Wire stories category, Page 89
Workers praise Disney virus safety, but will visitors come?
ORLANDO, Fla. — Every week, it seems, Kaila Barker, her husband and their five children change their minds about whether to travel from their home in Connecticut to Florida’s Walt Disney World as planned in September. On the one hand, the lack of crowds means more opportunities to go on...
U.S. meatpackers don’t have many answers for lack of distancing
As part of an investigation into the spread of coronavirus at U.S. meat plants, Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker released responses from major producers that defended their operations during the pandemic. The four biggest meatpackers — Tyson Foods Inc., JBS USA, Cargill Inc. and Smithfield Foods Inc. —...
U.S. new home sales jump 13.8% in June
WASHINGTON — Sales of new homes rose a sharp 13.8% in June, the second straight increase after two months when sales plunged as the country went into lockdown because of the coronavirus. The Commerce Department reported Friday that the June gain pushed sales of new homes to a seasonally adjusted...
Wall Street stumbles after rise in layoffs, tech weakness
NEW YORK — Wall Street is stumbling on Thursday, undercut in part by a discouraging report showing that layoffs are picking up across the country with coronavirus counts. Technology stocks had the sharpest losses after a better-than-expected profit report from Microsoft wasn’t enough to satisfy investors expecting even more. The...
Tesla makes $104M profit in 2Q despite factory shutdown
Tesla overcame a seven-week pandemic-related shutdown at its California assembly plant to post a surprising $104 million net profit for the second quarter. It was the electric car and solar panel maker’s fourth-straight profitable quarter, qualifying it to be included in the S&P 500 index of corporate titans. That decision...
Yelp: More than half of US business ‘temporary’ closures now permanent
More than half of the business closures that were temporary when the covid-19 outbreak began are now considered permanent, according to Yelp. Of the 132,580 closures listed on its website as of July 10, 55% are permanent, up 14 percentage points from the end of June, according to the Yelp’s...
Walmart to close its stores on Thanksgiving Day
NEW YORK — Walmart said that it will be closing its namesake stores and Sam’s Clubs on Thanksgiving Day this year, saying that it wants to have its employees spend time with their families during the coronavirus pandemic. The move, announced Tuesday, marks the first major indication of how covid...
Head of the line: Big companies got coronavirus loans first
NEW YORK — Ever since the U.S. government launched its emergency lending program for small businesses on April 3, there have been complaints that bigger companies had their loans approved and disbursed more quickly. There is now evidence to back up those complaints. An Associated Press analysis of Small Business...
LL Bean inks first wholesaler partnerships in US
FREEPORT, Maine — L.L. Bean is expanding from its original model of direct-to-customer catalog sales and in-stores sales with an agreement to sell products in Nordstrom, Staples and sporting goods chain SCHEELS. The company’s first wholesale agreements in the U.S. represent a push to get L.L. Bean products in front...
June jobless rate slid down in Pennsylvania, payrolls jumped
Pennsylvania’s unemployment slid a bit down in June after hitting a pandemic peak in April, but it was well above the national rate even as payrolls rebounded by more 230,000, the state reported Friday. Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate was 13% in June, down four-tenths of a percentage point from May’s adjusted...
EU court cancels U.S. data-sharing pact over snooping concerns
The European Union’s top court ruled Thursday that an agreement that allows thousands of companies — from tech giants to small financial firms — to transfer data to the United States is invalid because the American government can snoop on people’s data. The ruling to invalidate Privacy Shield will likely...
Mail could be delayed as new postal head pushes cost-cutting
WASHINGTON — Mail deliveries could be delayed by a day or more under cost-cutting efforts being imposed by the new postmaster general. The plan eliminates overtime for hundreds of thousands of postal workers and says employees must adopt a “different mindset” to ensure the Postal Service’s survival during the coronavirus...
