,100 flights in eight days around Christmas. Dallas-based Southwest Airlines is trying to untangle a mess it made after winter weather swept across the country in the days before...
Wall Street slips in 2023 open after ending dismal year
Stocks gave up an early gain and ended lower Tuesday, a lackluster first trading day of 2023 for Wall Street just days after it closed the books on its worst year since 2008. The S&P 500 shed a 1% gain and finished 0.4% lower. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped...
How to prepare for your next emergency
When a power outage knocked out electricity to a multistate region in 2003, Gabriella Barthlow , a financial coach in the Detroit area, was prepared. She had enough money on hand to buy food for herself and her two young children, plus put gas in her car in case they...
At Southwest Airlines, a day of recovery after week of chaos
Southwest Airlines returned to a relatively normal flight schedule Friday, as the focus shifts to making things right with what could be well more than a million passengers who missed family connections or flights home during the holidays, and many of whom are still missing luggage. The Dallas carrier, which...
Policy, climate, war make 2022 ‘pivot year’ for clean energy
BENGALURU, India — For renewable energy companies in India, it’s a good time to be in business. One of India’s largest renewable energy firms, Renew Power, will be among the corporations big and small hoping for a piece of a $2.6 billion government scheme that encourages the domestic manufacturing of...
Applications for U.S. unemployment aid rose slightly last week
WASHINGTON — The number of people seeking unemployment benefits rose only slightly last week with the labor market remaining strong despite the Federal Reserve’s efforts to cool the economy and hiring. Applications for unemployment aid for the week ending Dec. 24 climbed 9,000 to 225,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday....
Pain, few gains for investors as markets slumped in 2022
Investors found few, if any, places to safely put their money in 2022, as central banks in the U.S. and around the globe raised interest rates for the first time in years to fight surging inflation, stoking fear of a global recession. Uncertainty about how far the Federal Reserve and...
Stocks edge higher on Wall Street; Southwest losses mount
Stocks edged higher in morning trading on Wall Street Wednesday as investors count down to the end of the worst year for the S&P 500 since 2008. The S&P 500 rose 0.1% as of 10:12 a.m. Eastern. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 12 points, or less than 0.1%, to...
5 ways to build your credit score in 2023
You’ve got big financial plans for 2023. Maybe they include buying a home or car, or getting a new travel rewards credit card to help pay for your next trip. There’s a key piece of these plans you may not have considered: building your credit score. A better credit score...
Emails reveal Sam Bankman-Fried’s courtship of federal regulators
ALAMEDA, Calif. — Before his arrest in mid-December, cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried repeatedly claimed that he was a responsible business leader who sought more regulation of cryptocurrency and wanted his industry to be part of the mainstream financial system. But now that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Securities and...
Holiday sales up 7.6% despite the squeeze of inflation
NEW YORK — Holiday sales rose this year as American spending remained resilient during the critical shopping season despite surging prices on everything from food to rent, according to one measure. Holiday sales rose 7.6%, a slower pace than the 8.5% increase from a year earlier when shoppers began spending...
Judge kept FTX execs’ plea deals secret to get founder to U.S.
NEW YORK — A judge agreed to a request by prosecutors to keep it secret that two of Sam Bankman-Fried’s executive associates had turned against him so that the cryptocurrency entrepreneur would agree not to fight extradition from the Bahamas to the United States, according to transcripts of plea deals...
Amazon extends the ‘Alexa, thank my driver’ campaign
After enthusiastic response earlier this month to the ” Alexa, thank my driver” campaign, Amazon is doing it again. It started yesterday, Dec. 21, so it is not clear if the 1 million rewards have yet been reached. When Amazon launched the program on Dec. 7, 1 million thank-yous -...
Holiday shopping procrastinators are back in force
NEW YORK — Last year, Lucila Gomez and her husband started their holiday shopping around Thanksgiving and wrapped it up a week before Christmas, spending $750 on tablets and clothing for their three children and relatives. This year? Gomez is waiting until she gets her annual bonus on Friday to...
