Wire stories category, Page 75
Wall Street ticks higher, led by tech and smaller stocks
NEW YORK — U.S. stocks are drifting higher in morning trading on Wednesday, as investors wait to hear the details about Washington’s next mammoth push for the economy. The S&P 500 was up 0.6%, ahead of a speech later in the day where President Joe Biden is expected to discuss...
Volkswagen hoaxes media with fake statement on name change
DETROIT — Volkswagen of America issued false statements this week saying it would change its brand name to “Voltswagen,” to stress its commitment to electric vehicles, only to reverse course Tuesday and admit that the supposed name change was a joke. Mark Gillies, a company spokesman, confirmed Tuesday that the...
NCAA, former athletes head to Supreme Court over how football, basketball players are rewarded
WASHINGTON — The NCAA and former college athletes are getting ready to play ball at the Supreme Court. With the March Madness basketball tournament ongoing, the high court will hear arguments Wednesday in a case about how colleges can reward athletes who play Division I basketball and football. The NCAA...
An unwelcome prank: Volkswagen purposely hoodwinks reporters
NEW YORK — Journalists are used to being wary about odd pranksters pulling April Fool’s Day hoaxes at this time of year. Few expect it from a multi-billion dollar corporation. Volkswagen admitted Tuesday that it had put out a false news release saying that it had changed the name of...
‘Lighting a fuse’: Amazon vote may spark more union pushes
What happens inside a warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, could have major implications not just for the country’s second-largest employer but the labor movement at large. Organizers are pushing for some 6,000 Amazon workers there to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union on the promise it will lead to...
Stocks slip in mixed trading as rate pressure ratchets up
NEW YORK — Rising Treasury yields put pressure once more on big technology companies Tuesday, pulling U.S. stock indexes further below their recent all-time highs. The S&P 500 lost 0.3%. Health care stocks also dragged down the market, outweighing gains by banks, industrial stocks and companies that rely on consumer...
AP source: VW plans brand-name change to ‘Voltswagen’ in U.S.
DETROIT — Volkswagen plans to change its brand name in the United States to “Voltswagen” as its shifts its production increasingly toward electric vehicles and tries to distance itself from an emissions cheating scandal. A person briefed on the plan said a formal announcement is planned for Tuesday. The person...
Biden boosts offshore wind energy, wants to power 10M homes
The Biden administration is ramping up efforts to sharply increase offshore wind energy along the East Coast, announcing progress on a huge wind farm planned off the New Jersey coast and setting a goal to generate enough power to provide electricity for more than 10 million homes by 2030. Meeting...
News Corp. buys Houghton Mifflin Harcourt books division
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. is buying Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s book-publishing division, with titles by J.R.R. Tolkien and the Curious George children’s series, for $349 million. News Corp. owns HarperCollins, one of the industry’s largest book publishers, and will operate the division, called HMH Books & Media, the New York company...
Paris court convicts, fines pharma firm for deadly diet pill
A French pharmaceutical company on Monday was ordered to pay hundreds of millions of euros in damages and fines for its role in one of the nation’s biggest modern health scandals, with a Paris court finding the firm guilty of manslaughter and other charges for selling a diabetes drug blamed...
Late fade pushes S&P 500 slightly below its record high
Stock indexes closed mostly lower Monday, pulling the S&P 500 slightly below the all-time high it set last week, while nudging the Dow Jones Industrial Average to another record high. The S&P 500 slipped 0.1%, recovering most of a 0.8% slide earlier in the day. Banks had some of the...
Stocks climb on Wall Street; S&P 500 on pace for weekly gain
NEW YORK — U.S. stocks are ticking higher Friday, erasing the market’s losses from earlier in the week and setting Wall Street up to avoid a second straight weekly drop. The S&P 500 was up 0.3% in afternoon trading, and some of the biggest gains came from companies whose profits...
