Wire stories category, Page 49
Wanted: 7,000 construction workers for Intel chip plants
JOHNSTOWN, Ohio — Ohio’s largest-ever economic development project comes with a big employment challenge: how to find 7,000 construction workers in an already booming building environment when there’s also a national shortage of people working in the trades. At hand is the $20 billion semiconductor manufacturing operation near the state’s...
Georgia jury awards $1.7 billion in Ford truck crash case
WOODSTOCK, Ga. — Ford Motor Co. says it plans to appeal a $1.7 billion verdict against the automaker after a pickup truck crash that claimed the lives of a Georgia couple, a company representative said Sunday. Jurors in Gwinnett County, just northeast of Atlanta, returned the verdict late last week...
Airbnb is rolling out new screening tools to stop parties
SAN FRANCISCO — Airbnb says it will use new methods to spot and block people who try to use the short-term rental service to throw a party. The company said this week it has introduced technology that examines the would-be renter’s history on Airbnb, how far they live from the...
White House receives plan on ending railway contract dispute
OMAHA, Neb. — The special board appointed by President Joe Biden to intervene in stalled railroad contract talks submitted its recommendations Tuesday to the White House on a potential deal covering 115,000 rail workers and avert a strike, but details of their recommendations weren’t immediately available. Railroads and unions will...
Former ITT Tech students get $3.9B in debt cancellation
WASHINGTON — Students who used federal loans to attend ITT Technical Institute as far back as 2005 will automatically get that debt canceled after authorities found “widespread and pervasive misrepresentations” at the defunct for-profit college chain, the Biden administration announced Tuesday. The action will cancel $3.9 billion in federal student...
American Airlines places deposit on 20 supersonic planes
American Airlines has agreed to buy up to 20 supersonic jets and put down a non-refundable deposit on the planes that are still on the drawing board and years away from flying. Neither American nor the manufacturer Boom Supersonic would provide financial details Tuesday, including the size of American’s deposit....
FAA warns that staffing shortage will delay flights in New York
The Federal Aviation Administration said Monday that it was reducing flights in the area around New York City because of lack of staffing. Departing and arriving flights could be delayed up to two hours at John F. Kennedy International, LaGuardia and Newark (New Jersey) Liberty International airports, the FAA said....
Wall Street builds on gains, heads for 4-week winning streak
Stocks rose broadly in morning trading on Wall Street Friday and added to weekly gains for the major indexes. The S&P 500 rose 0.7% as of 10:19 a.m. Eastern and roughly 85% of stocks in the benchmark index gained ground. It is on track for its first four-week winning streak...
J&J to halt talc baby powder implicated in cancer litigation
Johnson & Johnson announced today that it will transition to an all cornstarch-based baby powder portfolio, and will globally discontinue talc-based powder in 2023. “We continuously evaluate and optimize our portfolio to best position the business for long-term growth,” the company said in a statement. “This transition will help simplify...
Disney+ subscribers are going to have to pay more to avoid commercials
Disney+ subscribers will start seeing ads on the popular streaming service in December. That is, unless they opt to pay more. Walt Disney Co. on Wednesday said it would launch tiered versions of the service on Dec. 8. Current subscribers who continue to pay $8 a month for the “basic”...
New York Fed: Student-loan freeze led to big credit-score gains
The pandemic-era freeze on student debt payments has “dramatically” improved credit scores for Americans who borrowed money to pay for college, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said. About 30 million people saw improvements in their risk profile, with the biggest gains going to borrowers who were delinquent before...
U.S. inflation will likely stay high even as gas prices fall
WASHINGTON — Americans may finally be catching a break from relentlessly surging prices — if just a slight one — even as inflation is expected to remain painfully high for months. Thanks largely to falling gas prices, the government’s inflation report for July, to be released Wednesday morning, is expected...
U.S. employers added 528,000 jobs; unemployment falls to 3.5%
WASHINGTON — America’s hiring boom continued last month as employers added a surprising 528,000 jobs despite raging inflation and rising anxiety about a recession. July’s hiring was up from 398,000 in June. The unemployment rate slipped to 3.5%. The U.S. economy shrank in the first two quarters of 2022 —...
