Business category, Page 2
Wall Street flirts with its all-time high
NEW YORK — The U.S. stock market is flirting with its all-time high on Friday. The S&P 500 rose 0.3% and was on track earlier in the day to squeak past its record closing level, which was set in October. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 164 points, or...
Netflix to acquire Warner Bros. studio and streaming business for $72 billion
NEW YORK — Netflix has struck a deal with Warner Bros. Discovery to buy the legacy Hollywood giant’s studio and streaming business for $72 billion. The acquisition, announced Friday, would bring two of the industry’s biggest players in film and TV under one roof. Beyond its namesake television and motion...
EU hits Elon Musk’s X with 120 million euro fine for breaching bloc’s social media law
LONDON — European Union regulators on Friday fined Elon Musk’s social media platform X $140 million for breaches of the bloc’s digital regulations that they said could leave users exposed to scams and manipulation. The European Commission issued its decision following an investigation it opened two years ago into X...
Cloudflare investigates outage that brought down sites including Zoom and LinkedIn
MADRID — Internet infrastructure company Cloudflare on Friday said it was investigating an outage that took place in the morning that brought down several global websites including LinkedIn, Zoom and others, the second such crash to affect the company in less than three weeks. Cloudflare said the issue had been...
Even in digital era, in-person shopping is still a part of the holiday experience
In an era when people can buy gifts with the click of a mouse or push of a button, in-person retail shopping is still an important part of the American holiday shopping experience. A study from JLL, a real estate services company, found that only 16.3% of consumers plan to...
U.S. Steel fined for leaking oil into Monongahela River
U.S. Steel must pay $135,000 and establish stronger pollution controls after environmental regulators found the steelmaker’s West Mifflin facility was leaking oil into the Monongahela River. An agreement announced Tuesday between U.S. Steel and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection requires the company to monitor wastewater from the Irvin Works...
U.S. filings for jobless benefits fall to 191,000, lowest since September of 2022
WASHINGTON — U.S. applications for unemployment benefits fell to their lowest level in more than three years last week, potentially complicating the Federal Reserve’s upcoming decision on interest rates. The number of Americans applying for jobless benefits for the week ending Nov. 29 fell to 191,000 from the previous week’s...
Pa. Amazon warehouse worker sues company, saying she was fired for being pregnant
A Dauphin County woman who worked at the Amazon warehouse in Carlisle is suing the company for discrimination, saying she was illegally fired for being pregnant. Malissa Saintus-Trammel, of Hummelstown, says the online shopping giant forced her to take unpaid leave due to her pregnancy when she didn’t require accommodations....
Trump proposal would weaken vehicle mileage rules that limit air pollution
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced a proposal to weaken vehicle mileage rules for the auto industry, loosening regulatory pressure on automakers to control pollution from gasoline-powered cars and trucks. The plan, if finalized next year, would significantly reduce fuel economy requirements, which set rules on how far...
John Dorfman: Insiders buy at Carrier, Hershey and T-Mobile
A few corporate chieftains bought their own company’s stock in November. Numerous studies, most notably at the University of Michigan, have shown insiders do better, on average, than regular investors. Trades by chief executive officers generally do better than those of other insiders. Let’s glance at a quintet of insider...
Costco becomes biggest company yet to demand refund of Trump tariffs
WASHINGTON — Costco is joining other companies that aren’t waiting to see whether the Supreme Court strikes down President Donald Trump’s most sweeping import taxes. They’re going to court to demand refunds on the tariffs they’ve paid. The U.S. Court of International Trade and the U.S. Court of Appeals for...
Wall Street holds steadier as bond yields and bitcoin stabilize
NEW YORK — The U.S. stock market is holding relatively steady on Tuesday as both bond yields and bitcoin stabilize. The S&P 500 rose 0.2%, coming off its first loss in six days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 116 points, or 0.2%, as of 11:50 a.m. Eastern time,...
Netflix offers mostly cash for Warner Bros. in new bid round
Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. was fielding a second round of bids on Monday, including a mostly cash offer from Netflix Inc., in an auction that could wrap up in the coming days or weeks, according to people familiar with the discussions. Bankers for Paramount Skydance Corp., Comcast Corp. and Netflix...