JC Penney cuts 1,000 jobs as it closes stores
JC Penney says it will cut 1,000 jobs as it tries to fight its way out from under bankruptcy protection. The company last month said it had identified just over 150 stores for closure in the first phase of a restructuring in which it will become a smaller operator. The...
Burger King addresses climate change by changing cows’ dietsVideo
Burger King is staging an intervention with its cows. The chain has rebalanced the diet of some of the cows by adding lemon grass in a bid to limit bovine contributions to climate change. By tweaking their diet, Burger King said Tuesday that it believes it can reduce a cow’s...
Demand rises for robot cooks as kitchens combat covid-19
HAYWARD, Calif. — Robots that can cook — from flipping burgers to baking bread — are in growing demand as virus-wary kitchens try to put some distance between workers and customers. Starting this fall, the White Castle burger chain will test a robot arm that can cook french fries and...
Best Buy to require customers to wear masks amid coronavirus spike
NEW YORK — Best Buy, the nation’s largest consumer electronics chain, will require customers to wear face coverings at all of its stores nationwide, even in states or localities that don’t require them to do so. The retailer, based in Richfield, Minn., joins a growing but still short list of...
U.S. budget deficit hits all-time high of $864 billion in June
WASHINGTON — The federal government incurred the biggest monthly budget deficit in history in June as spending on programs to combat the coronavirus recession exploded while millions of job losses cut into tax revenues. The Treasury Department reported Monday that the deficit hit $864 billion last month, an amount of...
Stocks slam into reverse as coronavirus keeps scarring economyVideo
NEW YORK — Wall Street got a painful reminder that the coronavirus pandemic isn’t going away, and a big early gain for stocks suddenly flipped to losses after California showed how it’s still scarring the economy. The S&P 500 fell 0.9%, with all the losses accumulating in the last hour...
Hedge fund announces plan to buy newspaper publisher McClatchy
NEW YORK — Hedge fund Chatham Asset Management plans to buy newspaper publisher McClatchy out of bankruptcy, ending 163 years of family control. The companies did not put a price on the deal in an announcement Sunday. The agreement still needs the approval of a bankruptcy judge; a hearing is...
Shipbuilder files complaint over union threats during strike
Navy shipbuilder Bath Iron Works on Friday filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, accusing its largest union of threatening workers who cross the picket line during an ongoing strike in Maine. The company accused leaders of Machinists’ Local S6 of threatening so-called scabs with fines and loss...
Amazon’s homeless shelter faces Seattle crisis, criticism
SEATTLE — A homeless shelter built on Amazon’s perfectly manicured urban Seattle campus is a major civic contribution that pushes the company to face the crisis and criticism in the hometown it has rapidly transformed. Believed to be the first homeless shelter built inside a corporate office building, Amazon’s partnership...
Reports: Amazon bars video app TikTok on workers’ phones
Amazon has told employees to delete the popular video app TikTok from phones on which they use Amazon email, citing security risks from the China-owned app, according to reports and posts by Twitter users who said they were Amazon employees. The notice said employees must delete the app by Friday...
Wall Street rallies as optimism returns to cap erratic week
NEW YORK — Optimism returned to Wall Street on Friday, and stocks rallied to cap a shaky week dogged by worries that rising coronavirus counts may halt the economy’s recent upswing. The S&P 500 climbed 1%, and the biggest gains came from cruise ship operators, airlines, banks and other companies...
Wall Street’s rally gets back on track as tech leads the wayVideo
NEW YORK — Wall Street’s rally got back on track Wednesday after more gains for big technology stocks helped pull the S&P 500 to its sixth gain in seven days. The S&P 500 drifted up and down for most of the day, before a last-hour lift sent it to a...
United will warn 36,000 workers they could be laid off
United Airlines is warning 36,000 employees - nearly half its U.S. staff - they could be furloughed in October, the clearest signal yet of how deeply the virus pandemic is hurting the airline industry. The outlook for a recovery in air travel has dimmed in just the past two weeks,...