Inflation weighs on back-to-school buying for many families
NEW YORK — To understand the impact of surging inflation on this year’s back-to-school spending, look no further than children’s rain boots with motifs like frogs and ladybugs made by Washington Shoe Co. Spending held steady for these evergreen items even after the Kent, Washington-based business was forced to pass...
Robinhood cuts 23% of its workforce as fewer users trade
NEW YORK — Robinhood Markets said Tuesday it’s cutting nearly a quarter of its workforce, as crashing cryptocurrency prices and a turbulent stock market keep more customers off its trading app. CEO Vlad Tenev said the company, whose easy-to-use app helped bring a new generation of investors to the market,...
Banana Boat recalls scalp sunscreen spray for cancer risk
The maker of Banana Boat sunscreen is recalling a scalp spray because it contains trace amounts of benzene, a chemical which can cause cancer with repeated exposure. Edgewell Personal Care Co. announced the voluntary recall Friday. It said benzene was detected in internal reviews of Banana Boat Hair and Scalp...
With Frontier deal dead, Spirit ponders sale to JetBlueVideo
Spirit Airlines and Frontier Airlines agreed Wednesday to abandon their merger proposal, opening the way for JetBlue Airways to acquire Spirit after a monthslong bidding war for the budget carrier. The decision by Spirit and Frontier to terminate their deal was announced while Spirit shareholders were still voting on the...
Stocks rise on Wall Street after new Fed rate hike, earnings
Stocks on Wall Street are solidly higher in afternoon trading Wednesday after the Federal Reserve raised its key interest rate by a widely expected three-quarters of a point as the central bank ratchets up its campaign to quell surging inflation. The Fed’s move, its second three-quarters of a point hike...
Wawa agrees to payment, security changes for data breach in 2019
HARRISBURG — A Pennsylvania-based convenience store chain will pay $8 million to several states over a 2019 data breach that involved some 34 million payment cards, authorities announced Tuesday. The Pennsylvania attorney general’s office said Wawa Inc. did not take reasonable security measures to prevent hackers from installing malware that...
Explainer: How do we know when a recession has begun?
WASHINGTON — By one common definition, the U.S. economy is on the cusp of a recession. Yet that definition isn’t the one that counts. On Thursday, when the government estimates the gross domestic product for the April-June period, some economists think it may show that the economy shrank for a...
Unilever hikes prices for products but expects strong sales
LONDON — Unilever, the consumer goods giant that owns brands ranging from Ben & Jerry’s ice cream to Dove skin care, raised prices by more than 11% between April and June as inflation surged around the world. That shored up revenue in the first half of the year, with the...
Fed set to impose another big rate hike to fight inflationVideo
WASHINGTON — Conflicting signs about the health of the U.S. economy have thrust the Federal Reserve into a difficult spot. With inflation raging at a four-decade high, the job market strong and consumer spending still solid, the Fed is under pressure to raise interest rates aggressively. But other signs suggest...
Ex-U.S. congressman among 9 charged in insider trading cases
NEW YORK — A former U.S. congressman from Indiana, technology company executives, a man training to be an FBI agent, and an investment banker were among nine people charged in four separate and unrelated insider trading schemes revealed on Monday with the unsealing of indictments in New York City. It...
Rents spike as big-pocketed investors buy mobile home parks
LOCKPORT, N.Y. — For as long as anyone can remember, rent increases rarely happened at Ridgeview Homes, a family-owned mobile home park in upstate New York. That changed in 2018 when corporate owners took over the 65-year-old park located amid farmland and down the road from a fast food joint...
Zimbabwe debuts gold coins as legal tender to stem inflation
HARARE, Zimbabwe — Zimbabwe has launched gold coins to be sold to the public in a bid to tame runaway inflation that has further eroded the country’s unstable currency. The unprecedented move was announced Monday by the country’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, to boost confidence in the...