Decline in alcohol consumption leads to rare sales drop at Pa. liquor stores
Pennsylvania’s wine and spirits sales dipped last fiscal year for only the second time in the past three decades. According to the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, sales for the 2024-25 fiscal year totaled nearly $3.2 billion. That was down almost $21 million, or 0.6%, compared to the previous year. Net...
Bitcoin dips below $85,000 briefly in crypto rout
Bitcoin and companies tied to cryptocurrencies extended a nearly two-month swoon Monday, tracking with a broader market sell-off in technology companies that many see as overvalued. Bitcoin slid 5.6% after being down nearly 12% earlier in the day, settling in just above $85,000. The most-traded cryptocurrency is down about 33%...
Pennsylvania loses hundreds of pharmacies after a law promised help
Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit newsroom producing investigative and public-service journalism that holds power to account and drives positive change in Pennsylvania. Sign up for our free newsletters. HARRISBURG — As pharmacy closures have continued across the state, a bipartisan group of lawmakers has questioned how the...
Why Cyber Monday could break spending records despite economic uncertainty
NEW YORK — Deals promoted as some of the best of the holiday season are expected to keep people across the United States glued to their computers and smartphones as the post-Thanksgiving shopping marathon wraps up on Cyber Monday. It’s no secret that buying things online is now a staple...
Trump says he has made his choice to lead the Federal Reserve
President Donald Trump said Sunday he has decided on his pick for the next Federal Reserve chair after making clear he expects his nominee to deliver interest-rate cuts. “I know who I am going to pick, yeah,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on his way back to Washington,...
AI-assisted shopping is the talk of the holiday shopping season
NEW YORK — Major retail chains and tech companies are offering new or updated artificial intelligence tools in time for the holiday shopping season, hoping to give consumers an easier gift-buying experience and themselves an augmented share of online spending. Although AI-powered purchases are in early stages, the shopping assistants...
Shoppers spend billions on Black Friday to snag holiday deals, despite wider economic uncertainty
NEW YORK — Despite wider economic uncertainty hovering above this year’s holiday season, shoppers turned out in big numbers for Black Friday — spending billions of dollars both in stores and online. Adobe Analytics, which tracks e-commerce, said U.S. consumers spent a record $11.8 billion online Friday, marking a 9.1%...
Why your electric bill is rising this winter and how to prepare
As residents in Western Pennsylvania finish hanging their holiday lights, electric companies warn that an estimated 1.3 million customers will be hit with higher bills and should prepare accordingly. This week, the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission announced forthcoming adjustments to energy supply rates for all state-regulated electric utilities in December. Among...
Eel populations are falling, and new protections were defeated. Japan and the U.S. opposed them
SCARBOROUGH, Maine — Eels are the stuff of nightmares — slimy, snakelike creatures that lay millions of eggs before dying so their offspring can return home to rivers and streams. They’ve existed since the time of the dinosaurs, and some species are more poorly understood than those ancient animals. Yet...
Mall traffic sees boost as shoppers turn out for traditional Black Friday
NEW YORK — Black Friday bargains no longer tempt people to leave Thanksgiving tables for midnight mall runs. Brawls in store aisles over toys and TVs with limited-time discounts are spectacles of holidays past. Online shopping and retailers launching discounts weeks before the turkey feast subdued that kind of fervor....
Here’s what to know about the federal ban threatening the market for THC-infused drinks and snacks
MINNEAPOLIS — The production lines at Indeed Brewing moved quickly, the cans filling not with beer, but with THC-infused seltzer. The product, which features the compound that gets cannabis users high, has been a lifeline at Indeed and other craft breweries as alcohol sales have fallen in recent years. But...
Fleet of UPS planes grounded after deadly crash expected to miss peak delivery season
A fleet of planes that UPS grounded after a deadly crash isn’t expected to be back in service during the peak holiday season due to inspections and possible repairs, the company said Wednesday in an internal memo. The airline expects it will be several months before its McDonnell Douglas MD-11...