In shift, oil industry group backs federal price on carbon
WASHINGTON — The oil and gas industry’s top lobbying group on Thursday endorsed a federal price on carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming, a reversal of longstanding industry policy that comes as the Biden administration has pledged dramatic steps to address climate change. The American Petroleum Institute, whose...
Stocks pull mostly higher, shaking off some early wobblesVideo
Stocks regained their footing after an early slide and closed broadly higher Thursday, led by gains in financial and industrial companies. The S&P 500 rose 0.5% after having been down 0.9% in the early going. The gain is the benchmark index’s first in three days after a recent stretch of...
Gas driller to pay Pennsylvania $1.9M for damage to wetlands, waterways
HARRISBURG — One of the most active natural gas exploration firms in Pennsylvania has agreed to pay $1.9 million after it disclosed in 2014 that its construction work had damaged waterways and wetlands, without proper permits, according to paperwork filed in federal court on Wednesday. Officials from Chesapeake Energy Corp....
Treasury Secretary Yellen sees room for U.S. to borrow, opens door to tax hikeVideo
WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen believes the U.S. government has more room to borrow, but said higher taxes would likely be required in the long run to finance future spending increases. Yellen appeared Wednesday before the Senate Banking Committee with the Biden administration considering up to $3 trillion in...
A late slide, led by Big Tech, leaves stock indexes lowerVideo
A late-afternoon burst of selling on Wall Street erased an early gain for stocks Wednesday, pulling the market further below the all-time high it reached just a week ago. The S&P 500 dropped 0.5% after having been up 0.8% in the early going. Technology and communication services companies accounted for...
Explainer: Why is Biden halting federal oil and gas sales?
BILLINGS, Mont. — President Joe Biden shut down oil and gas lease sales from the nation’s vast public lands and waters in his first days in office, citing worries about climate change. Now his administration has to figure out what do with the multibillion-dollar program without crushing a significant sector...
Stocks close broadly lower on Wall Street as banks stumble
Stocks closed broadly lower on Tuesday and gave back nearly all of their gains from a day earlier as technology, industrial and bank stocks fell. The S&P 500 fell 30.07 points, or 0.8%, to 3,910.52. Technology stocks were the biggest drag on the market and pushed the Nasdaq 149.85 points...
Overstimulated? Stocks soar 75% in historic 12-month run
NEW YORK — It was one year ago that the terrifying free fall for the stock market suddenly ended, ushering in one of its greatest runs. On March 23, 2020, the S&P 500 fell 2.9%. In all, the index dropped nearly 34% in about a month, wiping out three years’...
New Small Business Administration head plans changes at agency; focus now is covid-19
NEW YORK — The new head of the Small Business Administration says she expects to make changes at the agency that she says will enable it to further help small companies devastated by the covid-19 pandemic. In an interview with The Associated Press on Friday, two days after she was...
Whiskey makers face worsening hangover from trade dispute
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A hangover from Trump-era tariff disputes could become even more painful for American whiskey distillers unless their entanglement in a trans-Atlantic trade fight is resolved soon. Bourbon, Tennessee whiskey and rye whiskey were left out of recent breakthroughs to start rebuilding U.S. trade relations with the European...
Facebook working on Instagram for kids under 13
Facebook says it is working on a version of its Instagram app for kids under 13, who are technically not allowed to use the app in its current form due to federal privacy regulations. The company confirmed an earlier report by Buzzfeed News on Friday, saying it is “exploring a...
Russian man admits ransomware plot against Tesla in Nevada
A Russian man has pleaded guilty to offering a Tesla employee $1 million to get computer malware into the electric car company’s massive electric battery plant in Nevada for a ransomware attack that never happened, according to court records. Federal public defenders representing Egor Igorevich Kriuchkov did not immediately respond...
L.L. Bean sees sales boom amid pandemic’s push to outdoors
FREEPORT, Maine — With Americans hunkering down and hankering to get outdoors during the pandemic, L.L. Bean recorded its best annual sales growth in nearly a decade, the company said Friday. The Freeport-based retailer started its fiscal year with store closings and worries about survival but the company weathered the...
